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Welcome to the Thunderbird Bug Day wiki!

With help from the Thunderbird / Mozilla Messaging team, join us to improve the bug reports in Thunderbird's bug database.

Who

You

No coding, (almost*) no experience required, no heartache. Take a break from your boring everyday routine as you contribute to improving Thunderbird's quality and rub elbows with experienced contributors. If this is your first step into our amazing open source community there are people available to assist. The information below will help you get started. * It will help if you have used Thunderbird for 2-3 months.

Anyone can participate and be a valuable contributor.

Why

Bug days are about cleaning up bugs that are already in the bug database. Currently there are lots (LOTS!) of bugs, but some are in a state that makes them hard to fix. Some might not be real bugs, and need confirmation. Some are poorly worded, etc. Bug days are designed to help newcomers join us (experienced people) in cleaning up the database.

Schedule

Multiple staffed sessions allow you to participate during the evening or during daytime at any location in the world. You may attend any or all sessions as they wish. If you can't attend a scheduled session please drop in between sessions - someone might be hanging out who can help you.

Click in a UTC link below to get the session start time for your point on the globe.

Where

You can get help on bug day in IRC channel #bugday. Prior to bug day you can get help on preparing for bug day or ask questions at #QA. (To work on bugs on non-bug days visit #QA or #maildev for assistance.)

• Get an IRC client:
  • Windows clients
  • MacOS clients
  • Linux clients
  • ChatZilla (Firefox extension)
• Connect to irc.mozilla.org
• Join the channel #bugday

How

If at any point you have a question, encounter a problem, or are not familiar with our bug tracking system (bugzilla) post a note in the IRC channel.

You need an easily created bugzilla account.

Consult the current bugday page for suggestions about which bugs to work on.

"Trunk" refers to builds of Thunderbird 3 (currently in heavy development) -- it's where most bugs will get fixed. So trunk is where we normally attempt to reproduce bugs that people have reported. See "versions to test" below for more information.

For UNCONFIRMED bugs, you should attempt to replicate the problem specified in the bug report, and mark as "confirmed" if you are able to replicate and the steps to reproduce are documented and easily followed and the problem exists in trunk build. If you are not running trunk but can replicate the bug with current release, please comment but do not confirm. If you are running trunk and cannot replicate, then it may be a closed dupe, WFM, INVALID, user or issue that his not easily reproduced.

Other helpful steps include:

• Clarify bug reports without distorting or changing the original problem.
• Change the summary to be more accurate to the problem being reported, and if appropriate remove words so summary is less chatty
• Close bug reports as WORKSFORME, INVALID, or INCOMPLETE when it's appropriate to do so (see status descriptions to find out what is appropriate)].
• Ask bug reporter in a bug comment to provide missing information that will help to replicate and ultimately fix the bugs they report.
• Remember to cite what version(s) of Thunderbird you are using.

If you don't have the necessary rights to change to a bug see Bug triage about how to get privileges. Then add a comment to the bug detailing what should be changed and why. You can also make your comments known in the #bugday channel and someone will assist you.

Please check the following for more information about working on bugs:

• Bug triage
• Read Bug Writing Guidelines to learn what is an effective bug report that will lead to bug fixes

Versions to test: If you can, please test with Nightly Trunk Builds. If you are not permitted to use trunk, then use the latest update of Thunderbird version 2 - currently 2.0.0.12. You can install a trunk build or any release of Thunderbird, and not disturb your production setup by a) using custom install to specify a directory of your choosing, and b) using profile manager to create a test profile.

Give us feedback

Please post a note in #bugday or #maildev about your experience with bug day, any overall thoughts about Thunderbird, and to follow up on any questions. We really appreciate your help today and your feedback is very valuable.

Thanks!

Thanks so much for your help. Your efforts help us to improve Thunderbird. We could never do this without you and the entire volunteer community.