Why is Zimbra so buggy?

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Originally Posted by nrc

Since the OP wants to complain but can't be bothered to do anything about it, I've submitted Bug 37496 - Searching for specific size message does not work

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Thanks. My worry is if I post a few dozen bugs, they will generate too many requests for more info, some of which I can't answer since I don't have access to the back-end.

Edit: Also, Bugzilla seems like a bit of a black hole for some issues, so why spend a lot of time logging bugs if might never be fixed. For example, I need a calendar reminder to have a high probability of reminding me... which means it has to be in the operating system not hidden in a browser window. Bug #7899 is almost 3 years old. Random bit of poking in Bugzilla: #444 is almost 4 1/3 years old

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Originally Posted by nrc

Of the things mentioned, that's really the only bug, ie something that doesn't work as intended because of a programming error. The others are simply features that work as programmed, but maybe not as you would expect or prefer.

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I think some of the others are bugs. For example, if the help says if you do "x" that "y" will happen, and for 9 cases out of 10 it is true. Then to me the 10th case is a bug, not an enhancement.

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Originally Posted by nrc

The other two items point out problems with Zimbra, but they don't indicate lousy programmers or no QA.

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In production code, bugs should be hard to find, not easy.

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Originally Posted by nrc

The first is a problem of maturity. Zimbra Collaboration Suite is just over three years old. They have not yet progressed to the point where everything is as complete and consistent as it needs to be. Progress has been rapid, but there is still work to be done.

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I'd rather Zimbra didn't have tasks, and documents and the briefcase and the desktop client and whatever, if it meant the core product was better.

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Originally Posted by nrc

The second is that sometimes Zimbra lets their own point of view on the way email should work dictate what features they implement or how. On the column sort question, some within Zimbra might respond (as they have in bugzilla) that users should use search instead of sorting.

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I do like the advanced search a lot (except for the bugs). Nevertheless, having gotten the, say 20, search results, I'd still like to be able to sort by tag or attachment or priority and deal with the search results in an orderly manner.

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Originally Posted by nrc

They've had similar blind spots with things like message priority and return receipts.

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The calendar seems to be a blind spot, too. Particularly around reminders. It's so bad that I'm forced to use the Outlook Connector to ensure I have a useful calendar.

Thanks for your reply. I've only been using Zimbra for a relatively short time, and I was hoping for some insight from people who knew more about the product and its history than I.

Thanks for sharing those. I had a look through the list and tried a couple using Safari 3 (Mac).

#6 is there in my install of 5.0.12 NE. (Note that Shift-C does compose in new window.)

However #14 isn't quite as severe to me. If I hit refresh within Zimbra after printing, the notes reappear even if I've previously saved the (apparently) empty note--unless I type into it before saving. Appears to be Bug 35341 - Appointment loses notes when attempting to print from day view, in the advanced client.

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Originally Posted by ewilen

However #14 isn't quite as severe to me. If I hit refresh within Zimbra after printing, the notes reappear even if I've previously saved the (apparently) empty note--unless I type into it before saving. Appears to be Bug 35341 - Appointment loses notes when attempting to print from day view, in the advanced client.

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Did you try changing the time, subject, location, reminder, etc. while the note is blank then saving? Just clicking save probably doesn't save it since nothing has changed.

I didn't before, but I just repeated the experiment and changed the "show as" from "busy" to "out of office" before saving. Sure enough, the notes were gone for good.

But this really belongs in bugzilla...

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Originally Posted by edwin.arneson

I believe it is the Network Edition.

If I had a few weeks of spare time, then I'd be happy to be posting bugs to Bugzilla. At the moment it's not the case, though I suppose I should take the time to log the data loss bugs I've encountered.

How do I expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Well, I'd like to think that Zimbra actually does testing on their product. I can't imagine all these issues are site specific and many are really obvious--hence my original question asking for opinions as to why the bugs are there.

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The only way products improve is if any problems and feature requests are identified and reported, the bugzilla system is for that purpose. Filing entries in bugzilla will get the attention of developers and every bug report and RFE is read and prioritised.

Yes, of course, Zimbra is tested and put through QA before release but to state the obvious - no software package will be 100% bug free and some bugs do not appear until real-world usage.

If you're using the NE version you'll have a support contract and are entitled to contact Zimbra for help with any problems you're experiencing, you should have a member of staff (your manager perhaps?) that has access to the Support Portal ti file support cases. If you've suffered a bug hat's causing you a problem (you mentioned a problem with data loss) you can contact Zimbra support for help in resolving it or finding the cause - without feedback any problems you encounter in the product will go unresolved.

edwin.arneson thank you for the list of issues you have seen. As a few people have mentioned, it is by providing items like these that a software gets better.

God Bless,
Marty

Here's the rest of them. One more data loss bug (66).
Some of the erratic search results (61), (62), (63), (72), (73), and (74) make the otherwise useful tool very annoying.
I've also come across a few errors in the help that aren't listed here.

57) If you happen to have a string you want to search for (which you might happen to copy and paste) and it happens to contain a ":" character, you get the cryptic message "Unable to parse the search query."
58) The Advanced search appears to have been designed for searching e-mail messages, and left unchanged for the other categories. Hence, while better than nothing, the result is cluttered and less than ideal (or even less than useful). For instance, the Folders filter is useless for other categories of items. Also, the Basic filter contains fields irrelevant for other categories, plus, there is no apparent way to search specific fields that are relevant to other categories. In the case of the Date filter in the Tasks category, it apparently appears to act on the created or modified date while tasks would benefit from searching by due date.
59) Search/All Item Types just below "Logout" is says the page is displaying, for example, items "1 - 6." But wait, I only have three items in the list. Where are the other three items? It doesn't bother to show calendar items in the search results list view. Is this a bug? Yes. If it wasn't a bug, the button would say "All Items Types Except Appointments."
60) Search/All Items Types. Suppose my search result returns 200 items of which 180 of them are calendar items, and I have Zimbra set up to display 100 items per page. The search results are displayed in date order so depending on where the calendar items fall in the date order the result count may say 1-100 and I'll actually see between 0 and 20 items. Whatever items that aren't visible on the first page will be displayed on the second page where the result count will say 101-200. And, of course, one or the other page can be completely blank.
61) If I try to search for messages that have the subject of the form "<printer name> Accounting for <mon>, <yyyy>" using 'subject:"Accounting for"' I don't get the expected results. I get all messages containing "Accounting" in the subject.
62) I have a bunch of e-mail messages that have the subject of the form "issues 0000xxx" (where xxx are digits). I would always expect "issues 000*" to always be >= 'subject:"issues 000*"'. However while 'subject:"issues 000*"', 'subject:"issues 00*"', 'subject:"issues 0*"', and '"issues 000*"' are OK. '"issues 00*"' and '"issues 0*"' return 0 results.
63) I have a couple of files in my briefcase named fish.gif and fist.gif. If I search for fi* then both documents will be found, a search for f* will find neither document, and a search for subject:f* will find both documents.
64) Inter-suite inconsistency--Search All Item Types. A string which will return items of all types. (Note: a table in list format.)
...Mail
...---can be flagged & unflagged
...---can be tagged & untagged
...---identifies itself as Message
...Address Book
...---can be flagged & unflagged
...---can be tagged & untagged
...---identifies itself as Contact
...Calendar
...---don't appear in the search result
...---don't appear in the search result
...---don't appear in the search result
...Tasks
...---can be flagged & unflagged
...---can be tagged & untagged
...---identifies itself as Task
...Documents
...>>>can be flagged & unflagged, but if you leave an item flagged, the next time it is in the search list, it can't be flagged/unflagged and doesn't appear as being flagged
...---can be tagged & untagged
...>>>does not identify itself
...Files
...>>>can not be flagged & unflagged even though it seems like they can
...>>>can be tagged & untagged but the change is not displayed until a refresh occurs
...>>>does not identify itself
65) Inter-suite inconsistency--Search All Item Types. A string which will return items of all types. Behaviour of the delete, move and print items in the right-click pop-up menu. (Note: a table in list format.)
...Application
...---Delete
...---Move
...---Print
...Mail
...---moves item to Trash
...---moves item to Mail folder
...---prints item
...Address Book
...---moves item to Trash
...>>>greyed out
...---prints item
...Calendar
...---don't appear in the search result
...---don't appear in the search result
...---don't appear in the search result
...Tasks
...>>>deletes item, but if you did the delete action when in Tasks or searching only tasks, you'd get a warning that the item will be permanently deleted, here, it's permanently deleted with no warning
...>>>moves item to Mail folder... which doesn't seem right; if you navigate to the Mail folder that you moved an item to, the item will not be visible, but the folder pop-up says the item is there; if you search to find the item and edit it you can change its folder to a Task folder, but the content will have been deleted and the "Start Date" is set to the current date
...---prints item
...Documents
...>>>ungreyed but does nothing
...---greyed out
...>>>prints what ever happens to be the current state of the Documents application (notebook table of contents or document)
...Files
...>>>ungreyed but does nothing
...>>>moves item to Mail folder... which doesn't seem right; if you navigate to the Mail folder that you moved an item to, the item will not be visible, but the folder pop-up says the item is there; if you search to find the item using "All Item Types" it can be found, but it is otherwise orphaned in the Mail folder; Note that you can now delete it from mail (first to the Trash then permanently) but the list doesn't auto-refresh
...>>>does nothing
66) Data loss bug. Search for a task (pick one with a non-blank body and a start date that is not today) with the search pick-list set to "Tasks." The task will appear as expected in the search result. Set the search pick-list to "All Item Types" and there it is again in the search results. Open the task and the body will be blank and the start date will be set to today... save the task and the body will be lost. Instead of opening the task, try printing it... the body is there and the start date is correct. Now open the task and now the body is there and the start date is correct.
67) One of the search operators listed on https://email.sfu.ca/zimbra/help/en_...escription.htm is "filename:" and it is also available via the Advanced search button. This search operator will not produce any results.
68) Zimbra is massaging the display information such that the To: field appears to contain something that is searchable whereas in fact it isn't searchable (i.e. it displays information from your Contacts that don't actually exist in your e-mail).
69) Right clicking on the To: field value and selecting "Search" from the pop-up list will do a from:([e-mail_address]) search instead of the expected to:([e-mail_address]) search.
70) Random search display behaviour when deleting items. Do an e-mail search which finds Trash and non-Trash items. Select them all and delete them. Zimbra does the right thing... it moved the items not in the trash into the trash, and the items in the trash get deleted permanently. But, the search display is updated, apparently, randomly... you have to search again for the display to be correct. If perchance one of the items remaining on the list was actually deleted and you try to do an operation on that item will be unceremoniously dumped into the Inbox (I'm not sure this is an improvment over the recent behaviour of an error stack).
71) More random search-display behaviour when deleting items. If you have a search result with, say, 100 items, and you delete items in position 49, 50, and 51, Zimbra will always select an e-mail message to highlight. Typically, in this example, it will be message in position 49, but it could be 50, 51 if the checkboxes were used to select messages and the last box checked is considered by Zimbra to be the "current" position. However, occasionally, and usually if a large number of messages is selected (but this behaviour has been observed with the deletion of as few a 4 messages) the entire window will go blank then redraw, and the message highlighted isn't one of the expected ones and might inexplicably be dozens of messages away.
72) The from: search operator is documented on the help page (https://email.sfu.ca/zimbra/help/en_...escription.htm). One of the options is 'a domain such as "zimbra.com".' What isn't clear is, given a e-mail address like sun.microsystems@mail.communications.sun.com is if "mail.communications.sun.com" is a host or a domain, but one would expect "communications.sun.com" to be a domain. Given a folder containing messages from sun.microsystems@mail.communications.sun.com, none of the following searches work: from:mail.communications.sun.com, from:communications.sun.com, from:sun.com and from:com.
73) I have some e-mail messages with the string "op-cmc1" in them. And if I search for "op-cmc1" then I find the messages I expect. However, if I try to suffix search for them, "op-cmc*" then then none of the messages found by the previous search are found. But not only does it not find the records I expect it to find, it does find these strings: "op cmcabcd", "op cmc1", "op--cmcx", "op-cmcy", and "op!!cmc1". So whereas in the first search, the hyphen was not being treated as a whitespace character, suddenly when I do a wildcard search, the hyphen is a whitespace character and, hence, any whitespace characters are matched (*e.g. " ", "!!", "--"). But it gets stranger.... Even though "op-cmc*" appears to be a request to search for a phrase (in other circumstances, where a search is of the form "word partword*" Zimbra only phrase matches) in this specific case, Zimbra has also suddenly not done the expected content:"op-cmc*" search, it has, in fact, done a content:(op AND cmc*) search.
74) Message with "architect" in the subject. These subject searches always return records and always find the specific record: a* ar* arc* arch* archi* archit* archite* architec* architect*. The content search results vary: a* 0 results, ar* 24 results but not found, arc* 11 results but not found, arch* 382 results but not found, archi* 0 results, archit* 672 records and found, archite* 672 records and found, architec* 672 records and found, architech* 670 records and found.
75) Mail allows you to specify the folder to save a saved-search to, while none of the other 5 applications do.
76) All the applications save searches to a default folder... normally the Search folder, but if you save a search in Mail to a different folder, all the other applications will then save their searches to that other folder.
77) If you save a search in Mail to a folder other than Search, then next time you save a search, both the Search folder and the other folder will be highlighted, however, the search does get saved only to the other folder.
78) If you save a search to the Search folder, the Search folder appears in the left-hand list for Mail, Address Book, Calendar, and Tasks, but not Documents and Briefcase.
79) If you save a search to the Search folder, the saved search will appear in the left-hand list under Search for Mail, Address Book, Calendar, and Tasks until you logout/login, then only that application's searches will appear.
80) If you save a search to any other folder, then that folder will only appear in Mail and Address Book, but rather than only showing the application's saved searches, it shows all saved searches.
81) Given that neither Documents nor Briefcase have a Search folder in the left-hand list, how do you execute a Briefcase or Documents saved search? They don't show up in Advanced search. Given that the appear to be invisible, one would suppose they are undeletable, too.
82) Search field contents deleted in Calendar. In any application enter a search string and select any other application except "Appointments." Perform the search and Zimbra switches to the specified application, displays the search result, and displays the search command in the search box. However, if you select "Appointments" the switch to Calendar application will result in a blank search box.
83) Normally if you are displaying a particular application and you do a search for items belonging to another application, Zimbra switches to that application when it displays the search result. After doing a bunch of searches, Zimbra seems to stop being able to switch to the Briefcase (although the browser's title bar does get updated correctly).
84) Login to Zimbra and perform an "All Item Types" search. Nothing happens.

Inter-suite inconsistency
85) In 3 out of 4 applications, the Save button closes the item. In Documents, the item does not close. Note: Solution in Outlook is the button says what it does--"Save and Close".
86) Mail and Address Book allow setting the folder hierarchy during folder creation and changing folder hierarchy by dragging. Tasks does not allow setting the folder hierarchy during folder creation. Documents and Briefcase do not allow changing folder hierarchy by dragging.
87) Mail, AB, Cal, and Tasks allow clicking for item for contextual menu. Documents does not.
88) Mail, AB, and Tasks allow printing form the contextual menu. Calendar does not.
89) Colourize folder during creation. No: Mail. Yes: AB, Cal, Tasks, Documents, Briefcase.
90) Folder colour visible on items a folder contains. No: Mail, Tasks, Documents, Briefcase. Yes: AB, Cal.
91) Has a Trash. No: Cal, Tasks, Docs, Briefcase. Yes: Mail, AB.
92) Having Mail and Address Book share a Trash folder is a little odd... no other folder is shared across applications. So even though the folder is shared, the view of the Trash is different... in Mail you see Mail items, and in Address Book you see Address book items. But then, while the view is partitioned, if you mouse-over the Trash folder, it shows the total number of items and the total space occupied.

Mail/Address Book
93) If you have an Address Book entry that matches the To or From field in an e-mail message, then Zimbra will display that value instead of the actual value contained in the e-mail message. Unfortunately this action extends to contacts in the Trash and if the contact in the trash has the same e-mail address as a contact that is not in the Trash, then Zimbra may choose to use the trashed contact over the non-trashed contact.

Shortcuts
94) You get no feedback when a move (.) or tag (t) shortcut executes, which isn't ideal (and, in fact, is kind of lousy), but can really bite you when the hazardous behaviour is encountered. Zimbra does a good job of identifying a sequence of key strokes as a shortcut. For example, you can type a long shortcut, t12345, and it will execute t12345 and not other similar ones you have defined like t1234, t123, t12, and t1. The hazardous behaviour is thus: even though the timing of a particular sequence is met, if the longer sequence doesn't match a shortcut, a shorter sequence that does match will be executed. For example, suppose you have t1234 and you thought you added the t12345 sequence, or you did have it at one point, but deleted it, whenever you type t12345, the sequence t1234 will execute in its place. Not what you want to have happen!

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Originally Posted by phoenix

If you're using the NE version you'll have a support contract and are entitled to contact Zimbra for help with any problems you're experiencing, you should have a member of staff (your manager perhaps?) that has access to the Support Portal ti file support cases. If you've suffered a bug hat's causing you a problem (you mentioned a problem with data loss) you can contact Zimbra support for help in resolving it or finding the cause - without feedback any problems you encounter in the product will go unresolved.

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My personal experience is that the support contract is nearly worthless when it comes to bugs. We've logged a number of bugs in Bugzilla (35001, 35005, 35007, 35126, 35370), then contacted support to see if they could be addressed, and the response I received was "As per our support policy,we wait for 7 days before closing any case. Although in this case, i was not waiting for any further input from you. I will be closing this case now."

Asked that, "Please do not close this, the 5 bugs that I logged as part of it are NOT resolved and need to be addressed."

Response from support was: "Development and fixing will take its own course of time. Open or close support ticket will not have any effect on the development part."

Great. At times I wish I could respond to my users like that, but I know better.

Sadly, the survey on my support experience showed up while I was on vacation, I had only seven days to respond to it, and by the time I tried to - it had expired. "Yahoo! Zimbra Support would appreciate your feedback" - I doubt it at this point.

In what ended up a rather uncomfortable situation, I'd offered to give out local LUG a presentation on Zimbra shortly after we switched, and while still on a Zimbra-high, as well as before I'd had this support experience. This experience resulted in interesting discussion among the people attending the meeting - other Zimbra customers and many that were considering it.

I have similar lists of problems from our users, but I'm hesitant to waste the time entering the information into Bugzilla if this is how items that are real bugs are addressed.

Rich

Perhaps these issues could be addressed by speaking to a account manager @ Zimbra ?

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Originally Posted by rharms

My personal experience is that the support contract is nearly worthless when it comes to bugs. We've logged a number of bugs in Bugzilla (35001, 35005, 35007, 35126, 35370), then contacted support to see if they could be addressed, and the response I received was "As per our support policy,we wait for 7 days before closing any case. Although in this case, i was not waiting for any further input from you. I will be closing this case now."

Asked that, "Please do not close this, the 5 bugs that I logged as part of it are NOT resolved and need to be addressed."

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It is only the support case that's closed, the bug reports remain open and will be worked on. Of the bugs you've file one of the is (currently) unconfirmed, one of them is targeted to be implemented in the next but one major release and the remaining reports are confirmed as bugs. They will be addresses in time depending on their severity. If you're expecting bugs to be resolved immediately you report them then that's not what happens, they will go through triage, an assessment of the severity will be made and then will be targeted for a particular release - it is part of the normal development cycle for the product.

BTW, to givbe it added weight you should vote on bugs that have filed and are interested in getting resolved.