Bug Reporting Process - Automating

[Vinnie Terranova]

I've been thinking about bug reports, and especially about the question: could this reporting of bugs somehow made more easy? Let's take a closer look at the Bug Reporting Process and some of the problems you might encounter:

The bug report must include:

- The game.log.txt: as the filesize of this log can be big, it requires an external hosting site.
- A screenshot with the minimap: the filesize of the screenshot can also be big; it therefore also requires an external hosting site, or you have to make the filesize smaller with software like Photoshop.
- Description of the bug: some bugs require a detailed description which can be hard for someone who doesn't have English as native language (this might include SCS devs as well).
- Version of the game, PC operating system incl 32/64 bit: unnecessary, as this info is already stored in game.log.txt.
- Reproducibility of the bug: sometimes this requires that a player must restart the game to check if a particular bug is reproducible.

The bug report should not include:
- Reports where the profile has EVER had mods in it: this is really a problem. It means that if you play with a profile that has now, or has had in the past, a mod, however small and tiny, you actually cannot post a bug report. Instead, you are required to use a vanilla profile, or even create a new one, then reproduce that bug, and then report that bug.

But that's not all: before reporting a bug you should check on the forum if a bug has already been reported before. But with the (advanced) search this is still quite impossible, as a lot of bugs have a very poor title and/or bug description. In practice this is not doable.

So, this bug reporting process is all quite a lot of work. And speaking for myself: I am a gamer in the first place. I am not a beta tester or bug reporter.

But what if this whole bug reporting process could be made much, much more simpler? By automating it somehow? Here are some thoughts:

- With the F10-key, or even Photo Mode (which I never used, btw) we can take a screenshot.
- With the F11-key we can create an entry, including coordinates, within bugs.txt.
- As the game already has started, the game.log.txt has already been created.

So why not automating this whole bug reporting process, as all information is already there? Something like this:

For instance:
1) I see a terrain gap
2) I press F-12 or whatever key
3) Automatically a screenshot is made, and a popup window appears
4) I enter some bug description and press 'SEND BUG REPORT'
5) Automatically a bug report is created in memory, which includes the screenshot that just automatically has been made, the description I just enter, and the contents of game.log.txt which is present already as the game has started.
6) The bug report, including the screenshot and contents of game.log.txt, is sent and published automatically to the right subforum, based on ATS/ETS2 version number.

There are ofcourse some problems, but those problems could be solved:
- As a vanilla profile is required anyway to post a bug report, this automatic bug reporting process should only be possible if no mods are loaded now or have been loaded in the past. If a user tries to post a bug report with a modded profile, he should see a message that reporting of a bug is only possible with a vanilla profile.
- Some bugs may be reported more than once, but this happens already anyway. A possible solution (albeit not 100% perfect) could be, to show a dropdownlist which contains some categories (terrain, cars, trucks, trailers, other vehicles, weather, traffic lights, signs, etc). This dropdownlist should be shown in the popup window, just before you can enter the bug description. When you have selected the right category, the automated bug reporting process should check with the bug subforum and the coordinates in the game, whether this bug has likely been reported already or not.
- What the bug is, is more important then who posted the bug report. So when the bug automatically is posted on the bugs subforum, it's not necessary that the gamer must be logged in the forum; a bug report therefore could be automatically be posted by the game itself as a special login user.

Just some thoughts to make things easier.

[Some newbie driver]

I already discussed a lot of time ago about this same topic, even with one dev. It was a nice talk but one of the thing he said me was they don't want to automatize the process due the flood of bug reports they expect they could receive that are mod related. But as you say, that system could be limited to un-moded profiles (and let the people with mods the forum option for a more detailed analysis to see if it's a mod related problem or not). They could even use the in-game message system so players could receive a notification about the step in which their report is (QA number assigned, in review, fixed, discarded, already known...). IMHO, that easy and direct feedback would encourage more people to help developers. As like you, I think the forum system is too clumsy for the 2020.

Last but not least, bug process has another MAJOR problem that SCS should had been addressed a lot of time ago: the game log you have to made public could include private data you don't want (and aren't aware of) make public. Not to mention why people insist that reporters have to put the logs in pastebin and images in external services (forcing players to put their personal data in third websites SCS can vouch for); when the forum rules allow players to attach those files on a bug report (is the only section where that's allowed, if I recall well).

They need to give some thoughts to that system. They aren't a small company anymore.

Regards

EDITED: FierbetoN is right, that it's not a thing on that subforum.

[FierbetoN]

the game log you have to made public could include private data you don't want (and aren't aware of) make public

Such as? The most private data in there is probably your user name.

Also, I haven't seen anyone insist on using external services in the bugs section

[Some newbie driver]

Such as? The most private data in there is probably your user name.

That's something I will not discuss on open. If they are aware of what I mean they know they should had fix it already. If they are not they can ask me if they wish. Enough to be said that small bits of personal data could be on those logs and it shouldn't; specially considering how strict EU personal data protection laws are. Last SCS wants is to have problems with that.

Also, I haven't seen anyone insist on using external services in the bugs section

Yes, you are right; my brain mixed things. I should had gone sleep way before. It's on other sections of player help that this practice is done. At the end the problem is the same, the logs could contain personal data and workers or other people entitled by SCS encourage to publish it on third-party webpages to get help with their problems; what it just worsen the problem.

Regards

[plykkegaard]

I haven't seen anyone insist on using external services in the bugs section

To a degree, for me it is not possible to attach the PNG images the game creates as they are too large, the upload process fails
I need to compres the image in JPG format and everything is fine

[FierbetoN]

^^That makes sense then, wasn't sure about it.

About personal data in the game logs, as I said, there's nothing in there more "personal" than your specs and a few directories which most likely happen to have the name of your user (you can't really call that personal data). You can check by yourself, you keep saying "could" so I'm pretty sure you didn't.

[Vinnie Terranova]

The Windows username could be your real name, and that is private data which shouldn't be posted without permission of the user himself. But are people who post bug reports aware that the Windows username is stored in the game.log.txt?

Is it necessary that the Windows username has to be in the game.log.txt? At first sight I guessed it does, as the Windows Username might contain foreign characters which might lead to problems as the game might not recognize them. But, if the game doesn't recognize foreign characters, then the game shouldn't be able to start anyway. So in that case an automatic bug report would be impossible. This means that it shouldn't be necessary to store the Windows username in the game.log.txt.

But this should be a really easy fix by SCS as Home directory is just a string that could easily be edited. So, if SCS changes the username part of that string to the string 'username' that problem should be solved.

and let the people with mods the forum option for a more detailed analysis to see if it's a mod related problem or not

This is already possible, as SCS wrote:

Profiles that have mods on them can have undesired results with the game and game updates. This is why it is important to only report bugs from brand new or clean profiles. Even when you remove a mod, they can still leave data in the save file which can lead to undesired results. If you cannot replicate the issue then it was most likely a mod related issue. DO NOT POST THIS IN THE BUG FORUMS! If you need help in these cases please post in the 'Help Center - Player to Player' of 'Technical Help' sections of the appropriate game forum.

Also, I haven't seen anyone insist on using external services in the bugs section

On the Bug Reporting Process page, SCS wrote:

In the event that a file is too large you will need to use an external host, for the game.log or game.crash it is preferred that you use http://pastebin.com/. Open the log or crash file in your preferred text editor and copy and paste ALL the content to pastebin, then post the link in the report. For images please use any image host that allows direct linking so the image is visible using the the [ IMG ] tags.

Although SCS is not insisting (i.e. obliging us) to use external services, they are encouraging it though.

[supersobes]

On the topic of information stored in the game log, where exactly does it keep such information? I searched my game log, and I do not see any personal information. It doesn't even have my Windows username in it.

[xXCARL1992Xx]

because there is none, if you use a Microsoft Account then the user name is made out of the first 5 letters of you e-mail, only if you have a local account you will have the name of said account displayed and this would be the only point*, that isnt even this serious because it is just a name under billions, the Steam path doesnt have any relevant infos in it, only the Documents path with the account name, if the player uses it and didnt set a homedir ofc

* difference for Linux and macOS are possible, dont know how the game is stored there, if the path uses the user name as a folder or not

[supersobes]

For me, it does not show the complete file path. It doesn't say where the game directory is. It puts the word "home" in place of all that information.

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00:04:24.042 : Creating save-game file (/home/profiles/7375706572736F626573/save/autosave/game.sii)