A Bug's Life Cycle

The status and resolution field define and track the life cycle of a bug.

STATUS

RESOLUTION

The status field indicates the general health of a bug. Only certain status transitions are allowed. The resolution field indicates what happened to this bug.

UNCONFIRMED
This bug has recently been added to the database. Nobody has validated that this bug is true. Users who have the "canconfirm" permission set may confirm this bug, changing its state to NEW. Or, it may be directly resolved and marked RESOLVED.
NEW
This bug has recently been added to the assignee's list of bugs and must be processed. Bugs in this state may be accepted, and become ASSIGNED, passed on to someone else, and remain NEW, or resolved and marked RESOLVED.
ASSIGNED
This bug is not yet resolved, but is assigned to the proper person. From here bugs can be given to another person and become NEW, or resolved and become RESOLVED.
NEEDINFO
More information from the reporter is needed to proceed further in fixing this bug.
REOPENED
This bug was once resolved, but the resolution was deemed incorrect. For example, a WORKSFORME bug is REOPENED when more information shows up and the bug is now reproducible. From here bugs are either marked ASSIGNED or RESOLVED.

No resolution yet. All bugs which are in one of these "open" states have the resolution set to blank. All other bugs will be marked with one of the following resolutions.

RESOLVED
A resolution has been taken, and it is awaiting verification by QA. From here bugs are either re-opened and become REOPENED, are marked VERIFIED, or are closed for good and marked CLOSED.
VERIFIED
QA has looked at the bug and the resolution and agrees that the appropriate resolution has been taken. Bugs remain in this state until the product they were reported against actually ships, at which point they become CLOSED.
CLOSED
The bug is considered dead, the resolution is correct. Any zombie bugs who choose to walk the earth again must do so by becoming REOPENED.

FIXED
A fix for this bug is checked into the tree and tested.
WONTFIX
The problem described is a bug which will never be fixed. This should be reserved for "unfixable" things, otherwise use NOTGNOME or NOTABUG.
LATER
The problem described is a bug which will not be fixed in this version of the product.
REMIND
The problem described is a bug which will probably not be fixed in this version of the product, but might still be.
DUPLICATE
The problem is a duplicate of an existing bug. Marking a bug duplicate requires the bug# of the duplicating bug and will at least put that bug number in the description field.
INCOMPLETE
All attempts at reproducing this bug were futile, or not enough information was available to reproduce the bug. Reading the code produces no clues as to why this behavior would occur. If more information appears later, please reopen the bug.
NOTGNOME
The bug report describes a problem in software not produced by the GNOME project. It should be reported elsewhere. This is also a suitable resolution for bugs that appear to have been introduced by someone creating a distribution of GNOME.
NOTABUG
The bug report describes behavior which is the correct behavior of the software or was reported in error.

Other Fields

Severity

This field is used internally for job-time estimation, and should not be set by anyone except the bug assignee.

Priority

This is used by the product maintainer to track what bugs need attention at what time. The available priorities are:

Critical We should fix and push an update immediately. This will mostly be used for security fixes.
Blocker crashes, loss of data, severe memory leak
Major A major part of the component is nonfunctional.
Normal A minor part of the component is nonfunctional.
Minor The component mostly works, but causes some irritation to users. A workaround should usually exist.
Cosmetic The component works with 100% functionality, but has visible typos, etc.
Wishlist Generally a feature request for functionality the program doesn't already have. These can be useful as guides for future product improvements.

Operating System/Distribution

This is the operating system against which the bug was reported. Legal operating systems include:

GNU/Linux (unknown) (formerly Linux)
GNU/Linux (all)
HPUX
Solaris
Debian Potato (x86)
Debian Woody
LinuxPPC 2000
Yellow Dog
Mandrake 7.0
Red Hat 6.2
Red Hat 7.0
Red Hat 7.1
SuSE 6.3
SuSE 6.4
Turbolinux 6.0
Other

Operating System Details

This is extra information about the operating system that the reporter feels would be helpful. Generally speaking this field has been obsoleted by the new options in the OS field.

Assigned To

This is the person in charge of resolving the bug. Every time this field changes, the status changes to NEW to make it easy to see which new bugs have appeared on a person's list. The default status for queries is set to NEW, ASSIGNED and REOPENED. When searching for bugs that have been resolved or verified, remember to set the status field appropriately.

Last modified: Wed Feb 16 20:41:24 2000

STATUS	RESOLUTION
The status field indicates the general health of a bug. Only certain status transitions are allowed.	The resolution field indicates what happened to this bug.
UNCONFIRMED This bug has recently been added to the database. Nobody has validated that this bug is true. Users who have the "canconfirm" permission set may confirm this bug, changing its state to NEW. Or, it may be directly resolved and marked RESOLVED. NEW This bug has recently been added to the assignee's list of bugs and must be processed. Bugs in this state may be accepted, and become ASSIGNED, passed on to someone else, and remain NEW, or resolved and marked RESOLVED. ASSIGNED This bug is not yet resolved, but is assigned to the proper person. From here bugs can be given to another person and become NEW, or resolved and become RESOLVED. NEEDINFO More information from the reporter is needed to proceed further in fixing this bug. REOPENED This bug was once resolved, but the resolution was deemed incorrect. For example, a WORKSFORME bug is REOPENED when more information shows up and the bug is now reproducible. From here bugs are either marked ASSIGNED or RESOLVED.	No resolution yet. All bugs which are in one of these "open" states have the resolution set to blank. All other bugs will be marked with one of the following resolutions.
RESOLVED A resolution has been taken, and it is awaiting verification by QA. From here bugs are either re-opened and become REOPENED, are marked VERIFIED, or are closed for good and marked CLOSED. VERIFIED QA has looked at the bug and the resolution and agrees that the appropriate resolution has been taken. Bugs remain in this state until the product they were reported against actually ships, at which point they become CLOSED. CLOSED The bug is considered dead, the resolution is correct. Any zombie bugs who choose to walk the earth again must do so by becoming REOPENED.	FIXED A fix for this bug is checked into the tree and tested. WONTFIX The problem described is a bug which will never be fixed. This should be reserved for "unfixable" things, otherwise use NOTGNOME or NOTABUG. LATER The problem described is a bug which will not be fixed in this version of the product. REMIND The problem described is a bug which will probably not be fixed in this version of the product, but might still be. DUPLICATE The problem is a duplicate of an existing bug. Marking a bug duplicate requires the bug# of the duplicating bug and will at least put that bug number in the description field. INCOMPLETE All attempts at reproducing this bug were futile, or not enough information was available to reproduce the bug. Reading the code produces no clues as to why this behavior would occur. If more information appears later, please reopen the bug. NOTGNOME The bug report describes a problem in software not produced by the GNOME project. It should be reported elsewhere. This is also a suitable resolution for bugs that appear to have been introduced by someone creating a distribution of GNOME. NOTABUG The bug report describes behavior which is the correct behavior of the software or was reported in error.