Opening up errors.ubuntu.com

[Evan Dandrea]

Happy Friday!


https://errors.ubuntu.com provides us with a detailed view of the most
pressing problems in Ubuntu. At a glance you can see what issues are
going to give the greatest return and get detailed information to fix
them. This helps us increase the stability of Ubuntu and, crucially,
measure our progress.

Up until now, most developers could not see past the front page, where
detailed information about the problems and data on the instances of
these problems live.

Today we have a solution – Developers and QA analysts can now request
access to the error data by filling out this short form:

https://forms.canonical.com/reports/


=== So, what can this thing do for me? ===


By logging in, the front page will switch to a view of the most common
problems in the past day that are relevant to you:

https://errors.ubuntu.com/?user=ev&period=day

You can add additional packages to this list by clicking on "Edit bug
mail" on any Ubuntu source package page, and adding a subscription:

https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+subscriptions

The problem pages provide you with a graph of the rate of occurrences,
the version-by-version and release-by-release breakdown, the Python
traceback or binary stacktrace, and a table of links to the individual
instances of the problem:

https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/f6435fc405ba7b68eae0ea2706a904f50cb77869

Let's say you released a new version of jockey, and want to see there
are any problems in it that did not exist in previous versions. The
API will give you this information (beta):

https://errors.ubuntu.com/api/1.0/package-version-new-buckets/?package=jockey&previous_version=0.9.7-0ubuntu7.7&new_version=0.9.7-0ubuntu7.8&format=json


=== Why all the process? ===


A non-disclosure agreement lets us take legal action on behalf of
Ubuntu users against anyone abusing access to the error reports.
Signing the agreement with your own personal details tells them you
intend to respect the sensitivity of any personal information they
have provided us.

If you are responsible for fixing problems in Ubuntu software, I
encourage you to sign up and explore. We'll do our best to ensure that
you get access quickly, but please feel free to contact me personally
if you have any trouble.


=== Further assistance ===


If you want to help make the Ubuntu Error Tracker better, please visit
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ErrorTracker. If you find a bug, please file
it at https://launchpad.net/errors/+filebug. If you need a hand
getting started, I can also be found on the Freenode IRC network as
'ev' in #ubuntu-devel.

Thanks, and have a great weekend!