Reporting Bugs

This page contains general guidelines for reporting bugs in MariaDB.

If you want to discuss a problem or a new feature with other MariaDB developers, you can find the email lists and forums here.

Is the bug already known?

First, check that the bug isn't already filed in the MariaDB bugs database or the MySQL bugs database (if a bug is in the MySQL bugs database, it doesn't need to be filed in the MariaDB bugs database).

If you find the bug in either of the bug databases, please add a comment that the bug also affects you along with any additional information you have that may help us to find and fix the bug.

If the bug has not been reported elsewhere, then it's time to file a bug report.

Bug Report or Feature Request?

Feature requests are not the same as bug reports. Use JIRA to submit feature requests.

See also plans for next release for things that we are considering to have in the next MariaDB release.

How do I report a bug?

Below is the information we need to be able to fix bugs. The more information we get and the easier we can repeat the bug, the faster it will be fixed.

A good bug report consists of:

1. The environment (Operating system, hardware and MariaDB version) where the bug happened.
2. Any related errors or warnings from the hostname.err file. This is normally in your database directory.
3. Any background information you can provide (stack trace, tables)
4. A test case or some other way to repeat the bug. This should preferably be in mysqltest format. See mysqltest/README for information about this.
5. If it's impossible to do a test case, then providing us with a core dump + the corresponding binary would be of great help.

If the bug only affects MariaDB, you can file the bug to the MariaDB bugs database.

If it also affects MySQL, then you should also file the bug to the MySQL bugs database.

Bugs status

The different statuses for bugs in launchpad are:

The normal process to fix a bug is as follows:

"In Progress" -> "Fix Released"

Developers who want to distinguish between committed to a main branch and released in a binary, can use:

"In Progress" -> "Fix Committed" -> "Fix Released"

However in this case the developer needs to ensure that when a binary is released, they update the state of their old committed bugs.

How to build a MariaDB server that contains debug information

Here are instructions on how to build a mysqld that contains all the information we need to fix the problem: (A more detailed explanation can be found here.)

• Add the --core option to your /.my.cnf or /etc/my.cnf file under the [mysqld] tag.
• Get the latest MariaDB code from bzr.
• Compile MariaDB with the -g compiler flag (Unix). The scripts in the BUILD directory will do this automatically for you.
• Shut down your old mysqld server
• Install the new compiled mysqld
• restart mysqld

Compiling with -g should not cause any notable slowdown of the server.

Example of doing a debug build

Here is an example of how to do the compilation (assuming you are using AMD or Intel hardware)

cd mariadb-source-dir
./BUILD/compile-pentium-max
make
./client/mysqladmin shutdown
mv mariadb-install-dir/mysqld mariadb-install-dir/mysqld-old
cp sql/mysqld mariadb-install-dir/mysqld
 
'restart mysqld'

You can of course also do make install, but the above way allows you to go back to your old binary if needed.

If you get any errors about wrong number of error messages, you can fix that by copying the corresponding language file from sql/share over your old ones (this should be reasonably safe to do).

cp sql/share/english/* mariadb-install-dir/share/mysql/english

What to do when you get a crash after installing a debug binary

Now when you get a crash do the following:

• Create a README file that described the problem. (You can use the mysqlbug script to generate a template for this).
• Create a tar file containing the core, the mysqld binary and README. If possible, also add any database files that could help us repeat the problem!

  sh> tar cvfz /tmp/mariadb-bug-'short-description'.tgz mariadb-data-dir/core* mariadb-install-dir/libexec/mysqld README
  

• Send it to Monty Program's secure ftp server:

  sh> ftp -a ftp.askmonty.org
  ftp> cd private
  ftp> binary
  ftp> put /tmp/mariadb-bug-'short-description'.tgz
  ftp> quit
  

• To be able to follow the progress, create a bug report in JIRA about this. This should be easy to do based on the information you have in your README file.

If you require help with the above, want to ensure that the bug is fixed with high priority, or want someone to login to your server to find out what's wrong, you can always purchase a Support contract from Monty Program or use their consulting services.