Launchpad itself

Too many mails on new bug-branch links for Ubuntu branches

Bug #387731 reported by James Westby
12
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Launchpad itself
Fix Released
High
Gavin Panella
Launchpad itself 2.2.6

Bug Description

Hi,

We're currently working on pushing up branches for each and every Ubuntu
package. As part of this process we automatically add --fixes information
to the revisions. This is leading to lots of bug mail be sent when LP scans
the branches, and as it is a lot of old bugs this isn't useful information.

The --fixes information is very valuable, as with LP improvements you will
be able to jump from any bug page to the diff that fixed it, so I'm not willing
to stop including this information.

This case is a little special, as we are back-filling a lot of information, so it
causes bulk mails, but it could arise in a project situation as well.

I would like to ask for assistance from the Ubuntu developers in fixing this.
I think a good way, and one that might be a general rule, would be to not
send the mail if there are no open tasks on the bug.

If there is no general rule then a temporary special case for the first scan
of a source package branch or something similar would be appreciated.

Thanks,

James

Tags: lp-bugs
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote :

+1, I suddenly started getting hundreds of bug mails about that.

LP often sends single-line mails like "branch linked", or "attachment removed". Could it just generally stop doing that in the first place? When something interesting happens, you usually get a comment along with it.

Changed in launchpad:
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

+1 too, I got spammed today too, I agree with pitti usually those emails are not really informative and create lot of noise, could we filter those out if there is no comment associated with the change?

Revision history for this message
Björn Tillenius (bjornt) wrote :

Let's see if we can come up with something useful here. I suspect we could simply not send an e-mail notification when a branch is linked. It's mostly interesting to know that someone is working on the branch, but then he should mark the bug as In Progress. I would suggest also adding a header, X-Launchpad-Branch, which gives you the linked branch, if any, so that you can use that header client-side, if you want to know which branch the bug is linked to.

affects: launchpad → malone
Changed in malone:
status: Confirmed → Triaged
milestone: none → 2.2.6
Revision history for this message
Björn Tillenius (bjornt) wrote :

Some people do find the notifications useful, but James' suggestion of not sending a notification if the bug is closed sounds like a good compromise.

Changed in malone:
importance: Undecided → High
Revision history for this message
Martin Pitt (pitti) wrote : Re: [Bug 387731] Re: Too many mails on new bug-branch links for Ubuntu branches

Björn Tillenius [2009-06-16 11:41 -0000]:
> It's mostly interesting to know that someone is working on the branch,
> but then he should mark the bug as In Progress.

Right, or "fix committed" if the branch has a fix. Since this happens
in practice, people would even get two mails for the same thing. Also,
I constantly get bug mails for the bugs that I'm working on myself.

Gavin Panella (allenap)
Changed in malone:
assignee: nobody → Gavin Panella (allenap)
status: Triaged → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Diogo Matsubara (matsubara) wrote : Bug fixed by a commit

Fixed in devel r8647.

Changed in malone:
status: In Progress → Fix Committed
Revision history for this message
Gavin Panella (allenap) wrote :

A fix has been cherrypicked into production, so you'll hopefully see
less email from bug-branch links (and unlinks, but that's not a
problem for you I think).

The fix suppresses mail when the bug has no open bug tasks, i.e. any
that are not Invalid, Won't Fix, or Fix Released. I hope that's
enough, but let me know if not (or file another bug).

Changed in malone:
status: Fix Committed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
James Westby (james-w) wrote : Re: [Bug 387731] Re: Too many mails on new bug-branch links for Ubuntu branches

On Wed, 2009-06-17 at 16:55 +0000, Gavin Panella wrote:
> A fix has been cherrypicked into production, so you'll hopefully see
> less email from bug-branch links (and unlinks, but that's not a
> problem for you I think).
>
> The fix suppresses mail when the bug has no open bug tasks, i.e. any
> that are not Invalid, Won't Fix, or Fix Released. I hope that's
> enough, but let me know if not (or file another bug).

Wow, quick work, thanks all. I'm sure this will be a big improvement,
and we'll monitor what happens from now on to see if there are any
other things we can do.

James

To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.
Subscribing...

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.