Does PG Music have track system for user report the bug?
If it does not, then should have one to track all bugs user report and displays the status of the bug.

+1

If you believe you found a bug, report it in the forum. Other forum users will verify the bug, some questions maybe asked to clarify the bug.

Several forum users can pass the bug information to PG Music through the beta forum.

PG Music does not have a public bug tracking system.

Related requests:

https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=509663
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=571752
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=688740
https://www.pgmusic.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=452472

This is not a good way to support the customer Without a public bug tracking system.
How do one know the bug being reported & PG have acknowledged the bug?
How do one know the bug being fixed? -what version, date?

If one finds the bug before report, one can look the bug has been reported or not at the public tracker (save customer time)

Jim’s good answer above describes the present system. While not perfect, it tends to filter out the actual bugs from the situations that are more a question of user understanding and education.

Matt,
I do not agree to this:
"it tends to filter out the actual bugs from the situations that are more a question of user understanding and education."

It is always a hunt for resolution and reliance on particular user's memory of scattered posts & solutions and a will of those mentioned to help. If the bug reporting thread is in place, it would be a simple "bump": "I have same issue". Without starting another thread. If it was reported and not resolved, send poor soul to bump that thread. If it was solved, point to "Resolved" post.

1) It could create a single database for known issues.
2)Fixed or "Resolved" (User error) posts archived to the bottom of the list.
3) could be done with a simple "vote" button. And automated. 2-3 confirmation "votes" of the issue could prioritize it's standing in the list in bold and make devs aware.
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I do not not see a single reason why having bug reporting thread is an issue.

I don't see how any vendor could have a public bug tracking system that wasn't vulnerable to inappropriate entries based on misunderstanding and/or desire, and didn't open them up to a kind of populist terrorism. But I don't really know, are any other vendors doing this? Not talking about open source projects here.

Mark, glass half empty? We are talking about software bugs, not politics.
Here are some random examples of how it is managed by Big Boys:

https://www.native-instruments.com/forum/forums/bug-reports.397/

https://forums.steinberg.net/t/how-to-report-a-bug-in-cubase/76546

https://forums.cockos.com/forumdisplay.php?f=22&order=desc&daysprune=-1&page=16

OK, that's what I was wondering about, point taken.

Except... the Native Instruments link gets you "This forum is closed for good after over 15 years of fun. It’s now only accessible as a read-only archive until further notice." And if you follow the link to their new forums, "Bug Reports" has zero posts!

I didn't go "hunting" just very basic 1 min search.

Though some of those misunderstandings and some of that need for education could perhaps reasonably be considered shortcomings of the software.

I my time as a developer I had actively to encourage our sales and support people to feed information back to us. "I don't care if the customer 'gets it wrong' or just feels it isn't righ ... I'd like to know about it. We may address it, we may not, but if we don't see the message we'll do nothing."

We set up a system deliberately not called a bug/fault report and actively encouraged any feedback they liked. And they did. Most was also sensible and constructive.

One of the things that does is pick up bugs/faults/quirks that the more experienced users never see because "they never do that"; Sometimes there were good ideas that previously wouldn't have come to us. PGM's wishlists help with that.

Actually, later we also had a couple or so meetings each year with the sales and support guys, where we all just talked about the system. Sometimes things came out in those meetings that people thought were "just silly", that were actually useful to know.



You're right that a free-for-all would be a bad idea, but it would be nice to have an opportunity to see what's been recorded, what if anything is being done about it, what version contains any fix, and/or where the workaround and/or misunderstanding/education data can be found.

I do wish I could check somewhere to see the status of the "Mac users can't import ABC notation files" bug. As it is, I just have to try again with each new version.

https://musescore.org/en/project/issues/musescore

Hmmm, I wonder if this could be accomplished without PGM's active, on-going participation? Maybe a standard could be agreed upon for titling user reported bug report posts so a simple search would return only those? And maybe ask PGM to add a pinned post with instructions for titling your post along with instructions or a link for searching? And maybe PGM could grant forum admin permissions to a trusted, long-term beta tester to edit titles to maintain consistency, mark as Open, Verified, Resolved, etc.?

Just some thoughts from a calm, bugs-don't-bug-me-so-much-these-days guy!

JJJ, good thoughts!

"Maybe a standard could be agreed upon for titling user reported bug report posts so a simple search would return only those?"

+1

P.S. "issue" is a popular one.

How can you track the status of bug reports without the participation of those whose job it will be to act on them?

A report comes in. Looks like a bug. At some point PG developers may determine it wasn't really a bug, or that it's a bug already fixed internally and scheduled for release next month, or that it's a bug but it will not be fixed until the next major release. Who's going to update the bug report?

An open bug reports subforum / tracking system would bring, IMO, a lot of benefits over the actual old-fashioned system of hidden beta forums and just a few beta testers, which is clearly not working very well.

Musescore, Reaper, and many, many other modern programs are so solid partly because A LOT of users are beta testing those products, and open bug reports and discussion are encouraged by developers and long time users, offering constant feedback about reported issues.

So, once again, +1

Well, this kinda already happens here when regular forum users reply to folks asking about a bug. You're right that a developer run system would be best but if that isn't possible maybe we can hack something together that would at least cover the more serious issues?

I like the idea of "issue" instead of "bug" since 1) often it is a user issue or 2) it could be a design choice/compromise. It would be unfair to PGM to label these "bugs" and frankly, unnecessary.

Maybe a user-initiated Issue List would grow to become something PGM values and adopts down the road?

Real example:

I reported a Mac problem importing ABC files. I was told by PG staff that it was reproduced and forwarded to development as a bug.

Now, if I see someone else asking about this, I can say, oh that's a known bug and they're working on it. I think I already did, at least once.

But what else can I say? I'm still just waiting, waiting, waiting, and I have no idea what the status is, or if this will even be fixed at all – maybe they're planning to withdraw the feature in the next release. Does anyone outside PG know what's up with that? Probably not.

I'm just saying any kind of bug tracking setup would need some kind of buy-in from PG.

I could make up a database on a website www.biabbugs.com that would be users driven. I have done this before with searchable UserTracks database.
I just lack the enthusiasm these days from too many frustrating years trying to improve BB, RB, BBvst, it has taken it's toll on me.
Other Company's testing and development has been a joy but for some reason PG is a bit of a brick wall with near zero engagement. I hear this also from so many users contacting me.
All we try to do is make it better, that's it. We are not trying to bring it down, attack it, destroy it.
There needs to be a quantum leap and soon. Here we are in January again still fixing things.
HELLO PG, WE LOVE YOU, WE LOVE THE END RESULT OF BIAB, BUT PLEASE, LISTEN. BLESSED IS HE WHO HEARS AND ACTS.

From my point of view I think BiaB is based on very old technology and to keep the customer base happy by trying to upgrade have applied band-aid, upon band-aid upon band-aid. They have had some great ideas like the VST, utility tracks, micro chords (I hate their nomenclature), etc that were poorly executed. Like many other software companies have had to do I think it is time for a complete rewrite.

Note that I am not a PGM hater and in fact virtually all of my songs start in BiaB. It is a good product but a product that I get out of as soon as I have my chord structure down. I would like to do more in BiaB but find it very hard to do so because of the poorly executed add-ons. YMMV

What I saw in a vision is the BBPlugin going ahead in leaps n bounds when it started having the functions natively in the VST rather than calling on the old technology bbw4 (Biab) in the background, this giving it instant Gen/Play without creating up wav files, more than 255 bars, following any tempo decimal map of the DAW, any time signature....
Then I saw it having editable tracks for the RT audio and the RealChart/midi.
This way the C:\bb\BBPlugin\Files\Band-in-a-Box DAW Plugin Standalone.exe developed into a new Biab app that was simple to use, super quick, quicker than Biab, without all the million and one features of the current, this was then released at the same time on Win & Mac because of the cross platform programming language Adar uses.

The current Delphi Biab app is likely to remain how it is for a fair while, BUT look out for the Band-in-a-Box DAW Plugin Standalone.exe !!!