[Design] The Bugzilla hickup problem

[Philippe Bossut]

Hi,

A number of us are creating bugs and, on a regular basis, some bugs seem 
to be replicated in a serie of identical records that I call "hickups" 
when resolving them as dupes. This is regularly affecting some reporters 
more than others and we were wondering why.

This morning, I did something that created such a hickup: I created a 
bug, then, I clicked "reload" in the Safari toolbar before adding extra 
info. This created a new record, identical to the previous one. I 
suspect that some actions in some browsers are interpreted as a 
resubmission of the "new bug" form and therefore create dupes. Could be 
the case with the Back button as well (though I haven't tested that 
theory...).

Workaround: when creating bugs, it seems safer to only use the links 
provided by the Bugzilla web interface itself. Avoid using the browser 
features (reload, back, etc...) to navigate between bugs, especially 
recently created ones. When adding to a newly created bug for instance, 
use the "Go Back to <xyz>" link at the top of the page, even if it seems 
silly (since this is where you are already).

Bugzilla specialists may confirm the story. In the meantime, if we could 
prevent unplanned dupes, that'd be great.

Cheers,
- Philippe