How
to report problems
If you find a problem in this release (also known, more familiarly, as a bug), please report it to Cygnus.
If you find a problem in this release (also known, more familiarly, as a bug), please report it to Cygnus.
For those customers new to Cygnus, see Reporting problems using the Web Support site.
Others familiar with past standards of reporting problems, use the Cygnus bug-report form to ensure that we can respond to your problem as quickly as possible.
- For UNIX environments, see Reporting problems for Unix systems and, also, see Reporting problems.
- For Win95/NT users, use a blank copy of the SENDPR.TXT file in the installation directory (see Reporting problems for Win95/NT systems). To save time, customize the form beforehand with your Cygnus customer ID (see Some things that might go wrong). The easiest and the most reliable means to report a bug is to copy this form to your email program and email to:
bugs@cygnus.com.
If
email is not possible, print the SENDPR.TXT file; see Reporting
problems for Win95/NT systems. Then, fill in the problem report, and
FAX it ( +1 408 542 9699 ) to Cygnus, after alerting the technical support
hotline ( +1 408 542 9601 ) to apprise the Technical Support staff of the
transmission.
Email is the most reliable
way to submit problem reports and to get speedy resolution to any problems
with GNUPro Toolkit.
For issues pertaining to this release, see Red flag alerts & enhancements.
Some things that might go wrong
The following discussion shows some warning messages for some installation problems and the solutions to manage the problems.- No access to /usr/cygnus
- No customer ID for send-pr
- If you can't sign on to an account with access to write
in '/usr' or '/usr/cygnus', use the '-installdir=directory'
option to Install to specify a different installation directory
to which you can write.
For example, if all the other installation defaults are right, you can execute something like the following example's input (where mydir is the directory path to which you initially installed).
./Install --tape=/dev/ tape -installdir=directory
You'll need either to override default paths for the pre-compiled tools or else to recompile the software. See Running the programs and Links for easy access and updating for details.
- If you can't install in '/usr/cygnus'
(or link your installation directory to that name), some
of the defaults configured into this release of GNUPro Toolkit won't work.
See Running the
programs for information on overriding or reconfiguring these defaults.
- Make sure the send-pr program for the Problem
Reporting Managment System (PRMS) knows your customer ID. Contact Cygnus
at +1 408 542-9601 if you do not know your customer ID. Install your customer
ID with install-sid, as in the following command (customer-ID
is your assigned customer number).
install-sid customer-ID
install-sid --install-dir= install-dir-prefix customer-ID
After rebuilding from source, rerun install-sid in order to reset your customer-id in send-pr. Previously, the default value was the value in the send-pr program in your path at the time of configuration. For information on rebuilding from source, see Rebuilding from source.
Some error messages from Install
- gcc: cannot exec cpp
The Install
script checks for errors and inconsistencies in the way its arguments are
used. If you get one of the following messages and can't use the
recommended solution, call the Cygnus support hotline, +1 408 542 9601,
or send email to: bugs@cygnus.com.
- If you've installed the binary distribution of GNUPro
Toolkit software in a non-standard location, set the environment variable,
GCC_EXEC_PREFIX, accordingly. See Running
the programs.
- These errors (the first covers anything that ends in
'...This is a problem') are from paranoia checks; they
are issued for situations that other checks should cover, or for unlikely
situations that require further diagnosis. If you get one of these messages,
contact Cygnus.
Reporting problems for Unix systems
Unix users use a script, send-pr, to send Cygnus problem reports (PRs). send-pr is configured by the Cygnus Problem Report Management System (PRMS) to update reports of problems to Cygnus technical support staff.send-pr invokes an editor on a problem report form (after filling in some fields with reasonable default values). When you exit the editor, send-pr sends the filled out form to the PRMS at Cygnus. You can use the environment variable, EDITOR, to specify which editor to use (the default is the vi text editor). Emacs users will find PRMS especially easy to use. For more information on send-pr, see Reporting problems. Use bugs@cygnus.com or support@cygnus.com if you have any problems. See How to contact Cygnus for other means to reach Cygnus.
Filling out a problem report for Unix users
Use send-pr for both questions and bug reports. send-pr ensures that questions and bug reports are tracked and routed directly to the appropriate person (Cc: the assigned Cygnus engineer, if you know who that is; do not email the engineer directly, since the most reliable means to get a response is to send the report to bugs@cygnus.com). Include the category and PR number in the Subject line of your email, such as gcc/13844.Problem reports have a structure so that a database program can manage them. When you fill out the form, remember the following guidelines:
- Each PR needs a valid customer-id and category.
- Describe only one problem per problem.
- For follow-up mail, use the same subject line as the one in the automatic acknowledgment. It shows the category, the pr number and the original synopsis line. This causes your mail to automatically be filed with the original bug report. Your follow-up comments will be sent to all the people working on the bug.
- Try to make the subject or synopsis line as informative as possible. For instance, you might use a sentence of the form 'Encrypted rlogin hangs if you send interrupt' or 'g++: calling wrong overloaded function' or something as direct.
- You don't need to delete the comment lines while editing the PR form; this is done by send-pr. Put your information before or after the comments. See Reporting problems for more discussion on this topic.
- See Valid categories for problems for a list of categoriesdescriptions.
- See Confidential information in reports for Unix users for a discussion regarding how to deal with confidential topics in the reports.
query-pr@cygnus.com Subject: 4020 5004You can interrogate non-confidential bug reports in the Cygnus Problem Report Management System (PRMS) by electronic mail. Send mail to 'query-pr@cygnus.com' with query parameters in the 'Subject:' line of your mail header. (The message body is ignored.) For example, to inquire about problem reports numbered 4020 and 5004, send mail including the following input lines in the To: header.
You can also include many command line options to request information on bugs in a particular state, or a particular category; for instance, the following header's example input requests a list of all open g++ bugs that are not confidential.
To: query-pr@cygnus.com
Subject: --state=open --category=g++If you do not include a '--state=' specification in your subject line, the mail server uses the following statement (showing all the various input for State:).
--state= "open|analyzed|feedback|suspended "
Confidential information in reports for Unix users
There has been some confusion about where to put confidential information in problem reports sent with send-pr. If you submit a problem report to Cygnus, and you want its detailed contents to remain confidential, set the '>Confidential:' field to 'yes'.However, the 'Subject:'
line in the mail header and the '>Synopsis:' field in the
body of the PR are not treated as confidential information. They
are used when Cygnus compiles reports of fixed problems (see Valid
categories for problems for a list by category of the bugs and their
descriptions). Do not put confidential information in these fields.
Any code samples,
machine descriptions, problem details, and so on, remain, of course, strictly
confidential in any problem report marked as such in the report.
The mail query
server for problem reports never reports any information from confidential
bug reports.
Reporting problems for Win95/NT systems
The following file is available
for reporting problems for WIN95/NT users.
Valid categories for problems
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