efaq: Reporting bugs
2.5 Where should I report bugs and other problems with Emacs?
=============================================================
The correct way to report Emacs bugs is to use the command ‘M-x
report-emacs-bug’. It sets up a mail buffer with the essential
information and the correct e-mail address, <bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>.
Anything sent there also appears in the newsgroup <news:gnu.emacs.bug>,
but please use e-mail instead of news to submit the bug report. This
ensures a reliable return address so you can be contacted for further
details.
Be sure to read the “Bugs” section of the Emacs manual before
reporting a bug! The manual describes in detail how to submit a useful
bug report (
Reporting Bugs (emacs)Bugs.). (Emacs manual,
if you don’t know how to read the manual.)
RMS says:
Sending bug reports to the help-gnu-emacs mailing list
(http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/help-gnu-emacs) (which has
the effect of posting on <news:gnu.emacs.help>) is undesirable
because it takes the time of an unnecessarily large group of
people, most of whom are just users and have no idea how to fix
these problem. The bug-gnu-emacs list
(http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/bug-gnu-emacs) reaches a
much smaller group of people who are more likely to know what to do
and have expressed a wish to receive more messages about Emacs than
the others.
RMS says it is sometimes fine to post to <news:gnu.emacs.help>:
If you have reported a bug and you don’t hear about a possible fix,
then after a suitable delay (such as a week) it is okay to post on
‘gnu.emacs.help’ asking if anyone can help you.
If you are unsure whether you have found a bug, consider the
following non-exhaustive list, courtesy of RMS:
If Emacs crashes, that is a bug. If Emacs gets compilation errors
while building, that is a bug. If Emacs crashes while building,
that is a bug. If Lisp code does not do what the documentation
says it does, that is a bug.
Info Catalog
efaq: Newsgroup archives
efaq: General questions
efaq: Unsubscribing from Emacs lists