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Overview

Launchpad's bug tracker is unique: it can track how one bug affects different communities.

When you share free software, you share its bugs. This means that free software bugs may be reported in one project but originate in another entirely, whilst affecting several more.

Launchpad handles this by making every bug available to every project and distribution that uses the bug tracker. Rather than treating each project as an island, with an isolated list of bug reports, Launchpad allows interested groups to work together in search of a fix.

[https://bugs.launchpad.net/zope3/+bug/98275 Bug 98275] is a great example. It is one bug report, with one bug number, but it has a different status, importance and assignee in each context.

This table appears at the top of the bug report, showing that it affects three projects and different series (lines of development towards a release) within those projects. In this case, each of the affected projects uses Launchpad's bug tracker. However, Launchpad can just as happily monitor the progress of the same bug in external trackers, as shown in [https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-panel/+bug/122590 bug 122590].

Here, the bug report in Launchpad is about Ubuntu's package of the Gnome Panel. However, there's also a link to the bug as tracked in Gnome's Bugzilla, along with its status there. This lets the Ubuntu desktop bugs team monitor the progress upstream and implement their fix when it becomes available.

Getting started

When you [:Projects/Registering:registered your project] in Launchpad, you had the option to specify where its bugs are tracked. If you chose an option other than Bugs are tracked in Launchpad, you now need to activate the Launchpad bug tracker for your project.

Follow the Change details link in the Actions menu on your project's overview page.

You can also choose whether Launchpad should automatically expire inactive bugs. There's more on what Launchpad considers an inactivate bug in our article on [:BugExpiry:bug expiry].

Importing your existing bug history

In some cases, the Launchpad team can import your existing bug history from another bug tracker. This may mean you can switch to Launchpad's bug tracker without having to maintain your previous bug tracker in a read-only mode.

[:Feedback:Get in touch] to see if we can help.

Setting bug and security contacts

The next step is to choose which individuals or teams you want to occupy the two bug management roles:

• [:Bugs/BugContactRole:bug contact]: handles day to day management and triage

• [:Bugs/SecurityContactRole:security contact]: receives security-related bug notifications.

Many projects [:Teams/Registering:create specific teams] to act as bug and security contacts, allowing several people to share the work.

To set your project's bug and security contacts, visit its bug overview page - for example: https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape - and follow the links in the Actions menu.

If you'd prefer not to set these - perhaps because your project is small enough not to need specific contacts - you, as project owner, take them by default.

Day to day management

[https://launchpad.net/inkscape Inkscape] is a vector drawing tool that uses Launchpad's bug tracker. Let's take a look at its [https://bugs.launchpad.net/inkscape bugs overview page].

The most important

Overview page

New bug notifications

Bug contacts

Duplicates