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0 pointsbartread3y ago0 comments

They're not trolling. I typed it into the search bar. Safari didn't crash.

Is the person who wrote the tweet trolling? Probably not either.

But what type of iOS device do they have? Which version of iOS are they running? Which language and locale?

Those things matter. Other things that apparently shouldn't matter might matter as well: other apps installed or running, notification configuration, how many tabs they have open, whether they're connected via WiFi or 4G, etc.

We don't know any of that stuff. As GP said: better reproduction steps needed.

As it is this bug report is barely above the kind of "hurr durr it dern't work" support ticket that really pisses off everyone in my team, and indeed every support engineer, and software engineer I've ever worked with.

0 comments

yamtaddle3y ago

1) It's a tweet, not a bug report.

2) The very first thing any actual engineer on Apple's payroll ought to try to reproduce it will work (most recent official iOS, "happy path" settings that have Safari Suggestions turned on)

bartreadOP3y ago

1) Yes, people use tweets to report bugs all the time. The problem with nitpicking is that anyone can pick your nits back, which leads me to...

2) Yes, they will, but that won't necessarily repro the bug without knowing which type of device it's running on, so at the very least they might need to check several different devices, and even then other factors can come into play that go beyond basic device configuration.

I'm sure, given that this appears to affect at least a significant minority of users, that Apple will be all over it and will find a way to repro it in relatively short order. Yet, at the same time, it's obscure enough to have escaped their no doubt reasonably robust QA processes before release, so it may well be there are some wrinkles to reproduction that aren't immediately apparent.

yamtaddle3y ago

> 1) Yes, people use tweets to report bugs all the time. The problem with nitpicking is that anyone can pick your nits back, which leads me to...

People might. This one didn't even @ Apple. Jesus, HN (a sentiment the Tweet author has also expressed by now on the tweet thread, as they're apparently reading this and seeing y'all acting like this in public)

> 2) Yes, they will, but that won't necessarily repro the bug without knowing which type of device it's running on, so at the very least they might need to check several different devices, and even then other factors can come into play that go beyond basic device configuration.

Twitter figured this out in like 30 minutes. It's Safari Suggestions on any recent iOS. This may not be the platonic ideal of a bug report but it's not a bug report and also it happens, by chance, to be entirely fine even if it were, because this is super-easy to figure out.

2 more replies

abxytg3y ago

"support ticket that really pisses off everyone in my team, and indeed every support engineer, and software engineer I've ever worked with"

I'm sorry to to be the one to break this to you -- you have only worked with bad engineers.

If you get a bug report like this, where some simple user action like typing three characters is causing client devices to crash, you better be more mad at your busted ass system than a sparse bug report.

alkonaut3y ago

I think the suggestion that “X crashes Safari for at least one user” vs “X crashes Safari for all users” is a pretty different severity so the relevance of this story hinges on if it’s some minority of users or a large majority, or even all users.

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to try to narrow it down here simply because the story sort of hinges on the magnitude here.

mikelward3y ago

It's not the user's job to figure out that it only happens in Florida on Tuesdays. They may not even be able to change all the relevant variables.

Apple developers should look at the stack trace that should either be sent automatically when it crashes (if privacy settings allow), or with a problem report sent from the device.

If this is a widespread issue, devs should have already gotten an automated alert.

josefresco3y ago

iPhone 14, iOS 16.0.3 English, US, No Tabs, Wifi

Launch Safari

Tap address bar

Type "old"

bartreadOP3y ago

Yes! See, this is what we need more of!

afandian3y ago

Surely there's an automated battery of configurations that devs can test against if they really want to fix the bug?

bombcar3y ago

iPhone 8, iOS 16.1 (20B82) English, US, No Tabs, Wifi

Launch Safari

Tap address bar

Type "old "

Boom!

bartreadOP3y ago

Now we're talking!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

yamtaddle3y ago

1) It's a tweet, not a bug report.

2) The very first thing any actual engineer on Apple's payroll ought to try to reproduce it will work (most recent official iOS, "happy path" settings that have Safari Suggestions turned on)

bartreadOP3y ago

1) Yes, people use tweets to report bugs all the time. The problem with nitpicking is that anyone can pick your nits back, which leads me to...

yamtaddle3y ago

> 1) Yes, people use tweets to report bugs all the time. The problem with nitpicking is that anyone can pick your nits back, which leads me to...

2 more replies

abxytg3y ago

"support ticket that really pisses off everyone in my team, and indeed every support engineer, and software engineer I've ever worked with"

I'm sorry to to be the one to break this to you -- you have only worked with bad engineers.

alkonaut3y ago

I don’t think it’s unreasonable to try to narrow it down here simply because the story sort of hinges on the magnitude here.

mikelward3y ago

It's not the user's job to figure out that it only happens in Florida on Tuesdays. They may not even be able to change all the relevant variables.

Apple developers should look at the stack trace that should either be sent automatically when it crashes (if privacy settings allow), or with a problem report sent from the device.

If this is a widespread issue, devs should have already gotten an automated alert.

josefresco3y ago

iPhone 14, iOS 16.0.3 English, US, No Tabs, Wifi

Launch Safari

Tap address bar

Type "old"

bartreadOP3y ago

Yes! See, this is what we need more of!

afandian3y ago

Surely there's an automated battery of configurations that devs can test against if they really want to fix the bug?

bombcar3y ago

iPhone 8, iOS 16.1 (20B82) English, US, No Tabs, Wifi