828871 - Mass remove bug dependencies in the old 'randomorange' meta bug (bug 438871)

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: Administration, task)

Description

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Bug 438871 was previously used as a meta bug for all intermittent test failures.

As of bug 814083 the process for tracking these bugs was overhauled - and as such we have depreciated the meta bug (see bug 438871 comment 25 and bug 438871 comment 26).

To anyone used to the old system who has missed the dev.platform post, it's not clear that bug 438871 is now only a partial source of truth, since it still has several thousand dependencies.

In addition, it is fairly common to use bug cloning for at least some of the new intermittent-failure bugs - meaning that each time, we get another bug marked as blocking the now depreciated meta bug - further perpetuating the belief that the bug is still in use.

As such, if at all possible, I'd like to mass clear the bug 438871 depends on field, in a way that does not generate bugspam. 

Is this doable?

(Note: I'm not too fussed about bug history on either the bug 438871 or the dependant bug side - if it's easier to just not add entries for it)

Thank you :-)

Comment 1

[:glob ✱]

(In reply to Ed Morley [:edmorley UTC+0] from comment #0)
> As such, if at all possible, I'd like to mass clear the bug 438871 depends
> on field, in a way that does not generate bugspam. 
> 
> Is this doable?

yes, we can write a custom script for that.

> (Note: I'm not too fussed about bug history on either the bug 438871 or the
> dependant bug side - if it's easier to just not add entries for it)

we should add history entries for all these changes.

Comment 2

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Note, no particular rush on this :-)

Comment 3

[Ed Morley [:emorley]]

Very little cloning takes place now, and people aren't accidentally using the meta bug, so we don't need to do this any more.