… so that we have a chance to reproduce it.

In the end of the day, developers can only fix bugs they can analyze or see. This is especially valid for video bugs.

If you encounter a video bug, like e.g. video flickers, shows green or purple blotches, does not play at all, shows an error message, please fill out the https://vivaldi.com/bugreport/ form in the following way:

Affected product *: select Vivaldi browser

Type of issue *: select Problem / Defect

Summary *: This is a misnomer, it is actually the headline we see in the Bugtracker and the space is limited. A short description in one sentence. Please don’t try to make the sentence longer than absolutely needed, because everything that is too long gets cut off.

Example of a good Summary

Video on Youtube shows purple stripes / freezes / shows error message

Example of not really helpful summary

Lately, when I was visiting my grandmother and we wanted to watch videos on her Vivaldi, while the cat was sleeping on the sofa, I saw that sometimes (I hope you get the point by now, and yes, we have got such bug reports in the past)

URL where it occurred, if relevant: This is a crucial info, when it comes to video bugs. Enter the exact url to one page where the bug happens and where it always happens for you.

Example of an exact URL

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feGKcVUjj0s

Examples of unusable URLs
because those sites play videos for us just fine. We can not visit all pages of e.g. Youtube to find all of the videos that don’t work, our lifespan is not long enough for that.

https://www.youtube.com/
twitter.com
https://www.facebook.com
twitch.tv

You can add other exact urls in the following field:

Describe in steps how to reproduce the bug: This is the most important part. Here goes all of the information for how to trigger the bug. Split it into small chunks that we can follow step by step. Please include the video settings. Additional info goes here too. Try to format it like this and please include the dashes in front of the steps:

- open https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=feGKcVUjj0s 
- switch to 1080p / 60 Hz 
  (important because the site might deliver 
   different formats on different resolutions)
- click on the fullscreen button in the video
- stop the video
- leave fullscreen again

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GPU: Nvidia 1060 (important!)
Driver version: (if you know it)

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Does it work in older versions of Vivaldi or other browsers?
(list here)

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Settings you have changed in the browser (like hardware acceleration)
blocking extensions you use (like uBlock)
audio and video related extensions you use

If you can, try to confirm if it works with a clean profile or with the latest Snapshot. You can install it in parallel to your regular install as a Stand alone Version of Vivaldi to avoid clashes.

What did you expect to happen *: Here goes the description what should have happened when you performed the steps:

- the page should open
- the video goes to fullscreen
- the video should stop
- the video returns to normal view

What had actually happened *: Well …

After stopping the video and leaving fullscreen
the video showed purple stripes

Apart from the Email (Only used if we need to ask for info regarding this bug) * and answering the security question at the end of the form you don’t need to change the other fields if you report the bug with the Vivaldi Browser where the bug occurred, otherwise be as exact as you can.

The email address should be valid if you want to receive the automatic confirmation mail from the bug tracking system, which includes the VB-#### number. You can reply to that mail and even send attachments with additional info (if needed), some of it being the following:

Info about your video settings and GPU

• Type vivaldi://gpu into the address-bar and hit Enter
• Press the “Copy Report to Clipboard” button at the top
• Open a text editor of your choice and paste it and store it as e.g. vivaldi-gpu-info.txt
• If possible: Zip it
• Attach it to the mail

In case of a browser or tab crash (dead bird, black or gray screen)

• type vivaldi://about/ into the address-bar and press Enter
• Look for the Profile Path and open that path in your OS file manager
• In the profile folder or in the containing User Data folder should be a folder named crashpad
• Open the reports folder inside of the crashpad folder
• If there is a crash report with the same timestamp when the latest crash happened, zip it (if possible) and attach it to the mail
• Please do not send any other reports that are in that folder, they are unrelated.

Some additional info in case of extensions (optional, if not too much, you can copy it into the Steps field)

• Type vivaldi://system/ into the address-bar and hit Enter
• Click on “expand all”
• Copy the right column of the “extensions” row to the clipboard
• Open a text editor of your choice and paste it and store it as e.g. vivaldi-extensions-info.txt
• If possible: Zip it
• Attach it to the mail

Thank You for reading through all of this! It might sound complicated and tedious, but it helps us a lot to analyze what went wrong – and we can only fix bugs we can analyze.

Thank You for your time and using Vivaldi!

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(Title photo by Chris Murray on Unsplash, cropped to fit here)