Launchpad Help > Bugs > Bug subscriptions

Overview

Launchpad uses notification emails and Atom feeds to help you stay on top of the bugs that interest you.

Bug mail

There are three ways to get bug notifications by email:

• subscribe to a bug
• subscribe to a milestone, project, package or distribution
• take a role that results in bug mail:
  • bug reporter
  • assignee
  • commenter
  • project or package bug supervisor.

Subscribing to an individual bug is as simple clicking Subscribe on the bug report page. You can also subscribe another individual or a team to a bug. However, you should only do this if you're certain the person or team members are happy for you to do so.

Subscribing to an entire milestone, project, package or distribution

If you're the bug supervisor for a package or project you'll automatically receive email about updates to any bugs relating to that package or project.

To receive notifications about a milestone in a project, a distribution (e.g. Ubuntu) or a package or project for which you're not a bug supervisor, click Subscribe to bugmail on the milestone, project, package or distribution bugs overview page.

What you'll receive

Launchpad sends bug notifications when:

• a new bug is reported
• someone makes a comment on a bug
• a bug's status or importance changes
• a bug is assigned to someone
• a bug is targeted to a milestone
• a bug is marked as affecting a new series, package or project.

You can filter bug mail based on both the subject and headers. A prefix of [NEW] in the subject lets you distinguish emails about newly reported bugs from updates about previous bugs.

Bug mail headers

Launchpad uses email headers to help you automatically filter bug mail.

• X-Launchpad-Bug: See X-Launchpad-Bug section below.

• X-Launchpad-Bug-Private: yes or no

• X-Launchpad-Bug-Security-Vulnerability: yes or no

• X-Launchpad-Bug-Commenters: An alphabetical, space separated, list of everyone who has commented on the bug.

• X-Launchpad-Bug-Reporter: The username of the person who reported the bug and created its first bug task.

• X-Launchpad-Bug-Modifier: The display name and username of the person who modified the bug, in the form Display Name (username).

• X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: See Bug mail rationale section below.

X-Launchpad-Bug

The X-Launchpad-Bug header collates most of the other information about a bug's status, importance, etc. It gives you slightly different information, depending on whether you're dealing with a distribution package or a project:

Project:

• product

• status

• importance

• assignee

• For example: X-Launchpad-Bug: product=terminator; status=Confirmed; importance=Low; assignee=None;

Package:

• distribution

• sourcepackage

• component

• status

• importance

• assignee

• For example: X-Launchpad-Bug: distribution=ubuntu; sourcepackage=exaile; component=universe; status=Confirmed; importance=Medium; assignee=None;

Bug mail rationale

The X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale header tells you why you've received the notification.

You can be either:

• Assignee

• Subscriber

• Bug Supervisor

• Registrant.

For example: X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Assignee

An @ symbol shows that you're related to the bug through membership of a team:

    X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Assignee @ubuntu-kernel-bugs
    X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Subscriber @ubuntu-core-dev

If you're the project/package owner or bug supervisor, the product/package name is show in parentheses:

    X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Bug Supervisor (mozilla-firefox in ubuntu)
    X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Registrant (kiwi)

The @ symbol and team name are combined when you are a member of a team that is a bug supervisor:

    X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Bug Supervisor (ubuntu) @ubuntu-bugs

If the notification is about a duplicate bug, the rationale shows you which bug this report duplicates:

    X-Launchpad-Message-Rationale: Assignee via Bug 1332

This makes it easy to filter out bug mail about duplicate bugs. For example: let's say this bug notification is for bug 2129. This header means you are the assignee of bug 1332, of which 2129 is a duplicate.

Unsubscribing

You can unsubscribe from bug notifications at any time.

• Individual bugs: visit the bug report and click Unsubscribe.

• All bugs in a particular context: visit the context's overview page - such as a project's overview page - and select Subscribe to bug mail. Follow this if you're a bug supervisor but no longer want to receive the associated bug notifications.

Note: if you receive bug mail because you're in a team that is a bug supervisor, reporter, commenter or assignee, you must leave that team to stop receiving the notifications.

Atom feeds

You can subscribe to a feed of the bugs that affect a person, team, project or distribution. You can also subscribe to individual bugs.

Most feed readers will automatically discover the bug feed if you give them the URL of the bug report or the person, team, project or distribution overview page.

Alternatively, you can build the bug feed URL by hand:

Individual bugs: http://feeds.launchpad.net/bugs/<number>/bug.atom

Replace <number> with the bug number.

For example: http://feeds.launchpad.net/bugs/1/bug.atom

Projects and distributions: http://feeds.launchpad.net/<project or distro name>/latest-bugs.atom

Replace <project or distro name> accordingly.

For example: http://feeds.launchpad.net/ubuntu/latest-bugs.atom

People and teams: http://feeds.launchpad.net/~<person or team name>/latest-bugs.atom

Replace <person or team name> accordingly.

For example: http://feeds.launchpad.net/~bzr/latest-bugs.atom

Next step

As well as using email to send updates about the status of bugs, Launchpad gives you a full email interface to the bug tracker.