Željko Filipin's Blog on Software and Testing

Brent Strange wrote (almost a month ago) that he noticed a bug in Windows Media Player 10. I also use it for listening to internet radio, so I tried to reproduce it (I have Windows Media Player 10 and 11). Successfully. Then I noticed another bug and left a comment at his post, but I like this bugs so much that I had to write a post about it.

Should internet radio behave like ordinary radio? In general. You should be able to change stations, adjust volume. Well, that is about it (do turn on and off count as features?).

You could also add some useful features.

Say, pause a song. Phone rings while your favourite song plays? Pause, take your call and resume playing when you are finished with the call. Very useful.

Then, forward a song. You have heard that song ten times today (I listen a lot of radio), or you just do not like it? Press forward button and enjoy the next song.

But there is behaviour that I (nor Brent) would not call a feature.

(I guess) Brent noticed that stop button is not disabled. As a good tester he tried it while listening to a song, and noticed that after you press play button, the song does not resume playing from the point where you stopped, but from the beginning. That means you can play your favourite song over and over? Yes! Do not report this bug to Microsoft.

I do not know how I noticed my bug, but I guess it was by accident. I must have pressed mute button instead of pause (or stop) button when I wanted some silence and was surprised when after a while radio started playing without me turning mute off. So I investigated a bit, and found out that mute turns off at the end of the song.

A bug, I would say. If I clicked mute, I meant mute, not mute until the end of this song.

But this bug has interesting side effect. Click mute during commercial. Continue what you were doing. Volume is back to normal after commercial ends. I will quote myself: “Do not report this bug to Microsoft. ”.

Yesterday I blogged how TortoiseSVN 1.4.1 Crashes. I could not just click “Send” button at error report window because I have recently reinstalled windows and I did not have default e-mail client configured (I use Gmail only). As a tester, I know a value of error report, so I wanted to send it. Also, I really like TortoiseSVN so I wanted to contribute. Configuring Outlook Express to use Gmail servers took some time, but fortunately I have done it already, so I knew where to find documentation.

I usually send error reports (especially when all I have to do is click a button), but there is usually no response. The exception is Arachno Ruby IDE, but that is another story.

This morning, I was really (pleasantly) surprised when I found this in my inbox (posted with permission):

It’s a bug in Subversion when using the neon 0.26.2 library. I’m currently working with the Subversion guys on a fix for this. In the meantime, either deactivate SSPI authentication on the server or downgrade to TSVN 1.4.0. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Stefan

--
       ___       "De Chelonian Mobile"
  oo  // \\      TortoiseSVN
(_,\/ \_/ \     The coolest Interface to
   \ \_/_\_/>    (Sub)Version Control
   /_/   \_\     http://tortoisesvn.net


Please notice the turtle in the signature, I really worked hard to reproduce it as in original, but with limited succes (I used SimpleCode).

Not only did I get the response, but there was also two workarounds for my problem. I do not have access to servers, and I have already downgraded to 1.4.0, but it was nice of him to let me know. Actually, after he gave me permission to post his response, he (once more) apologized for not having a fix “because we lack a test environment with a windows domain”. 1.4.0 works fine for me, I upgraded by mistake (that is also another story), so as far as I am concerned, they can take their time. Also, I will surely send them all error reports from now on.

If you treat your users with respect, they will help you make better software.

Upravo sam instalirao TortoiseSVN 1.4.1 i stalno se ruši. Update, commit, bilo što. Kad sam vratio na 1.4.0 sve radi kako treba.