NOTA BENE 10
BETA RELEASE
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DEBUGGING NOTES
We are interested in hearing about problems in the NB 10 beta. (We are less interested, at the moment, in hearing reports about unimplemented features, since we are well aware of these already.)
While we will eventually want to hear about any non-trivial problem, our primary interests for the time being are problems that prevent you from working, or where some major feature (even if you don’t rely on it) is discovered to be malfunctioning.
REPRODUCIBLE PROBLEMS
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The issues that are by far the easiest to fix are those that are reproducible.
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If a problem is reproducible, even if it is a total system crash, we might be able to resolve it in as little as 15 minutes; others might take a little longer — an hour or two, with complicated ones maybe taking a day or more, depending on where the issue lies — but still far less than unreproducible bugs.
- Except in rare cases, a bug which is not reproducible — even if we have the log and dump files, as described below — might take many times longer than that. That is true of even the ones which turn out to be very simple — without reproducibility, we could easily spend a few days, or even a week, trying to track down something which might otherwise (if we could repeat the steps, and get the error) take less than half an hour.
Lacking reproducibility, a dump/log file, as described below, is better than nothing. But the more reports we get with reproducible steps, the faster we will be able both fix bugs, and implement the remaining features, thus speeding the release of a version 10 that you can use for all of your work.
We’re very conscious that getting more than a log file takes more of your time — and we know that you have work to do, and don’t have time to play around — but we’d be very grateful if you could take just a little time to send us a fuller report:
The best way to determine if the problem is reproducible is to restart Nota Bene (if it’s a crash, you will have no alternative, but even if it is not a crash, restarting is important) and then try repeating it immediately after you encounter it by going to the same location in the file and performing the same operation. If the problem doesn’t reoccur immediately, it may even be worth trying to reproduce the longer sequence of events that preceded it as well, if you remember these.
If the problem is reproducible:
- Send us the file (this is not necessary if the problem happens on any file), along with detailed instructions that describe what you did to get the problem, to betafiles@notabene.com. (You can either tell us the location in the file, if this is relevant, either by letting us know what text appears at that location, or else by getting the cursor position using Ctrl+Alt+?)
- In addition, it would also be helpful to receive a log and dump file, as explained below — it’s possible that even if you can reproduce the problem, we might not be able to do so (many, if not most, problems at this point depend on specific context and/or configuration settings which may be different in your context than they are in ours), and having the log and dump files would give us a better chance of trying to mimic these or, at least, give us some idea of what the general problem is, even if we cannot.
We know well that trying to reproduce the steps, and then taking the time to write up the report, takes more of your valuable time. But by doing so, both we and the larger Nota Bene community will be in your debt — and you’ll have a program that will work more reliably for you even sooner.
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EPISODIC PROBLEMS
(RUNNING THE DEBUGGER)
If you find yourself encountering more episodic problems, whether crashes, lockups, or intermittent, but non-fatal, errors, please consider always starting the debugger, and then running NB under that, rather than simply starting the latter directly. To do so, use the debugger shortcut that is created with the installation of the beta.
If for some reason no shortcut is created, the “location” parameter when creating your own is:
[Installation folder]\SUPPORT\NBDEBUG.EXE /e run [Installation folder]\nb10.exe
One other note about the debugger: If you start it by itself (without using the shortcut that automatically starts Nota Bene at the same time), it will not capture anything done in Nota Bene unless you also start Nota Bene from within the debugger (choose “Start Nota Bene” from the Debug menu).
Either way, while you will see the debugger window writing data in the background as you start, and while the startup will take a little bit longer, you’ll be able to use Nota Bene as you regularly do, while at the same time having the debugger running in the background, hopefully capturing the data needed to diagnose problems that you might encounter.
There are a number of different kinds of issues that you might run into:
- When a crash is encountered, the debugger will ask if you want to send the log file and a mini system dump to Nota Bene. If you respond “yes,” your email program will be opened, with the files already attached. Simply type in a brief description of what you were doing when you encountered the problem. It would also probably help if you were able to also attach the file you were working in when the program crashed, along with a brief account of what you were doing or trying to do when you encountered the problem.
- If you instead encounter a “lockup,” where nothing seems to be happening, you will need to first manually switch to the debugger, and then click Tools, Send Current State. This will manually create the mini dump that is created automatically on a crash; once done, the steps will mirror those for a crash (you will be asked if you want to send the log and mini dump files to Nota Bene, and then, if you respond affirmatively, you will be taken to your email program, where you should enter a brief explanation of what you were doing when the lockup occurred, along with the file you were working on, if this seems relevant to the problem).
- If the bug is non-fatal — that is, it does not lead to a crash or lockup — you will not be automatically prompted to send an email to us. We still want to hear about these, however, but the only way to do that is for you to send the log file that is created by the debugger to us (again, along with a description of what you were doing when you encountered the problem, and, if relevant, the file you were working on)..
DEBUGGER FILES
It’s probably worth describing these options from another perspective. Running the debugger always results in a file or files being written into the SUPPORT folder that is located under the NB installation folder:
- If a crash, or a lockup (for which you have selected Send Current State), a zip file that contains a system dump and a log file is created
- For non-fatal errors, only a log file (named LOG.TXT) is created
Depending on the type of problem, please send us:
- The zipped dump file, or the log file, whichever is relevant
- A brief description of the problem
- The file you were working on, if this seems to be relevant
If the computer on which you are running NB 10 does not have an email system installed or configured, or if your ISP does not permit the sending of ZIP files, the automatic sending feature of the debugger will of course be disabled. However, you can still send us the desired dump or log file by copying it to a machine on which you have email, and then sending it from there (again, along with a brief explanation and any other relevant files).
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