Comments

• madbilly

  Super User  /  January 2019 edited January 2019

  This is a nice idea but very awkward for a commercial company to implement. For beta labs, I agree with you that it could be useful to have this, but not for the normal releases.

  
  

  You're basically asking for them to open up their internal issues tracking system to accept requests from the public. What would happen is that instead of everyone posting here on the forum, they would immediately log a bug, which would mean a huge amount more work for HMD and not really much better experience for the community. HMD would be overloaded with people raising bugs saying "where's my pie" and other pointless questions. In face it would be worse, as we would have less interaction here on the community forum.

  
  

  Do HMD use the Freshdesk system to interact with users about tickets which they've raised via support chat or email. That could be an acceptable method, but not a fully open bug tracking system like JIRA or Bugzilla.

  
  

  For HMD apps, there's already the Google Play reviews section which can also be used for this purpose, but I don't know if HMD do this.
  

  
  

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• user389

  ✭✭✭✭  /  January 2019 edited January 2019

  We also need to consider who we are.
  

  I'm one of only two people among family and friends to be active in a computer or phone user community. Everybody else go to the shop and complain in case of major issues and learn to live with minor issues. They replace the hardware with another brand next time if they are unhappy or miss a particular feature.

  It would be useful for me to have semi-official feedback on known issues that are debated in the forum. The 'go fish' boilerplate replies the official support is allowed to provide are not useful for a techie like me. Proper feedback has to come from a person who knows what's actually going on, not from management or marketing. Even if everything and everybody are outsourced I hope there's still such a person somewhere!
  Whether the management or marketing people are willing to let that person post in a public forum is another story. It would be refreshing and revive more of the traditional Nokia legacy.
  

  --
  Hans
  

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• june thomas Boongaling

  ✭✭  /  January 2019

  I don't think it's a good idea for official released os build. Just like what @madbilly.
  
  But it's really a good idea, tho.

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• DibyaXP

  ✭✭✭  /  February 2019

  Let some of us who do android devlopement to get along with hmd deve

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• singhnsk

  Super User  /  April 2019

  Well @madbilly, wasn't that conclusion a bit too straightforward? Because let's get it, even Google does have a bug tracker, Mozilla has it, does it badly get spammed? No. Because the nature of the request there is regarding bugs and not about feature requests. If something is broken, go open an issue, somebody will check. Plus if I remember correctly, the old Nokia did have a bug report system in place. It was live at developer.nokia.com/bugs
  

  A bug tracker, a dedicated search functionality and strict warnings about how to report a bug would do the work. Then 1 moderator can easily qualify or disqualify the reported bugs and then leave them for somebody informed to take some action. I believe no normal person would go through all the steps such as explaining the bug, devices affected and how to reproduce it along with technical information (logs) to report a bug. They would still speak a few words at Nokia community. But users with technical information can really help in explaining bugs properly.
  

  Also, we are still in dark as to how the bugs are collected from the community and how they are managed internally. A brief demo by some employees can give us better information about what happens and maybe build up some confidence. It's still harder to collect specific information from all the several topics in the community. Which kinda scatters the information especially because there's no suggestion functionality while creating a new discussion. For example, I honestly was about to create this topic, but then I decided to do some searching and I arrived here.
  

  
  

  I still feel that a system should be here where we should be allowed to post bugs. If not for entire public, the top contributors at the forum should have some level of access to report something and confirm that somebody is informed. Without such a thing, I don't think there's any way to perfect a software. You need to collect public opinion properly. For example, currently there's no way to submit debug info/logs for somebody with technical understanding to inspect and take note. That would make it far more difficult to track a bug and figure out what went wrong. I'll really appreciate HMD taking some steps into doing something like this.

  If they are properly collected and forwarded, I'm sure it won't take more than 2 software release to fix pretty much everything that's broken (unless the updates break new things).
  

  
  

  If a dedicated section is too much to ask, then something like OnePlus's feedback section would make sense too. You can submit quite a lot of information except just a title and some body. They have a tabular format to include details such as software verison, build, carrier, other revisions etc. Other users who also face such issue arrive there via searches and upvote it or add comments with more details or a "me too". Then they have dedicated staff "OnePlus bug hunters" who check these threads, confirm if such an issue exists and its severity and pass it to the development team. Then he drops a note that it is currently under evaluation. Nokia might be doing this here, but since we aren't communicated, we don't know. It's not bad to learn the good things from others.
  

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• Muser

  ✭✭✭  /  April 2019

  A bug tracker is desperately needed, I've sent bug reports to HMD through email and made posts on this forum over the years about them as well. I've never received a response from HMD and I don't think any of the issues were fixed either.
  
  HMD is too much of a black box right now, a tracker would at least give more transparency to the process and allow technical/white hat users to give back in a bigger way. As @singhnsk mentioned, Nokia had this and even a bug bounty program back in the day.

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• madbilly

  Super User  /  April 2019

  @singhnsk Google and Mozilla both run open source software projects (one more open than the other) and their bug trackers are for these pieces of software which they are the prime developer for. HMD and its suppliers are not the prime developer for an open-source software which is in the phones, are they?

  
  

  Anyway, that doesn't mean I don't think a bug tracker is a good idea, I just think it will be difficult for HMD to do. I did set up an unofficial issue tracker on GitHub but didn't make it public because I realised I didn't have the time to manage it. Before my lucky trip to Barcelona I tried to gather from the forums what all the problems with the phones were, but I couldn't do it by myself as everything was spread around. I asked for help from several people and even together we couldn't cover every model. Personally, I would have found a bug tracker very helpful, because then I wouldn't have had to send those emails, I could have just pointed to the bug tracker... and since we would know the bug tracker existed we would know that HMD already knew about all the bugs! Ta-da!
  

  
  

  Your overall suggestion about how to implement it is a good one; it builds on what @DibyaXP suggested in his OP. Both of you suggest that this could be an example of higher privileges that some forum users get, perhaps with higher rank or a request basis - maybe @HMD_Laura can tell us if this is possible with the Vanilla forum software? In fact I'm sure it is, it's already done for the Beta labs forums I think. In fact, I would love it if this Tech Talk forum was partially restricted (or better moderated), because at present it's just full of phone-specific questions which should be in the individual phone subforums.
  

  
  

  Who should get those privileges? Well, the reputation system is a reasonable way to do this. It could also be granted upon request, giving HMD another layer of control about who has access. In Barcelona @maria.03 told me that they she has experience from her previous job in another company of how working closely with "super users" can be very beneficial, and I think that HMD are considering how to do this.
  

  
  

  As I said before Freshdesk has ticket and tracking functionality and HMD are still using Freshdesk for customer support, so it could be opened up to provide the functionality you suggest. I agree that submission of logs and a proper bug reporting template is essential if a bug tracker is actually going to be useful. Maybe @arttuaa knows if these things are possible in Freshdesk and can tell us?
  

  
  

  You're right that it's very difficult for us to gather information about what problems are experienced for each phone or even common pieces of software because the forum doesn't constrain people to post in the specific phone subforums. Bringing back the thread suggestion function which the Freshdesk forums had would be a great improvement for this - has this actually been reported in the website feedback subforum? HMD do gather info from the forums, in fact I was told by @edo that @megan does this on a daily basis (or maybe weekly, that bit wasn't clear), maybe Megan can tell us how she does it?

  
  

  @user389 At MWC I tried but it was very difficult to find out who the "person who knows what's actually going on" from a technical side of things actually is! I fully agree that we need feedback on some of the long-running bug threads that we have for the various phone models. I explained this several times to people from HMD, and I hoped that we would get somewhere, but we didn't (yet?). All it would take is one post from someone in each of the long-running threads and we could get some confirmation/clarity on things (e.g. the Nokia 8 compass bug), I really don't understand why this is so difficult for them.

  
  

  As we repeatedly say, all we want is a little bit of explicit response here in the forums to the issues we raise. Juho replying to high-profile reviewers on Twitter that things will be fixed but then all of us who are trying to help HMD here on the forum feeling like we're being ignored does not build a community, it breaks it. I don't know how much @tim.m reads the forums but there's a lot of important points being raised in this thread that I hope he can consider.

  
  

  Cheers
  

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• singhnsk

  Super User  /  April 2019

  Thank you @madbilly. I see that you're trying for all of us, good job indeed! It's not that the open-source software companies alone can have a bug tracker which is accessible to the users. A tracker is a tracker and can be of use to any company dealing with software. They can ask that Taiwanese team to check here maybe 😅 BTW yeah maybe they'll need to profile users if such a section exists, because there are some very knowledgeable users who post lesser, but can be a gem.
  

  I forgot how beta labs collected bug feedback. Or I never checked it. I'll look into it with opened eyes eyes this time 😛

  
  

  I hope some of the tagged users/employees turn up and tell us something we didn't already know Cummo guys, talk to us. We aren't bad people over here. We are the supporters, we wanna see you do better, we wanna see you grow! 😊

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• DibyaXP

  ✭✭✭  /  April 2019 edited April 2019

  @madbilly I have fixed compass of Nokia 8 in my custom ROM ,
    I have fixed Dolby bug of Nokia 6 even , 
  Bugs were not something too complex to fix, it looks like software developers are too care less!
  @juho may look at this thread

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• user389

  ✭✭✭✭  /  April 2019 edited April 2019

  @madbilly ,
  Thanks for persisting, I'm sorry that I can't find the time and energy to participate more, even as a pensioner!

  @DibyaXP ,
  I'm curious, did you check the Nokia 8 custom ROM with both a compass app and for ARCore compatibility?
  What is the root cause for the upside-down compass in Nokia 8?

  - I suspect a math error in the firmware, maybe a square root calculation on a negative value, or doing the math right, and an error when mirroring and rotating the coordinates.

  --
  Hans
  

  1
• madbilly

  Super User  /  April 2019

  @DibyaXP yes please share more info about how you fixed the compass bug. And what was the problem for Dolby Atmos in the Nokia 6?

  
  

  @user389 no problem, I look forward to the days when I'm a busy pensioner!  

  
  

  It's clear that there is a large group of people on the forum who would are trying to help people, to bring issues to the attention of HMD, and improve the customer experience for Nokia phones. Unfortunately, again and again we don't get any feedback form HMD on big issues. And recently the head of customer experience left and has not been replaced yet... will we see improvements when they return or was that person never actually involved in this forum because the forum's main purpose is to reduce HMD's support costs?
  

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• DibyaXP

  ✭✭✭  /  April 2019 edited April 2019

  madbilly said:

  @DibyaXP yes please share more info about how you fixed the compass bug. And what was the problem for Dolby Atmos in the Nokia 6?

  
  

  @user389 no problem, I look forward to the days when I'm a busy pensioner!  

  
  

  It's clear that there is a large group of people on the forum who would are trying to help people, to bring issues to the attention of HMD, and improve the customer experience for Nokia phones. Unfortunately, again and again we don't get any feedback form HMD on big issues. And recently the head of customer experience left and has not been replaced yet... will we see improvements when they return or was that person never actually involved in this forum because the forum's main purpose is to reduce HMD's support costs?
  

  Let first come to Nokia 8 , bugs exitse inside kernel mode driver so I compared both Oreo and pie Kernel source for the bug and reverted few lines of code . It didnt started to work . I updated the kernel with latest CAF 4.9 Kernel and ported all changes made by hmd in Oreo 8.1 for all hardware then I built Kernel and flashed it with twrp recovery.
  
  As for Nokia 6 , severe stupidity is done in TFA9891UK driver so it started to produce weird noise. I set gain to -3db and reduced 910Hz frequency to around -12db , again it got fixed .
  Unfortunately Dolby isn't open-source so i can't fix surround sound issues. AtkeaAt speaker hiss is fixed
  
  

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• madbilly

  Super User  /  April 2019

  Great work @DibyaXP! @tim.m get this man a job in your software team!
  

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• DibyaXP

  ✭✭✭  /  April 2019 edited April 2019

  madbilly said:

  Great work @DibyaXP! @tim.m get this man a job in your software team!
  

  It is illigal to hire somebody under 18 , let me get my engineering degree , I wil love to work with hmd .
  Till then I may work as a advisor for them!
  
  

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• madbilly

  Super User  /  April 2019

  @tim.m be patient! Let him finish his degree first!

  
  

  @DibyaXP You're doing some good hacking considering you've not done degree level studies of software engineering, nice work  

  
  

  I think that in Finland, and certainly the UK, it's not illegal to hire someone under 18, but I recommend you get your degree and enjoy university.
  

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• madbilly

  Super User  /  April 2019

  Hi all,

  I did some searching around to gather examples of community "bugg" (sic) trackers!

  
  

  Here's the best I found, I like it because it's a nice interface and the flow is clear (note though that it is new, it will probably evolve as it gets tested): https://issues.frontierstore.net/

  
  

  Here's a great explanation from Oneplus about why they think a dedicated bug tracker is more useful than spreading it around forums, social media and customer support: https://forums.oneplus.com/threads/official-bug-reporting-platform.474817/

  
  

  But their bug tracker itself is actually disappointing, it's just an evolution of a forum instead of a dedicated process flow: https://forums.oneplus.com/feedback

  
  

  Here are some which are more focussed on the software development community than general consumers:

  • https://issuetracker.unity3d.com/ - nice interface
  • https://issuetracker.google.com/ - not so nice interface, very obviously for technical users who are deep into the AOSP and other Google open source products
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ - the daddy of all of them, if this doesn't have a feature you're looking for then it's probably not needed; however the interface would overwhelm most non-technical people, so a "customer facing" frontend would be needed

  Other "off the shelf" options:

  • https://open.vanillaforums.com/addon/584-issue-tracker - A plug in for the software this forum uses
  • https://freshdesk.com/helpdesk-management/ticketing-system - Freshdesk, which HMD already uses internally and was used for the old forums software, this may be the most efficient method of getting a good community bug tracking tool
  • https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira - Jira is one of the most well known issue trackers and workflow managers in business

  What do you think? Instead of reinventing the wheel we should use what is already available.

  
  

  Or if HMD won't implement the bug tracker then we could do it ourselves on Github, Gitlab, etc.

  
  

  Cheers
  

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• DibyaXP

  ✭✭✭  /  April 2019

  @HMD_Laura please kindly can you ask in your next meeting to provide a bug tracker

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• Argho Sarkar

  ✭✭✭✭  /  April 2019

  @madbilly @singhnsk you guys are truly amazing. You guys do alot of research on topics and help everyone the best possible way. I am really amazed how detailed your informations are. I was going through the community and I see you both helping everyone. Wow 
  

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• singhnsk

  Super User  /  April 2019

  Nice work @madbilly. And there OnePlus nicely tells us why they needed such a place and that is exactly we have been whining about in this thread - feedback gets scattered and is hard to look at, reproduce and fix. Maybe they don't have one of the most robust platform, but that's a place they can go look at when they want to do some bug hunting rather than carrying a net and visiting each and every post - which I think is more or less impossible. You'll always miss something.
  

  A plugin for Vanilla would probably be the easiest to get started. Shared usernames, shared profile, easier for the users and also easier for the company. They will however, need to do some work as this plugin developed in 2010 will need a lot of modification to reach a polished state for use in 2019. Also, as I probably previously said, since they don't own/run this forum service themselves, it probably won't make sense for HMD to have it developed. They'll have to rely on Vanilla to do this for them. And so far, I don't think vanilla has done a commendable joy around the forums. The basic bugs such as the ones in the WYSIWYG editor **** me. What's the point of WYSIWYG if my bold words won't show up for me while I'm drafting?  

  I would still settle for something instead of nothing. That said, we need not just a bug tracker, but also people willing to take information from it and work on the issues reported. If nothing is acted upon, then it will probably be a more shameful place for the company.
  

  
  

  @Argho Sarkar Thank you for valuing the contribution. Its a joy to be involved in the things, discuss and also help others. That's why I always wish Nokia/HMD employees were here to discuss more and craft better products rather than deciding everything in their offices.
  

  Madbilly is doing great since infinity, I ain't so active too. I would show up this week and not the next one. He's one consistent person and a community gem 😁
  

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• Argho Sarkar

  ✭✭✭✭  /  April 2019

  singhnsk said:. 

  
  

  @Argho Sarkar Thank you for valuing the contribution. Its a joy to be involved in the things, discuss and also help others. That's why I always wish Nokia/HMD employees were here to discuss more and craft better products rather than deciding everything in their offices.
  

  Madbilly is doing great since infinity, I ain't so active too. I would show up this week and not the next one. He's one consistent person and a community gem 😁
  

  @madbilly he is one of the most awesome 😎😎 community members and surely he is our community gem. He is so much helpful with detailed information.
  
  But @singhnsk same goes for you too whether you are that much active or not but your helping nature ✌️✌️✌️✌️

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• madbilly

  Super User  /  April 2019

  Hi all,

  I think a bunch of posts have been removed from the thread haven't they?
  

  Off-topic: Thanks for all the kind words,  @Argho Sarkar and others I think it means I spend too long on the forums! I need to try and limit my time here. Anyway, not everyone agrees with the nice things you've written, and my reasons for being here are not self-less or saintly, I want to improve my experience with my Nokia phone, so I can understand it if anyone who disagreed asked for the posts you all wrote to be removed.

  @singhnsk deserves more credit, his posts are better quality than mine even if if he doesn't post as often

  Back on topic:
  

  I didn't notice that the Vanilla plug-in was so old! Updating that may not actually be a good idea after all.
  

  Freshdesk may be a better option.

  
  

  Anyway, we have done what I frequently get asked to do at work: bring solutions not problems! We have proposed several solutions to what we perceive to be a problem, now we just need to wait and see...

  
  

  Cheers
  

  1
• NeilPatel

  ✭✭  /  March 11

  hey all

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• NeilPatel

  ✭✭  /  March 11

  Hii

  Here's one more alternative Software for bug tracking

  • Kapture CRM, This software may be the most efficient method of getting a good community bug tracking tool

  Cheers

  0