Submitting a Ticket

This is a brief guide for users that wish to contribute by reporting bugs to the Issue Tracker. The process is fairly straightforward, but this page is meant to answer any questions you might have while submitting a new issue.

Step 1: Confirm the bug
Make sure you are using the lastest stable version of phpBB. If not, please update to the lastest version and make sure the bug is still present. If the bug still exists, you may submit a ticket, following the process on this page.

Note that if the issue is something you experienced once and cannot reproduce, or is intermittent and you cannot determine the exact cause, it is unlikely that anyone else will be able to reproduce it. Unreproduceable bugs are not likely to be fixed because it is nearly impossible to know whether or not it has actually been fixed.

Step 2: Search
When you find a bug in the phpBB software, the first thing you should do is perform a search of the tracker to ensure that no ticket already exists for that bug. If you find one, you are welcome to comment on the ticket with a confirmation that you are also able to reproduce the bug. If you have any additional information not already covered by the ticket, we would appreciate if you would provide that in your comment as well.

Step 3: Create a new ticket
If you do not find a ticket that appropriately matches the issue you are facing, you are welcome to click the "Create Issue" button, located in the top right hand corner of the page.

Security Issues
If the issue you are reporting is a security vulnerability, please use the Security Tracker instead of the Issue Tracker.

Logging in
If you are not already logged in, you will need to do so before you can submit a ticket. If you have a phpBB.com Community account, you should use that to login to the tracker. Your area51 login is separate from this. If you do not have a phpBB.com Community account, you should create one. Note that it could take an hour or two to synchronize the login information.

Filling in the form
A new form will appear on top of the page you are currently viewing. The first two drop down boxes, for the project name and issue type, can be left as is for a bug report.

Summary
When filling in the summary, try to be concise while still capturing the main issue of the ticket. Don't forget that you have a large text-area below this in which you can go into as much detail as you like about the issue. The summary acts as a title to give people an idea of what the issue is about before clicking, but it does not necessarily have to cover all aspects of the ticket.

Priority
The priority drop down menu may be confusing for many users. A "blocker" is an issue that must be fixed before the next release may be made. "Major" is for a bug that affects functionality in a big way but which does not necessarily block the next release. "Minor" is something that does not really affect very many people and does not break functionality in a big way. "Trivial" is used for something like a grammatical or spelling error, or a quick and easy fix to a small issue.

Keep in mind that "major" and "minor" can also refer to the amount of work required to fix the bug, as opposed to the actual severity of the issue.

You can look at existing bugs to see examples of what qualifies under each level of severity. If you are unsure about the priority of a bug, it is okay to leave it as is; a development team member will change it if needed. It is better to have a bug report be seen because it is set to major and changed to minor than it is for a bug report to be mistakenly set to trivial and, therefore, not seen for a long time when it is really a significant bug.

Component
This serves the purpose of narrowing down what aspect of the forum is actually affected by the bug. For instance, a bug that makes it impossible to post a reply would be under the "Posting" component. You can select more than one component if applicable. If no component is applicable to the bug, it is okay to leave this blank. You may click the down arrow on the right hand side of the dropdown to view components that can be selected.

Affects and Fix Version(s)
For the "Affects Version" please select the latest stable version of the software in which the bug occurs. As was stated previously, you should confirm that the bug is occuring in the latest stable version before reporting it.

For the "Fix Version", this may be best left blank. A developer will review the ticket and choose the most likely version in which the bug will be fixed.

Description
This is where you get to explain in great detail the bug you are experiencing. The more information, the better. Please provide us with exact steps required to reproduce the bug, keeping in mind the page you are on, the action you are attempting to perform, the related permissions of the user you are logged in as, and the expected and actual outcomes.

Environment
Please provide your PHP version, phpBB version, Server type (apache, lighttpd, etc.) and version, web browser(s) and version, and any other environmental information you deem applicable.

Attachment
This is where you can include a screenshot of the issue occuring, a patch file containing a fix (if you choose to make one and wish not to use GitHub), or any other relevant files.

Step 4: Follow up
Once a patch has been submitted, you are welcome to test it before it is merged and provide feedback on whether or not it adequately solves the issue. If you are pleased with it, please say so. If you are not pleased with it, please let us know what the problem is. Once the patch has been merged, let us know if you are still experiencing a problem.

If a similar or related problem arises after a patch is merged, please create a new ticket and let us know that it was caused by the ticket that was just solved.