1page.title=Life of a Bug
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19<div id="qv-wrapper">
20  <div id="qv">
21    <h2>In this document</h2>
22    <ol id="auto-toc">
23    </ol>
24  </div>
25</div>
26<p>The Android Open Source Project maintains a public issue tracker where you
27can report bugs and request features for the core Android software stack.
28(For details on this issue tracker, please see the
29<a href="report-bugs.html">Reporting Bugs</a> page).
30Reporting bugs is great (thank you!), but what happens to a bug report once
31you file it? This page describes the Life of a Bug.</p>
32
33<p>*Please note: the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) issue tracker is
34intended only for bugs and feature requests related to the core Android
35software stack, and is a technical tool for the Open Source community.</p>
36
37<p>This is not a customer support forum.
38You can find support for Nexus devices on
39<a href="http://support.google.com/nexus">Google's Nexus support site</a>.
40Support for other devices is provided by the device manufacturers or by the
41carriers selling those devices.</p>
42
43<p>Support for Google applications is through
44<a href="http://support.google.com/">Google's support site</a>. Support
45for 3rd-party applications is with each application's developer, e.g.
46through the contact information provided on Google Play.</p>
47
48<p>Here's the life of a bug, in a nutshell:</p>
49<ol>
50<li>
51<p>A bug is filed, and has the state "New".</p>
52</li>
53<li>
54<p>An AOSP maintainer periodically reviews and triages bugs. Bugs are
55triaged into one of four "buckets": New, Open, No-Action, or Resolved.</p>
56</li>
57<li>
58<p>Each bucket includes a number of states that provide more detail on the
59fate of the issue.</p>
60</li>
61<li>
62<p>Bugs in the "Resolved" bucket will eventually be included in a future
63release of the Android software.</p>
64</li>
65</ol>
66<h1 id="bucket-details">Bucket Details</h1>
67<p>Here is some additional information on each bucket, what it means, and how
68it's handled.</p>
69<h2 id="new-issues">New Issues</h2>
70<p>New issues include bug reports that are not yet being acted upon. The two
71states are:</p>
72<ul>
73<li>
74<p><em>New:</em>
75    The bug report has not yet been triaged (that is, reviewed by an AOSP maintainer.)</p>
76</li>
77<li>
78<p><em>NeedsInfo:</em>
79    The bug report has insufficient information to act
80upon. The person who reported the bug needs to provide additional detail
81before it can be triaged. If enough time passes and no new information is
82provided, the bug may be closed by default, as one of the No-Action
83states.</p>
84</li>
85</ul>
86<h2 id="open-issues">Open Issues</h2>
87<p>This bucket contains bugs that need action, but which are still
88unresolved, pending a change to the source code.</p>
89<ul>
90<li>
91<p><em>Unassigned:</em>
92    The bug report has been recognized as an adequately
93detailed report of a legitimate issue, but has not yet been assigned to an
94AOSP contributor to be fixed.</p>
95</li>
96<li>
97<p><em>Assigned:</em>
98    Like <em>Unassigned</em>, but the bug has been
99actually assigned to a specific contributor to fix.</p>
100</li>
101</ul>
102<p>Typically, a given bug will start in <em>Unassigned</em>, where it
103will remain until someone intends to resolve it, at which
104point it will enter <em>Assigned</em>. However,
105note that this isn't a guarantee, and it's not uncommon for bugs to go from
106<em>Unassigned</em> to one of the Resolved states.</p>
107<p>In general, if a bug is in one of these Open states, the AOSP team has
108recognized it as a legitimate issue, and a high-quality contribution fixing
109that bug is likely to get accepted. However, it's impossible to guarantee a
110fix in time for any particular release.</p>
111
112<h2 id="no-action-issues">No-Action Issues</h2>
113<p>This bucket contains bugs that have for one reason or another been
114determined to not require any action.</p>
115<ul>
116<li>
117<p><em>Spam:</em>
118    A kind soul sent us some delicious pork products, that we,
119regrettably, do not want.</p>
120</li>
121<li>
122<p><em>Duplicate:</em>
123    There was already an identical report in the issue tracker. Any actual
124action will be reported on that report.</p>
125</li>
126<li>
127<p><em>Unreproducible:</em>
128    An AOSP contributor attempted to reproduce the
129behavior described, and was unable to do so. This sometimes means that the bug
130is legitimate but simply rare or difficult to reproduce, and sometimes means
131that the bug was fixed in a later release.</p>
132</li>
133<li>
134<p><em>Obsolete:</em>
135    Similar to <em>Unreproducible,</em> but with a reasonable certainty
136that the bug did exist in the reported version but was already fixed in
137a later release.</p>
138</li>
139<li>
140<p><em>WorkingAsIntended:</em>
141    An AOSP maintainer has determined that the
142behavior described isn't a bug, but is the intended behavior. This state is
143also commonly referred to as "WAI".</p>
144</li>
145<li>
146<p><em>Declined:</em>
147    This is like <em>WorkingAsIntended</em>, except
148typically used for feature requests instead of bugs. That is, an AOSP
149maintainer has determined that the request is not going to be implemented in
150Android.</p>
151</li>
152<li>
153<p><em>NotEnoughInformation:</em>
154    The report didn't have enough information to be able to take any action.</p>
155</li>
156<li>
157<p><em>UserError:</em>
158    The report was the result of a user making a mistake while using Android,
159e.g. typing a wrong password and therefore not being able to connect to a
160server.</p>
161</li>
162<li>
163<p><em>WrongForum:</em>
164    The report cannot be handled in AOSP, typically because it is related
165to a customized device or to an external application.</p>
166</li>
167<li>
168<p><em>Question:</em>
169    Someone mistook the issue tracker for a help forum.</p>
170</li>
171</ul>
172<h2 id="resolved-issues">Resolved Issues</h2>
173<p>This bucket contains bugs that have had action taken, and are now
174considered resolved.</p>
175<ul>
176<li>
177<p><em>Released:</em>
178    This bug has been fixed, and is included in a formal release.
179When this state is set, we try to also set a
180property indicating which release it was fixed in.</p>
181</li>
182<li>
183<p><em>FutureRelease:</em>
184    This bug has been fixed (or feature implemented) in
185a source tree, but has not yet been included in a formal release.</p>
186</li>
187</ul>
188<h1 id="other-stuff">Other Stuff</h1>
189<p>The states and lifecycle above are how we generally try to track software.
190However, Android contains a lot of software and gets a correspondingly large
191number of bugs. As a result, sometimes bugs don't make it through all the
192states in a formal progression. We do try to keep the system up to date, but
193we tend to do so in periodic "bug sweeps" where we review the database and
194make updates.</p>
195