General questions about bug reporting.

[kubuntuforumsuser]

My specs:
OS: Kubuntu Hardy Heron v8.04 LTS (32bit) (Wish I had originally installed 64bit)
CPU: Intel Quad Core something or other.
Motherboard: ASUS P5E3 Delux
Graphics Card: NVidia 8800GT or something like that.
Web Browser: Firefox 3.0.12 (The one available in the repositories)

Problem:
About a month ago I discovered that any attempt to "drag and drop" anything within firefox for more than one second causes the current OS session to permanently freeze.

Temporary solution:
I've discovered that I can temporarily get out of a frozen OS session by CTRL+ALT+F2 then logging into the CLI as root and typing "/ect/init.d/kdm restart" which starts a new 'ttl'? session. Although I have not been able to find out how to kill or stop the previously frozen session using this method.

NOTE:
This problem doesn't seem to effect my laptop which is running Ubuntu Jaunty with the same version of Firefox.
I've researched the following bug report and others like it.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+s...ox/+bug/194191
None of these bug reports seem relevant to my situation. Please also note that I've spent a fair amount of time over the past month doing searches on this problem and have not found any helpful information in any of the search results.

Questions:
What can I do to further narrow down what is causing this problem? Such as weather or not this is a Firefox bug, or a bug in the OS.
Could I help fix this problem by filing a bug report and testing patches for this bug, and what community would be the one I should look into for that? This one, firefox, or Launchpad? Or would this post be better suited to a firefox forum?
Generally speaking, how does one go about addressing problems when they are encountered in Kubuntu or a 3rd party application in Kubuntu? What steps should a person take in terms of filing a bug report or figuring out weather or not a bug report should be filed?

Thank you for taking the time to address my lack of knowledge on this issue.
Sincerely,
kubuntuforumsuser

[lmilano]

Re: General questions about bug reporting.

Excellent questions. You'd be surprised how many people just go ahead and file a bug report, or even a support enquiry anywhere without even wondering whether it's the right place or form.

Ok, the quick answer is that you can always file in launchpad for Ubuntu, since these reports are linked upstream (in this case to Firefox) if needed. Having said that, ideally, bugs are filed to:

1. Upstream (in this case Firefox bugzilla) if the bug seems to be independent of the linux distribution

2. In the distribution bug trucker (in this case Launchpad/Ubuntu) if it seems distribution specific (i.e., bad packaging, bad default configuration, conflicting software, etc).

Again, because it is very difficult in most cases to discern between 1 and 2, it is generally ok to start in launchpad. Plus, not everybody can afford having an account in each bugtracker

It is important that you make the case reproducible if at all possible. If you can give a test case, something along the lines of: " 1. Open this URL; 2. GO to this button; 3. Push 'accept', you will see a crash".

In this case, because you see the bug in 8.10, an 9.04 is superseding it, you may be told to verify if the same occurs in jaunty, and apparently it doesn't. However, 8.10 is still supported. So, this should be fixed, but it may not be the highest priority.

To debug more: you can launch firefox from the command line, and see if there is any output before the crash. Is you 8.10 up to date? (are you running all the security/bugfix updates?)

1. Open a file.