How to write useful bug reports

Bugs must be reported in our RawTherapee GitHub issue tracker, not in the forum and not in IRC.

We use the term "bug report" in the broadest sense - any issue you have must include the information detailed below.

Requirements of a good bug report
You must always provide the following information:
 * Complete version information of the RawTherapee build you're using (e.g. "RawTherapee 4.2.678 gtk3"). RawTherapee version information is available by clicking on "[[image:Gtk-preferences.png]] Preferences > About > Version" - in most cases that tab will be full of information, all of which you should copy and paste into your bug report. If that tab is empty, then you can get the RawTherapee version from the RawTherapee window's titlebar.
 * System information: your operating system name and version, your CPU type and speed, and how much RAM you have. Windows users can find this information by pressing the + keyboard shortcut.
 * Tell us where you downloaded the RawTherapee build from. Be specific, don't just say "your website"; provide the URL if you can by right-clicking on the link which downloads the build and selecting "copy address" or something similar to that, depending on your web browser.
 * Explain the exact steps to reproduce the problem. Apply the "Neutral" processing profile to your photo and then explain what needs to be done to trigger the problem from there.
 * Make your raw file and PP3 file available to us by uploading them to a file sharing service such as www.filebin.net if your bug involves a particular raw file, a particular setting, or lack of support for your raw file..
 * Show a screenshot of the problem, you can upload them to www.imgur.com
 * Search the forum and our issue tracker before filing a new report as chances are that someone has already reported the problem before you, and duplication wastes time.
 * Make sure you use the latest version of RawTherapee as it's likely that a bug in an old version has been fixed in the latest one.
 * If your issue involves a crash, provide a stack backtrace if you can. How to get one is explained below. If you're not capable of getting one, then make sure you have at least provided the information above, otherwise your bug report is useless.

For more information on how to report bugs, read this: http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/bugs.html

When RawTherapee crashes - An introduction to stack backtraces
A stack backtrace is a log of the steps a program took up to a point in time. For our needs, that point will be the crashing of RawTherapee, and we will use it for debugging RawTherapee, to fix the crash. We release builds of RawTherapee which are stable for us. If they crash for you, then you need to supply us with useful information so that we can either reproduce the crash ourselves, or fix the bug without being able to reproduce the crash. The stack backtrace is extremely useful.

Programs need to be compiled to run, and generally speaking they can be compiled in one of two ways: While it is possible to get some information out of a release build, the information is far more precise if you use a debug one. You will find both "release" and "debug" builds of RawTherapee on the official downloads page as well as in the forum. For day-to-day use, use a release type build because it runs much faster. If you encounter a crash, use a debug type build to provide us with useful information so that we can fix the crash.
 * The "release" way, which optimized the program for speed but doesn't offer any useful information if it crashes,
 * The "debug" way, which provides plenty of useful information when it crashes but runs considerably more slowly.

How can you tell whether a build has debug flags or not?
Two ways:
 * In the download section of our website, click on the Details button of one of the builds and look for Build Type:. If the word release follows, then its a build optimized for speed without any debug flags. If the word debug follows, then it is a build with debug flags, which is what you need to download and use to get a meaningful stack backtrace. You might also find a debug version of rawtherapee.exe available in the forum but it has to match the version of the rawtherapee.exe you're replacing.
 * Fire up RawTherapee, click on Preferences, then About and Version, and look for Build type: as above. If release follows then it has no debug flags, if debug follows then it has debug flags which is what you need.

How to get a debug version?
Check our download page or your package manager for a debug build of the latest version of RawTherapee. If there is none, then either ask us for one, or make one yourself. If you use Linux, making one is very easy, just follow the Compiling in Linux guide.

Software can (and often does) behave differently running under a debugger than it normally would, due to the inevitable changes the presence of a debugger will make to a program's internal timing. This means that you might encounter bugs (crashes) during your day-to-day use which will not occur when you run RawTherapee from GDB (GDB is the debugger)! This is an unfortunate fact, but luckily it's a rare one, so go ahead, get a debug build, and try to reproduce the crash, this time getting a juicy stack backtrace.

ALWAYS download and try the latest version of RawTherapee before reporting a bug! Reporting based on an old version is a waste of time.

Step by step

 * 1) Get GDB. How you do this will depend on your operating system/distribution.
 * 2) * Linux - Use your package manager.
 * In Ubuntu you would open a terminal and write: sudo apt-get install gdb
 * In Gentoo you would write: sudo emerge gdb
 * 1) * Windows - Our debug Windows builds usually include, so you don't need to do anything to get it. If they don't, install TDM-GCC making sure to install the GDB package as well. Copy the   to your RawTherapee directory, so it sits alongside
 * 2) * Mac OS X - if you know how to install GDB under OS X, please help write this section.
 * 3) Run RawTherapee from within GDB.
 * 4) * In Linux, assuming you used compiled RawTherapee yourself, open up a terminal and, assuming your debug build was compiled to  then type: gdb ~/rt_debug/rawtherapee
 * 5) * In Windows, open up the command prompt, navigate to your RawTherapee directory and assuming that the filename of the RawTherapee debug executable is  then type: gdb rawtherapee-DEBUG.exe
 * 6) GDB starts up and is ready to run RawTherapee. To run it, type:
 * r
 * 1) RawTherapee runs, and you will notice a flood of information in GDB. Most of it will look like this:
 * Do what you did to trigger the crash, and when RawTherapee does crash, its window will just freeze, it won't close. You can tell that it crashed by the fact that everything in that window will have stopped responding. Alt+Tab back to the GDB terminal window.
 * 1) We want a detailed stack backtrace, and to make sending it to us easier in the next three commands you will tell GDB to save it to a text file called   (or anything, the name doesn't matter). Type:
 * set pagination off
 * set logging file log.txt
 * set logging on
 * 1) Now to have GDB print the actual stack backtrace, type:
 * thread apply all bt full
 * You should see a screen full of text, numbers, code and magical spells. These were automatically saved to the  file.
 * 1) You may now quit GDB. To do so, type:
 * q and confirm it with a
 * y
 * 1) Now it is time to send us the bug report. Open a new issue in our GitHub bug tracker, explain the steps you performed which lead to the crash, attach the   file, and provide all the information we asked for above.
 * 1) You may now quit GDB. To do so, type:
 * q and confirm it with a
 * y
 * 1) Now it is time to send us the bug report. Open a new issue in our GitHub bug tracker, explain the steps you performed which lead to the crash, attach the   file, and provide all the information we asked for above.

Nicely formatted text is easier to read. If you are pasting code into GitHub, use backticks or indent the code - read the guide. If you want to paste code into the forum, you can also use backticks or indent the code - read the Forum code formatting guide.

Remember to include the contents of " Preferences > About > Version", a sample raw and PP3 file, along with full version information of your operating system, your CPU type and speed, and how much RAM you have, what you had for lunch, etc.