Weekly overview of the bug-hunting category- week 21, 2019

This is a report on the weekly contributions to the bug hunting category. The post contains basic stats like the number of contributions received by the category, an excerpt on new contributors if there are any and a detailed comparison of the week's output with previous weeks.

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Previous Reports

2018

2019

Bug hunting contributions summary

Week 21: May 16th - May 23rd

78 Contributions, 55 scored higher than 0
An average score of 63.07
17 unique contributors
No Staff Pick
No new contributors

Number of reviewed and rewarded contributions

Average score

Reports Reviewed By Reviewer

So this week we had a total of 78 contributions. That is exactly 100% more than what we had last week. This brought the average to 63.07, much higher than last week's average of 58.95. The average score reflects on the quality of reports reviewed this week as compared to last week. A greater percentage of the reports received were focused on minor features in the application, features that did not work as originally intended by the implementation. We had crash reports as well.

@darewealth had the most contributions. Bringing in 13 reports, two of these reports were scored higher than 80. There were multiple reports from other hunters as well. @asad44 and @facebok both submitted 11 reports.

Last week, the esteem app's version 2.10 had the most contributions. This week we have a new contender, Qurany. The project's repo had 12 reports.

Qurany is an Open Source Quran app that allows users to read and listen to audio verses from the holy Quran. In expressing his gratitude to the Utopian hunters, the project owner has listed their names on the readMe as the app testers

You can look up the repo by following this link - https://github.com/MahmoudMabrok/QuranyApp

Other project repos that stood out

If you are looking for new applications to explore, here are some repos that stood out this week

https://github.com/hoanghiephui/Bitcoin-Wallet - This project is based on the bitcoinj library. It is inspired by the Bitcoin Wallet. And comply with the license GPLv3. In the developers words -"Bitcoin Wallet is the cold wallet, it is the safest, and open source, for send and receive Bitcoin."
https://github.com/mathisdt/sdbviewer - The Song Database is a program to show lyrics on a digital projector for worship in a congregation. This app can display the data produced by Song Database if it is accessible via a URL (web address). It cannot be used for anything else, so if you don't use Song Database, this probably isn't for you!

Common Mistakes And How To Fix Them

I will be highlighting the common mistakes found this week, and I will be offering tips on how to avoid them in future contributions. The tips will depend solely on the scores received by the contributions in a particular week.

1. Contributions with a score below 40

The severity level of the bug was marked as negligible.

Submission of cosmetic or trivial UI issues (phone orientation, phone locking/unlocking etc.) that have a negligible effect on the functionality of the application may lead to a lower score of your contribution, thus reducing your chances of receiving a reward

If what you spotted is a discrepancy in the user interface or just the front end appearance of the software, then it is most probably a trivial bug and would be scored as such. So make sure to look out for this.
Also, there are times when a contribution is scored negligible because the expected behavior of a particular feature could still be achieved by a default option. For example - while some third party camera apps may not work when used for uploading within other applications (probably because the PATH for that particular cam app is not set), the default android cam works. It will be particularly stressful and redundant to have the project owner set a unique PATH for every cam application out there. This is one thing a contributor should look out for.

2. Contributions with a score below 60

The contributor made no efforts to pinpoint the cause, or applied incorrect methods in searching for it.

To avoid being scored in the questionnaire with this option, I will advise hunters to comb through the app's repo. Search the repo using a keyword related to the affected feature, it could be the name of the function itself. If found, analyze the block of code behind the function's implementation. Check for syntax and logical errors, document your findings.
You can attach logcats in your reports for issues that involve a crash. If you don't know to produce one, watch this tutorial for how to.

Other News

This is to inform contributors and the general public that while reports will be accepted to projects outside the whitelist, they will only be reviewed if the issue opened is acknowledged by the project owner or maintainer.

While the new guidelines are yet to be officially announced, bug-hunters and open source enthusiasts looking to help open source projects, please take a look at our whitelist of projects that you can submit bug reports for:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1S7ayFTEy5CBMyeJvFRgq5JUjlqZxFjWAWhhrBL0GC60/edit#gid=1954068373

If you wish to have your open source projects added to our whitelist you can contact us on our help channel at our discord server. You can also leave your questions and comments below :)

Thanks

@fego