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<P><B><A NAME=C>Appendix C - How to report bugs</A></B></P>

<P><B>How to report bugs?</B></P>

<P>First of all please try the latest CVS version of mplayer as your bug might
already be fixed there. CVS instructions can be found at the bottom of
<A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/dload.html">this page</A>.</P>

<P>If this did not help please refer to <A HREF="documentation.html#D">Appendix D</A>
and the rest of the documentation. If your problem is not known or not solvable by
our instructions, then please report the bug.</P>

<P><B>Where to report bugs?</B></P>

<P>Subscribe to the mplayer-users mailing list:<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users">http://mplayerhq.hu/mailman/listinfo/mplayer-users</A><BR>
and send your bug report to:<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<A HREF="mailto:mplayer-users@mplayerhq.hu">mplayer-users@mplayerhq.hu</A><BR>
Please note that we will not individually CC (carbon-copy) people so it is a good
idea to subscribe to actually receive your answer.</P>

<P>Please do not send bug reports privately to individual developers.  This is
community work and thus there might be several people interested in it.
Also sometimes other users already experienced your troubles and have a
solution in hand how to circumvent a problem even if it is a bug in mplayer
code.<BR>
The language of this list is <strong>English</strong>.</P>

<P>Please describe your problem as detailed as possible with examples etc.
and do not forget to include this valuable information:</P>

<P><B>What to report?</B></P>

<P><B>System Information</B></P>

<UL>
<LI>Your Linux distribution or operating system e.g.:
    <UL>
        <LI>Red Hat 7.1</LI>
        <LI>Slackware 7.0 + devel packs from 7.1 ...</LI>
    </UL>
</LI>
<LI>kernel version:<BR>
    <CODE>uname -a</CODE></LI>
<LI>libc version:<BR>
    <CODE>ls -l /lib/libc[.-]*</CODE></LI>
<LI>X version:<BR>
    <CODE>X -version</CODE></LI>
<LI>gcc and ld versions:<BR>
    <CODE>gcc -v<BR>
    ld -v</CODE></LI>
<LI>binutils version:<BR>
    <CODE>as --version</CODE></LI>
<LI>If you have problems with fullscreen mode:
  <UL>
    <LI>Window manager type and version</LI>
  </UL>
</LI>
<LI>If only the GUI is buggy:
  <UL>
    <LI>GTK version</LI>
    <LI>GLIB version</LI>
    <LI>libpng version</LI>
    <LI>GUI situation in which the bug occurs</LI>
  </UL>
</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>Hardware &amp; drivers</B></P>

<UL>
<LI>CPU info (this works on Linux only):<BR>
    <CODE>cat /proc/cpuinfo</CODE></LI>
<LI>Video card manufacturer and model, e.g.:
    <UL>
        <LI>ASUS V3800U chip: nVidia TNT2 Ultra pro 32MB SDRAM</LI>
        <LI>Matrox G400 DH 32MB SGRAM</LI>
    </UL>
</LI>
<LI>Video driver type &amp; version, e.g.:
    <UL>
        <LI>X built-in driver</LI>
        <LI>nVidia 0.9.623</LI>
        <LI>Utah-GLX CVS 2001-02-17</LI>
        <LI>DRI from X 4.0.3</LI>
    </UL>
</LI>
<LI>Sound card type &amp; driver, e.g.:
    <UL>
        <LI>Creative SBLive! Gold with OSS driver from oss.creative.com</LI>
        <LI>Creative SB16 with kernel OSS drivers</LI>
        <LI>GUS PnP with ALSA OSS emulation</LI>
    </UL>
</LI>
<LI>If in doubt include <CODE>lspci -vv</CODE> output on Linux systems.</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>For compilation problems/errors</B></P>

<P><B>Please include these files:</B></P>
<UL>
  <LI>configure.log</LI>
  <LI>config.h</LI>
  <LI>config.mak</LI>
  <LI>libvo/config.mak</LI>
</UL>

<P><B>For playback problems</B></P>

<P>Please include the output of mplayer at verbosity level 1, but remember to
<B>not cut the output</B> when you paste it into your mail. The developers need
all of the messages to properly diagnose a problem. You can direct the output
into a file like this:</P>

<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;mplayer -v [options] [filename] &amp;&gt; mplayer.log</CODE></P>

<P>If your problem is specific to one or more files, then please upload the
offender(s) to:</P>

<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<A HREF="ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/">ftp://mplayerhq.hu/MPlayer/incoming/</A></P>

<P>Also upload a small text file having the same base name as your file
with a .txt extension. Describe the problem you are having with the
particular file there and include your email address as well as the output
of mplayer at verbosity level 1.<BR> 
Usually the first 1-5 MB of a file are enough to reproduce the problem,
but to be sure we ask you to:
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;dd if=yourfile of=smallfile bs=1024k count=5</CODE></P>

<P>It will take the  first five megabytes of <STRONG>'your-file'</STRONG> and
write it to <STRONG>'small-file'</STRONG>.<BR>
Then try again on this small file and if the bug still shows up 
your sample is sufficient for us.<BR>
Please <STRONG>do not ever</STRONG> send such files via mail! Upload it,
and send only the path/filename of the file on the FTP-server.<BR>
If the file is accessible on the net, then sending the
<STRONG>exact</STRONG> URL is sufficient.</P>

<P><B>For crashes</B></P>

<P>If you have a core dump of the crash continue reading the next paragraph, otherwise skip it.</P>

<P><B>How to extract meaningful information from a core dump</B></P>

<P>Please create following command file:</P>

<P><CODE>disass $eip-32 $eip+32<BR>
printf "eax=%08lX\n",$eax<BR>
printf "ebx=%08lX\n",$ebx<BR>
printf "ecx=%08lX\n",$ecx<BR>
printf "edx=%08lX\n",$edx<BR>
printf "esp=%08lX\n",$esp<BR>
printf "ebp=%08lX\n",$ebp<BR>
printf "edi=%08lX\n",$edi<BR>
printf "esi=%08lX\n",$esi<BR>
</CODE></P>

<P>Then simply execute the following on your command line:</P>
<P>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<CODE>gdb mplayer --core=core -batch --command=command_file &gt; mplayer.bug</CODE></P>

<P><B>How to conserve information about a reproducible crash</B></P>
<P>Re-compile mplayer with debugging code enabled:</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;./configure --enable-debug=3<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;make</CODE></P>
and then run mplayer within gdb using:
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;gdb mplayer</CODE></P>

<P>You are now within gdb. Type:</P>
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;run -v [options-to-mplayer] filename</code></P>
and reproduce your crash. As soon as you did it, gdb will
return you to the command line prompt where you have to enter
<P><CODE>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;bt<BR>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;disass $eip-32 $eip+32</CODE></P>
and send the complete output to us.

<P><B>General note</B></P>

<P>If something is quite big (logs for instance) then it is better to upload
it to the FTP server in a compressed format (gzip and bzip preferred) and
include only the path and filename in your bug report.</P>

<P><B>I know what I am doing...</B></P>

<P>If you created a proper bug report following the steps above and you are
confident it is a bug in mplayer, not a compiler problem or broken file,
you have already read the documentation and you could not find a solution,
your sound drivers are OK, then you might want to subscribe to the
mplayer-advusers list and send your bug report there to get a better and
faster answer.<BR><BR> 
Please be advised that if you post newbie questions or questions answered
in the manual there, you will be ignored or flamed instead of getting an
appropriate answer.<BR>
So do not flame us and  subscribe to -advusers only if you really know
what you are doing and feel like being an advanced mplayer user or
developer.  If you meet these criteria it should not be difficult to find
out how to subscribe...
</P>

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