868044 - Bugzilla should be automagically aware of which product channel a bug-filer is using.

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(bugzilla.mozilla.org :: Extensions, defect)

Description

[Mike Hoye [:mhoye]]

Bugzilla should automagically be aware, through whatever mechanism necessary, of what channel of the product (if applicable) a user is in when they file their bug. Release, beta, aurora, nightly, whatever. "Filed in Channel: Aurora" (or whichever.)

This gives us piece of valuable information when triaging, lets us know where our bugs are coming from, and maybe upsell people on the next level up during their filing process.

Comment 1

[:glob ✱]

http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-release/raw-file/tip/browser/config/version.txt
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-beta/raw-file/tip/browser/config/version.txt
http://hg.mozilla.org/releases/mozilla-aurora/raw-file/tip/browser/config/version.txt
http://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/raw-file/tip/browser/config/version.txt

Comment 2

[:glob ✱]

a problem with using version.txt is we need what channel the user's browser is on, not what the current channel for that version number is.

for example, if someone installs aurora before an uplift, doesn't upgrade, then reports a bug, we'll incorrectly think they are on the beta channel.

i'll ask around to see if we can determine the channel from the browser directly via javascript.

Comment 3

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

You can tell the difference between nightly/aurora and beta/release (I think that's the correct division) because the build ID is frozen in beta/release.

It could also be that the version number in the user agent string has an a1 for nightly and a2 for Aurora, a b for Beta and nothing for release, but I'm not sure if we use the "b" at the moment.

Gerv

Comment 4

[:glob ✱]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #3)
> You can tell the difference between nightly/aurora and beta/release (I think
> that's the correct division) because the build ID is frozen in beta/release.

for that wouldn't we need to know what channel each build id maps to?

> It could also be that the version number in the user agent string has an a1
> for nightly and a2 for Aurora, a b for Beta and nothing for release, but I'm
> not sure if we use the "b" at the moment.

my nightly build doesn't have a1:
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:23.0) Gecko/20130506 Firefox/23.0

Comment 5

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

(In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #3)
> You can tell the difference between nightly/aurora and beta/release (I think
> that's the correct division) because the build ID is frozen in beta/release.

Not quite -- buildids don't have any correlation with channels. They're just numbers plucked out of the air, roughly based on the time at which the build happened.

> It could also be that the version number in the user agent string has an a1
> for nightly and a2 for Aurora, a b for Beta and nothing for release, but I'm
> not sure if we use the "b" at the moment.

You're correct about Nightly and Aurora _versions_, but a1/a2 isn't sent in the user agent. Eg, mine is currently:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:23.0) Gecko/20130506 Firefox/23.0

Beta, Release and ESRs don't even have a token in their version. Eg, Beta is currently "21.0" regardless of which specific beta build you're on. You could also be on 15.0 or whatever and still be on the beta channel. In fact, I think this was a conscious changes because of browser sniffing problems.

The only way I know of to find the true channel you're on is to look at the "app.update.channel" pref, which wouldn't be accessible in content AFAIK.

Comment 6

[[e-mail] (:bhearsum)]

(In reply to Byron Jones ‹:glob› from comment #4)
> (In reply to Gervase Markham [:gerv] from comment #3)
> > You can tell the difference between nightly/aurora and beta/release (I think
> > that's the correct division) because the build ID is frozen in beta/release.
> 
> for that wouldn't we need to know what channel each build id maps to?
> 
> > It could also be that the version number in the user agent string has an a1
> > for nightly and a2 for Aurora, a b for Beta and nothing for release, but I'm
> > not sure if we use the "b" at the moment.
> 
> my nightly build doesn't have a1:
> Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:23.0) Gecko/20130506
> Firefox/23.0

Yep, and it doesn't even have the full buildid - so you couldn't look that up even if we had a service that would let you do so. (I don't think buildids are unique accross branches anyways).

Comment 7

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

(In reply to Ben Hearsum [:bhearsum] from comment #5)
> Not quite -- buildids don't have any correlation with channels. They're just
> numbers plucked out of the air, roughly based on the time at which the build
> happened.

I know; but some builds have a current date buildID, and some have it frozen at 20100101 (IIRC). I think beta/release are the latter and nightly/aurora are the former, but the split could be elsewhere. Anyway, that's the only info the UA will give you, and it's not precise enough for what you want.

Gerv

Comment 8

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

One thing I was hoping for from this was to always have a query I could link to that would be "whatever the current release is" for each channel. So for example I'd like to be able to link to all the bugs for the current Nightly, without having to change the url whenever the versions roll over. I don't quite understand if this would achieve that aim!

Comment 9

[:glob ✱]

(In reply to Liz Henry :lizzard from comment #8)
> One thing I was hoping for from this was to always have a query I could link
> to that would be "whatever the current release is" for each channel.

please file a new bug for that.

we could add a search pronoun which expands to the correct version.  searching by this would effectively result in all bugs filed against an aurora build being reclassified as beta bugs when the uplift happens, but that's probably a good thing.


for this bug, it looks like the best thing we can do for now is use the frozen buildID to identify nightly/aurora or beta/release (as per comment 3).

Comment 10

[:glob ✱]

Attachment: patch v1

this patch augments the reported user-agent for bugs filed with the guided bug entry:

nightly:

"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:23.0) Gecko/20130506 Firefox/23.0 (Nightly/Aurora)"

release:

"Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.8; rv:20.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/20.0 (Beta/Release)"

Comment 11

[David Lawrence [:dkl]]

Comment on attachment 746777 [details] [diff] [review]
patch v1

Review of attachment 746777 [details] [diff] [review]:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Code looks fine and picks the proper release for me using both stable and nightly. r=dkl

Comment 12

[:glob ✱]

oops, forgot to commit this in time for today's push.

Committing to: bzr+ssh://[e-mail]/bmo/4.2/
modified extensions/GuidedBugEntry/web/js/guided.js
Committed revision 8790.