The Updated Bug Reporting Tool

[Kehleyr]

Those of you who have submitted bugs from in-game may notice the Bug Reporting Form looks a little different with Update 11. This new form sends your bugs to a more robust database that will allow us to process and review reported bugs more efficiently and help us serve our customers more reliably.

A couple things about the form:

• It's going to ask for your Full Name. Obviously, this is not necessary with a bug report. Feel free to enter your forum name in this field, or even nonsense if you prefer. Just please keep it clean.
• You will be required to enter an email address.
  
  • This does not have to be the email address you have registered to the game - it doesn't even need to be a real email address. It just needs something that follows a normal email address format for the form to submit (ie: word@word.com will work).
  • Obviously we would prefer you enter a legitimate email address here in the event we would like to contact you concerning your bug (we assure you this information is not made public, nor would we use it for any other reason), however we appreciate your privacy and understand if you would rather not provide it.
  • If you would like to provide a legitimate email address but have no desire to receive email confirmations as part of your bug submissions, simply assure the box at the bottom of the form labeled 'Email Notifications' is not checked (it is checked by default).

Currently both of these fields will need to be filled in every time you bring up the Submit a Bug Form. We understand this is an annoying hassle, and are looking into keeping these fields populated through log-in (they will clear every time you log out of the game, but we at least hope to get it to the point where it will maintain this information throughout each gaming session).

How to Submit Bugs

From In-game

NOTE: This tool does not work properly with MacOS for in-game reporting. For a cleaner experience we encourage you to use the Forum Reporting method described below.
There are two ways to access the same form

• Type /bug in your Chat Box
  
• Then click Report A Bug

or

• Hit ESC
  
• Click Help
  
• Click Report A Bug

You will not have the opportunity to submit a screenshot or other attachment with your bug from in-game.

However, if you leave the 'Email Notification' box checked, you will receive an email notifying you that your bug was submitted successfully.

You can reply to this email, without changing the subject line, and provide more information, including attachments, about your bug. When you submit this email it will update the existing bug in our database with this new information.

From Out-of-game

Bugs can still be reported from outside the game by using the following link:

lotrobugs.turbine.com
or
Click the Submit a Bug button at the top of the forum page

• You can attach one screenshot or other file with your bug if you use this form.
  
• You will still receive email notifications, and therefore the ability to submit more information, if you choose to.

Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns with reporting bugs, and we will do our best to answer them.

Please keep all questions and comments in this thread relevant to the process of reporting bugs.

Please do not 'report' bugs on the forums by starting a thread or making a post in this thread. Bugs reported in this manner will not be submitted to our database and will take significantly longer for us to learn about and therefore address.

------------------------------------------------

Submitted bugs are an extremely important tool for QA. The bug database is reviewed regularly, and bugs are submitted from QA to the Development team on a daily basis.

Please provide all information asked for in each field

Most of your character information will auto-fill if you use the in-game methods. Please fill in all the fields that do not.

Please provide your forum name as part of your bug. You may use the 'Full Name' field on the bug form to do this. Sometimes we need to contact you for further information and Private Messaging is our best way of doing this.

Summary

Please provide a short but clear description of your bug. Any details should be entered in the next field.

Description & Steps to Reproduce:

What we are looking for here is any kind of information that may help QA research and recreate the bug. If there are details, particularly with boss fights or instance runs, that you think may have contributed to the bug occurring, please include them with the bug.

We are not looking for you to reproduce the bug yourself or tell us how to fix it. That's our job, after all!

Location: Please try to report your bug from the location where it is happening

We cannot emphasize enough how important the accuracy of this information is for us. If you cannot report the bug immediately, please type /loc in your chat box. You can then scroll back in your chat log at a safer time and copy/paste this information in the details of your bug.

Please do not use the command ;loc - this returns information we cannot use. Please use /loc and provide the entire string of gibberish.

Screen Shots FTW!

You know the old adage 'A picture is worth a thousand words'? Well, it's true. If you are having a graphics issue of any sort, you're reporting a landseam or clipping of cosmetic items, a floating object or an unreachable craft node - nearly anything you find yourself trying to describe the appearance of - please please please include a screenshot. Often our developers can just look at an issue and can determine the cause.

NOTE: If you are reporting a bug about the Interface not behaving properly, please assure you are using the default UI and have no alternate skins applied.

[Wabeccolicious]

One thing I've noticed over the years is that players generally don't take initiative to report bugs, unfortunate for you, I know.

Maybe in the future, and this is a suggestion, there could be indications to submit-a-bug tool/system, when for example: an error pops in game or what not.

[q945]

When players (repeatedly) report bugs and they don't get fixed, and Turbine doesn't even acknowledge the bug exists by maintaining a full 'known issues' list, then they tend to get discouraged and stop reporting.

I seriously think that Turbine needs to invest in a proper way to let players know about all current bugs (excluding the exploits of course).

[djheydt]

Delightful that we can now attach screenshots again, as of old. I reported a minor graphics bug last night, and had to describe it verbally.

[Theseas]

One think i hate the most the update 11 because it stucked at the servers and i cant get in
what i am suppose to do when it is stuckin in the server? Before the update was working fine and now not???

[Darlgon]

Sorry Kehleyr.

Thumbs down on the new bug reporting tool. First time I used it, for three bugs today. Was told in each that I put in a ticket and needed to do a /bug, which is EXACTLY how I pulled it up. (Went back and yeah, there is the last, fourth button for submit bug reports. Not exactly intuitive. I always thought a bug report generated a ticket.)

Please consider a way to connect the databases, so instead of being told to re-report the bug, if the person creates a ticket, the person responding, instead of saying, "We cant do jack about this, use /bug." can instead say, "Sending up a level of customer support to the QA team. Thanks for your help."

[Werituk1]

When players (repeatedly) report bugs and they don't get fixed, and Turbine doesn't even acknowledge the bug exists by maintaining a full 'known issues' list, then they tend to get discouraged and stop reporting.

I seriously think that Turbine needs to invest in a proper way to let players know about all current bugs (excluding the exploits of course).

Agreed. The servers are currently down for a hotfix to an important quest that was bug reported in beta. The bug was not fixed and did not even make the known issues list. So why have beta? I waited (along with many others) for 85 minutes in 'live' for a GM fix and now another 3 hours downtime ... because of an avoidable problem.

[Buchson]

I have a problem since last update. The game updates but later dont start.
Try to reinstall and format the pc but now the problem is i cant download the game from server by pando errors.
I contact with pando, they send me the safe download link but still without downloading the game.

some link to report?
Thanks.

[Valamar]

It is not possible to attach an image to an in-game bug report.

You should update your post accordingly.

[Kehleyr]

It is not possible to attach an image to an in-game bug report.

You should update your post accordingly.

I believe you misread the OP. It states you cannot apply an attachment to the bug form when submitting from in-game, however you can supply attachments to the Confirmation Email you receive.

[Darlgon]

Agreed. The servers are currently down for a hotfix to an important quest that was bug reported in beta. The bug was not fixed and did not even make the known issues list. So why have beta? I waited (along with many others) for 85 minutes in 'live' for a GM fix and now another 3 hours downtime ... because of an avoidable problem.

I am disheartened also in whatever Turbine is doing for bug reports. I was at the Dunfast Refugeee campfire in the quest line yesterday and generated 10 in an hour. Some of it was.. lore stuff, like a girl sitting in front of a campfire complaining about the other refugees not letting her make a fire to stay warm. Those, while annoying, are at least within a limit for me.

However, three of the reports were because NPCs told me stuff like " We were running but <NPC TBD> wanted to stay and fight" I fail to see how a player never reported those, much less a Dev or QA guy walked thru the landscape quests and did not get those. NPC not named and to be determined should never make it INTO beta, much less OUT of beta and into live. Those names should be on a storyboard before the lore guys make a quest or coders even get to typing.

Makes me very sad that bugs are taken so lightly. Also makes me wonder what the 8K bugs that were fixed last year were.

(Further comments removed due to being past what K wanted in this thread.)

[Werituk1]

I believe you misread the OP. It states you cannot apply an attachment to the bug form when submitting from in-game, however you can supply attachments to the Confirmation Email you receive.

Why is that a good solution? If I have taken the time to stop and take a pic & report a bug, why wait a few days to send the pic? I really do not want to label and file the pic while waiting for an email that usually does not arrive.

To put that in context I no longer receive Confirmation Emails when purchasing Turbine Points (and no, they are not being filtered by my email provider).

[Kehleyr]

Why is that a good solution?

The solution works around the limitations of the Awesomium browser that is used in game, which is why we lost the ability to attach screenshots from the in game bug reports.

We agree it is not ideal, but it is a compromise.

[Khazneh1]

My problem is that I report quite a few bugs and the emails don't tell me which bug each refers to, so I still can't follow it up with further info.

[Kehleyr]

My problem is that I report quite a few bugs and the emails don't tell me which bug each refers to, so I still can't follow it up with further info.

I agree, that is quite frustrating! We have a request in to the developer to add the bug summary to the emails.

[djheydt]

I believe you misread the OP. It states you cannot apply an attachment to the bug form when submitting from in-game, however you can supply attachments to the Confirmation Email you receive.

A confirmation email for a bug report??

Does one receive that in in-game mail, forums mail, or whatever edress we have that Turbine knows about (and, for example, sends receipts for Store purchases to)?

I don't think I've ever (since SoA launch) received any kind of mail as the result of a bug report. I can go into Tickets and see what kind of response my report got -- which is usually on the order of "Thank you for submitting, this ticket is now closed" -- but never any kind of mail.

[Khazneh1]

When you use the bug reporting tool you can enter your real life email address, you the receive a real life email confirming your bug submission and giving you a bug reference number so you can follow up with further information, however as I said previously there is no reference to the subject of your bug so if you have submitted a number of bugs in a gaming session you can't tell which bug reference number refers to which bug report. Also if you find out further information some days later you may not remember which day you submitted the bug report and so won't be able to find the particular confirmation email amongst all the ones submitted on different days. The best I've been able to do is say in a subsequent bug report that I reported such and such previously ... However I am sure the QA guys won't be able to tie the reports together.
You obviously don't receive any subsequent followup on the status of your bug report, that would be a massive admin overhead for Turbine, not to mention complex to do. The exception to this is if QA or Dev want to qualify some information, which does sometimes happen.

[Kehleyr]

However I am sure the QA guys won't be able to tie the reports together.

As long as you don't change the subject line on the email the system automatically links your email to the existing bug.

[Kehleyr]

A confirmation email for a bug report??

Does one receive that in in-game mail, forums mail, or whatever edress we have that Turbine knows about (and, for example, sends receipts for Store purchases to)?

The current system sends an email confirmation to whatever email address you enter at the beginning of the bug report.

This system is only in place in-game. If you don't use the in-game bug reporting tool and only report your bugs via the forum, this feature is not yet available. It will become available when we deploy the web update later this month.

I don't think I've ever (since SoA launch) received any kind of mail as the result of a bug report. I can go into Tickets and see what kind of response my report got -- which is usually on the order of "Thank you for submitting, this ticket is now closed" -- but never any kind of mail.

When the game first launched email confirmations were sent with every bug report. This feature went away shortly after the forum revamp with F2P.

There was a period of time where certain ISPs were not being handled correctly by the email server and folks weren't getting emails at all, but that was definitely not the norm.

In any case, this thread isn't about any of that. Email confirmations are now again part of the in-game bug reporting, and soon will be part of the forum bug reporting.

[Khazneh1]

As long as you don't change the subject line on the email the system automatically links your email to the existing bug.

I'd expect that if it was a reply to the email, but the context of my statement was if I submitted another bug report and just said in the text that I submitted a previous report about .... In which case I doubt that the two bug reports would be married up.

[PerfectApproach]

I'd expect that if it was a reply to the email, but the context of my statement was if I submitted another bug report and just said in the text that I submitted a previous report about .... In which case I doubt that the two bug reports would be married up.

In any ticketing system that I've ever seen, end-users cannot link 2 separate tickets, even if they are the same problem, unless they have access to the actual ticketing system. It's probably not impossible, but it's more time consuming to unlink tickets when the end-users are wrong than it is to link/re-open related tickets.

[SabrielofLorien]

The current system sends an email confirmation to whatever email address you enter at the beginning of the bug report.

This system is only in place in-game. If you don't use the in-game bug reporting tool and only report your bugs via the forum, this feature is not yet available. It will become available when we deploy the web update later this month.



When the game first launched email confirmations were sent with every bug report. This feature went away shortly after the forum revamp with F2P.

There was a period of time where certain ISPs were not being handled correctly by the email server and folks weren't getting emails at all, but that was definitely not the norm.

In any case, this thread isn't about any of that. Email confirmations are now again part of the in-game bug reporting, and soon will be part of the forum bug reporting.

My problem with the email notification is that it is a Mandatory Field. I, personally, do not care to receive email notices about bugs submitted and would just like to get to the reporting part. However, as the field is currently mandatory I have to switch to the forum version.

Please remove the mandatory requirement for the field. If you cannot remove it from the in-game version I'll be happy to report stuff on the forum version.

If you make both versions mandatory you will be receiving a lot fewer reports from me, not that it matters very much. I get enough spam in my mail boxes already.

[Kehleyr]

My problem with the email notification is that it is a Mandatory Field.

The mandatory property of this field cannot be changed. This is a database requirement from the developer.

However, you do not have to receive notifications if you do not want them. Simply uncheck the box at the bottom of the bug submission form labeled 'Email Notifications'. You should not receive any emails if you take this action.

[Wilkens]

My problem with the email notification is that it is a Mandatory Field. I, personally, do not care to receive email notices about bugs submitted and would just like to get to the reporting part. However, as the field is currently mandatory I have to switch to the forum version.

Please remove the mandatory requirement for the field. If you cannot remove it from the in-game version I'll be happy to report stuff on the forum version.

If you make both versions mandatory you will be receiving a lot fewer reports from me, not that it matters very much. I get enough spam in my mail boxes already.

You realize nothing requires it to actually be your e-mail right? You could literally enter "null@nowhere.com" as your e-mail address and the system woudl accept it. The form requires SOMETHING to be in the field it doesn't required that it be VALID.

[Raven-EU]

There was a period of time where certain ISPs were not being handled correctly by the email server and folks weren't getting emails at all, but that was definitely not the norm.

I've seen Turbine's mail servers failing to comply with the RFCs regarding SPF records (Sender Permited From). I've reported it two or three times already but nothing has changed. A SPF filter is in its right to throw away mails if the SPF records are erroneous as this would be an avenue for spammers to by-pass SPF.

Note 1: I'm unsure if this affects all mails from Turbine or just the bulk mails (store stuff etc).

Note 2: I've not checked recently if this has been fixed.

P.s: It's nearly impossible to find an avenue to report these kinds of issues. There are all kinds of "account", "payment" and "game-play" options to choose from but no "your internet services are mis-behaving". I ended up badgering the OCR people into forwarding it to the correct people. I had a similar issue when I tried to tell Twitter that their mail-servers were blacklisted; there was simply no way to send in that kind of information.