Tag Archives: bugs

How to file good bug reports (from Frank Kelly)

This is an issue I run into constantly at my job.



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Never make assumptions about performance



   1: class Picture
   2: {
   3:     Image _image;
   4:     string _path;
   6:     public Image Photo
   7:     {
   8:         get
   9:         {
  11:             {
  12:                 _image = Bitmap.FromFile(_path);
  13:             }
  14:             return _image;
  15:         }
  16:     }
  18: }


What to do?




Measure, measure, measure. And pay attention.

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6 Ways to Increase Your Confidence As You Code




What to do to gain confidence:

1. Consistent process


Why is this important?





  3. All new features have been tested on the staging server
  4. Formal change document has been submitted and approved.
  5. Formal test results documented.
  6. Previous version backed up.
  7. Perform upgrade
  8. Monitor system (including custom automated monitoring tools)


2. Unit Testing






3. Code Coverage


In .Net, use the tools to your advantage.




4. Automation





5. Code Review






6. Repeatable Experiences



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Solving "Unexpected Store Error" in Exchange

Getting a weird COM Exception with the cryptic ID 0x8055001E?



System.Runtime.InteropServices.COMException (0x8055001E): Unexpected
   at ADODB.RecordsetClass.Open(Object Source, Object
ActiveConnection, CursorTypeEnum CursorType, LockTypeEnum LockType,
Int32 Options)
   at MessageService.Exchange.ExchangeClient.Connect(String folderUrl,
String userId, String password, Boolean useHttp)



Searching on Google revealed nothing at all. Until recently.


while (running)


while (running)





I’ve been meaning to write about this software for a while. When I started my current job, all software development was done by an outside contractor. I quickly took over, and that necessitated implementing a lot of tools and procedures to handle our large C++ and C# code base.

Choosing Subversion for source control was easy–free, open source, better than VSS and CVS.

Bug tracking software was a little harder. There are a lot of packages out there. I eventually decided on a great little package called BugTracker.Net. It’s written by a gentleman named Corey Trager who does it in his spare time. It’s a very simple system, and doesn’t provide a lot of the heavy-weight features of more complete packages, but if you’re a small team (like I’m in), then it could be perfect. I really appreciate Corey’s web-site, because he acknowledges that it’s not written with every scenario in mind. In fact, he even publicizes comparisons of his system with other popular tracking systems out there.

That said, there is a good degree of customizability in it, and it really was easy to setup, upgrade, configure, and customize.

Some of the features:

Suitable for tracking helpdesk customer support tickets as well as software bugs.

Sending and receiving emails is integrated with the tracker, so that the email thread about a bug is tracked WITH the bug.

Allows incoming emails to be recorded as bugs. So, for example, an email from your customer could automatically be turned into an bug/ticket in the tracker.

Allows you to attach files and screenshots to bugs. There is even a custom screen capture utility [screenshot] that lets you take a screenshot, annotate it, and post it as a bug with just a few clicks. (inspired by Fogbugz)

Add your own custom fields.

Custom bug lists, filtered and sorted the way you want, with the columns that you want.

You can display bugs of a certain priority and/or status in a different color, so that the most important items grab your attention.

Configure different user roles to see different lists of bugs. For example, a developer might see a list of open bugs. A QA analyst might want to see a list of bugs ready for testing.

(and more…)

Like I said, if you’re a small team that just needs to coordinate on issues, this platform could be perfect.

(BTW, this is not a sponsored post–I just want to point out some software that I like).



How to solve severe driver problems in Windows

A colleague at work recently got a second video card–a bottom of the barrel (or close to it) nVidia MX 4000 (PCI). He had an existing AGP nVidia Vanta. Well…the installation did not go well. It did something to Windows so that it consistently blue-screened during the driver load process (the progress bar moving in the startup splash screen).

Windows would start in safe mode, but removing the non-working drivers for the new card did not work. Removing both drivers did not work. Choosing last-known good configuration got us up and running in Windows (finally), but with only the bare VGA driver. Installing a driver from either CD or nVidia’s site ended in the strange error “Access Denied.”

Then I remembered what I had read in Windows Internals about the location of driver configuration information in the registry.  Driver info is stored with service configuration in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services.

First we removed all hints of nVidia apps and videos drivers using Add/Remove Programs. Then we went into regedit, into the above key and deleted the keys “nv”, “nv4”, and “nvsvc” (I think they were those, but looking on my own machine at home, they’re a bit different, so I’m half-guessing). I’m sure there are similar keys for ATI chips.

In the meantime, we had found an unused AGP version of the MX 4000 just lying around (no joke), and replaced the Vanta with this. We reinstalled the drivers and everything worked great.



Still No Silver Bullet…





Golden Days






Bad Random Functions Redux

I had talked before about the random play function in my car stereo, particularly the playing of Arlington every time I drive past Arlington National Cemetery.

It happened AGAIN. This is the 5th time in a row. I haven’t heard the song, otherwise.

