Updates to Flash Player Public Bug Base
You may have noticed that since September, the public Flash Platform (Flash Player, Flex, etc…) bug base has required a login in order to browse and view bugs. This was not the case when we initially launched the public bug base but after a number of issues (primarily caused by spam), we had to disable viewing bugs without registration.
Starting last night, we are rolling out some new updates and tweaks to the bug base, and will be doing some testing to ensure that the original issues are addressed. As of right now, you can once again browse the Flash Platform bug base without registration (although logging issues or commenting still requires registration). Over the next couple of weeks, you may see some changes in access as we test and ensure everything is working, but the ultimate goal is to allow viewing and browsing of entries without requiring registration.
Very good news. Thank you. :-)
Kevin Newman
10 Feb 10 at 11:41 am
Glad this is finally being fixed…makes no sense to require registration just to view read-only pages.
David R
10 Feb 10 at 11:48 am
Awesome change.
Hopefully we’ll see direct Flash right-click->Bugbase reporting at some point too. :)
John
10 Feb 10 at 12:07 pm
Fixing FP-444 was the first step, so again, thanks for that. Making the bugbase open is next, thank you again.
Now all you guys need to do to shut up all of your critics is to have built into the ‘Flash Player > Right-click > Report Issue to [Acme Co.]‘ Then if the application crashes due to an uncaught exception error (or a custom error), a reporting mechanism built into the player can allow companies to receive issue reports for their application.
And make it very well understood that this is a new best practice for Flash development: don’t build an app (or a banner, or ANYTHING) unless you’ve hooked the uncaught exception error handler to the reporting mechanism. (Include example code on Developer Centre)
The End Result: ADOBE WOULD STOP GETTING ALL THE HEAT FOR BADLY DESIGNED APPS.
Joeflash
10 Feb 10 at 1:09 pm
Great to hear that the bug base is being opened a little bit more. I also wanted to further suggest an automatic crash reporter to be built into all versions of flash player. This idea has been dismissed elsewhere under the claim that it would cause duplicate bugs to be submitted, but I believe this can be used as a huge advantage.
Have the system group duplicate bugs into a single bug, sum the number of occurances and variations on bug duplication. Not only would Adobe gain hard data on the number and types of bugs actually occurring in the wild, you would also gain strong performance feedback as to the quality of builds, the kind of hard data Adobe needs to refute claims of instability.
Food for thought on improving the flash platform.
JTtheGeek
10 Feb 10 at 3:28 pm
Joe, with the new global error handler in 10.1, developer could set up any application to send bugs to the company that makes the application without needing to get user involved.
However, I think it would be great to include a link to bugs.adobe.com/flashplayer from the Flash Player to make more people aware of it as Joe suggested. So I’ve created a feature request for exactly that feature:
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-3889
Matthew Fabb
10 Feb 10 at 9:20 pm
Cool, let’s use these links, then ;-)
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-43
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-1719
https://bugs.adobe.com/jira/browse/FP-901
http://board.flashkit.com/board/showpost.php?p=4198441&postcount=18
Any idea why bugs related to timeline don’t show any sign of progress?
a- because those bugs are not priority (= don’t get many votes?)
b- because we don’t know how to fix
c- because we think it became common knowledge timeline is good for animation only (like animated GIF ;-)) and should not be used extensively with as3 (because it doesn’t work well ;-))
d- because we are overwhelmed by new features and their related bugs
e- other..
gludion
11 Feb 10 at 5:10 am
Along the lines of crash reporting, Matthew Fabb has created feature request FP-3889 “In the right-click context menu include a link to the player’s bug system”.
Inspired by ITtheGeek’s suggestion, I created feature request “Automatic crash reporting built into all versions of the Flash Player” FP-3902
And as an addition to FP-444, “Flash Player API hook to allow for custom automatic exception error reporting” FP-3903
With this “holy trinity” of crash reporting, just let the critics try and bash Flash then! :)
Joeflash
11 Feb 10 at 10:19 pm
Thanks, what I miss now is some help pages on the customizations made on JIRA as I always find it hard to find on which version an issue has been resolved or the changelog to understand if it’s worth to move to a different version of – say – the Flex SDK
magomarcelo
12 Feb 10 at 12:17 pm