The normal place to report bugs is http://bugs.mysql.com/, which is the address for our bugs database. This database is public, and can be browsed and searched by anyone. If you log in to the system, you will also be able to enter new reports.

If you find a sensitive security bug in MySQL Server, please let us know immediately by sending an email message to <secalert_us@oracle.com> . Exception: Support customers should report all problems, including security bugs, to Oracle Support at http://support.oracle.com/.

Writing a good bug report takes patience, but doing it right the first time saves time both for us and for yourself. A good bug report, containing a full test case for the bug, makes it very likely that we will fix the bug in the next release.

This section will help you write your report correctly so that you do not waste your time doing things that may not help us much or at all.

If you have a repeatable bug report, please report it to the bugs database at http://bugs.mysql.com/. Any bug that we are able to repeat has a high chance of being fixed in the next MySQL release.

To report other problems, you can use one of the MySQL mailing lists.

Remember that it is possible for us to respond to a message containing too much information, but not to one containing too little. People often omit facts because they think they know the cause of a problem and assume that some details do not matter.

A good principle is this: If you are in doubt about stating something, state it. It is faster and less troublesome to write a couple more lines in your report than to wait longer for the answer if we must ask you to provide information that was missing from the initial report.

The most common errors made in bug reports are (a) not including the version number of Connector/J or MySQL used, and (b) not fully describing the platform on which Connector/J is installed (including the JVM version, and the platform type and version number that MySQL itself is installed on).

This is highly relevant information, and in 99 cases out of 100, the bug report is useless without it. Very often we get questions like, "Why doesn't this work for me?" Then we find that the feature requested wasn't implemented in that MySQL version, or that a bug described in a report has already been fixed in newer MySQL versions.

Sometimes the error is platform-dependent; in such cases, it is next to impossible for us to fix anything without knowing the operating system and the version number of the platform.

If at all possible, create a repeatable, standalone testcase that doesn't involve any third-party classes.

To streamline this process, we ship a base class for testcases with Connector/J, named 'com.mysql.jdbc.util.BaseBugReport'. To create a testcase for Connector/J using this class, create your own class that inherits from com.mysql.jdbc.util.BaseBugReport and override the methods setUp(), tearDown() and runTest().

In the setUp() method, create code that creates your tables, and populates them with any data needed to demonstrate the bug.

In the runTest() method, create code that demonstrates the bug using the tables and data you created in the setUp method.

In the tearDown() method, drop any tables you created in the setUp() method.

In any of the above three methods, use one of the variants of the getConnection() method to create a JDBC connection to MySQL:

If you need to use a JDBC URL that is different from 'jdbc:mysql:///test', override the method getUrl() as well.

Use the assertTrue(boolean expression) and assertTrue(String failureMessage, boolean expression) methods to create conditions that must be met in your testcase demonstrating the behavior you are expecting (vs. the behavior you are observing, which is why you are most likely filing a bug report).

Finally, create a main() method that creates a new instance of your testcase, and calls the run method:

public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {      new MyBugReport().run(); }

Once you have finished your testcase, and have verified that it demonstrates the bug you are reporting, upload it with your bug report to http://bugs.mysql.com/.