A ‘non-reproducible bug‘ is one such bug that occurs at a certain point of time or is triggered by a particular action. Which are not easy to trace or recreate or reproduce by the testers. Such bugs are hard to replicate later on can become a challenge for a tester to deal with.
What is a Non-Reproducible Bug
Non-reproducible bugs are the bugs which are not easy to reproduce. Hence, under same test steps under which they were found at first place. Thus, showing their presence once or in rare circumstances under test. These are the type of bugs which we often find harder to isolate and to get them fix becomes mundane task.
Hence ‘non-reproducible’ states that a bug may change as per a change in the test or work environment and therefore may not necessarily be reproduced.
Reasons Why Non-Reproducible Bugs Occur
- Let us say a bug appears during the installation of the software under particular operating system with specific memory.Same bug does not appear under another system with same operating system and memory. This is due to the fact that such bugs are often affected by current running processes and the libraries installed and under use in the memory.
- Some bugs also appear due to the memory location accessed outside the specific location. Or if the accessing the specific location is not possible under that particular instant due to operating system resource priorities.
- Some bugs also vanish outside the scope of the debugger. Once the debugger is turned off such bugs do not appear leaving us to assume the conflict happens with debugger tool or libraries.
- Another type of bug is specific to the environment changes in the operating system. Environment changes refer to the development libraries and also dependencies installed on the operating system.
- There are also some scenarios where few things affects in order for bug to appear. Let us say if the particular process in the operating system is not free and it makes the operating of particular software harder. In such case, if you try to reproduce the same steps then it becomes harder to find the bug again.
Ways to Reproduce Non-Reproducible Bugs
SnagIt Video Recorder
Use Video Capture mode to create a video recording of your screen. Snagit records on-screen activity on your Windows desktop. Capture all your mouse movements and application action then, save the video as an AVI file. You can also use Snagit to create time-lapse video of desktop activity over a period of time.
psr.exe
This tool is a simple but advanced variation of a screen capture software. Think of it as an automated “Print Screen” plus a little monkey in the background documenting all the mouse clicks. Also the key strokes, and gathers some technical reading material. Who then ties up everything in a neat box and saves the results. The neat little box you get is a zipped MHTML report page. Which can be sent off directly to the help desk.
HyperSnap
It is the fastest and easiest way to take screen captures from Windows screen. And text capture from places where system text copy is not possible. HyperSnap combines the power of a first-class screen capture application. With an advanced image editing utility, wrapped into one easy-to-use tool.
WebEx
With the WebEx recorders you can record everything that happens in a WebEx session; audio, video, chat conversations, notes, etc. If you want to change the recording, such as making it shorter. Or eliminating sections where nothing important is happening. If you save recordings to your WebEx service site, you can publish the recording on a Web page. Hence, others can play it or download it to their computer.
Record in VMWare
VMWare have capabilities to record the video of the guest machine. Be it either you want to capture a movie during boot up, or after the guest OS is already booted up and running.
In Conclusion
Focusing on non-reproducible bug demands a thoughtful approach and patience. It is a task that is to be carried out with a great deal of perseverance. Bug detection is to enable building a strong foundation for a quality end- product.