Do you want to be notified when a Bugzilla bug (bug or enhancement request) is updated? If so, read on. But, even if you do, if you are like most other developers you won’t want to be overwhelmed by automated emails. In Bugzilla, your options to manage your email notifications are numerous. Here is everything you need to know about configuring your Bugzilla account to send you notifications – but only when you want them!

Getting Started

In order to have Bugzilla notify you of any events, you must first have a Bugzilla account.

NOTE: If you do not already have a Bugzilla account, send an email to bugzilla-admin@basis.cloud indicating whether you need an account for the BBj database (BBj) or for the AddonSoftware/Barista database (AB) or both.You will receive a confirmation email with your login information and the URL of the corresponding systems.

Figure 1 lists the products in each Bugzilla database for which you might be entering bugs.

Figure 1. The list of BASIS products and the Bugzilla database in which they reside

The AB (AddonSoftware/Barista) Bugzilla database is located at bugs.basis.cloud, and the BBj Bugzilla database is located at bugzilla.basis.cloud.

Configuring Bugzilla Preferences

Once you are logged in to Bugzilla, you can configure Bugzilla to send you email notifications for a variety of conditions by setting your preferences. We are going to concentrate here on getting notifications when you are a member of a bug’s CC list, but you can also receive notifications for bugs for which you vote (for details on voter notifications, see the Knowledge Base article on Voting).

Figure 2. shows the main Bugzilla welcome screen with three hyperlinks, each of which will take you to the ‘User Preferences’ window. Click any of these three links.

Figure 2. The three links to ‘User Preferences’ on the welcome screen.

Select the ‘Email Preferences’ tab, and you will see the ‘Field/recipient specific options’ table shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3. The ‘Email Preferences’ for configuring email notifications

Notice the “CCed” column – if a row in that column is checked, you will receive an email notification when the condition in the column on the far right occurs and your email address is in the bug’s CC list. Mark or unmark the checkboxes in the “CCed” column as you desire, and click the [Submit Changes] button at the bottom of the window to save your choices. Now all that is left is to add yourself to the CC list for a bug.

Identifying a Bug of Interest

You can find bugs of interest to you by searching Bugzilla, using either the “Search” hyperlink or doing a simple text search from the [Search] button (see Figure 2 or Figure 4 to see the menu bar where both of those options reside). For help on searching, see Bugzilla’s Searching help page. Alternatively, you might receive a URL for a particular bug in an email or other communication (possibly in response to a tech support conversation or from discussing problems on the bbj-developer list). Either way, select the bug of interest to you.

Once you open a bug of interest, you will see the display shown Figure 4.

Figure 4. A Bugzilla bug

Are You Already in the CC List?

The first question you may ask on viewing a bug is, “Am I already in this bug’s CC list?” To answer that question, look at the right side of the bug display following the prompt “CC List:”. In Figure 4, you can tell that you are not already in the CC list because Bugzilla offers a checkbox to “Add me to CC list” (which it checks by default). If you were already in the list, you would see text similar to Figure 5 instead:

Figure 5. A bug where you are already in the CC List

Notice that in this case there is no checkbox to check to “add yourself”, as that is unnecessary.

Who Else Is in the CC List?

The next question you may ask is, “Who else is in the CC list for this bug?” To find out how many users are in the CC list, look once again at the prompt “CC List:”. In Figure 4, you can tell that there is one person other than yourself in the CC list because Bugzilla offers the text “1 user”. To see the full list, click the “edit” hyperlink there. Bugzilla will expand to show an “Add” list of available user emails that can be added (in the orange box in Figure 6), below which it will show a list of the addresses that are already in the CC list (in the green box in Figure 6).

Figure 6. Editing the CC List

This display can be somewhat confusing, as there is not much explanatory text present.

Adding Yourself to a CC List

The simplest way to add yourself to a bug’s CC list is to check the “Add me to CC list” box seen in Figure 4. Instead, however, if you are here, you can scroll in the “Add” list seen in Figure 6 and select your email address. Either way, be sure to click one of the [Save Changes] buttons to save your changes. If earlier you checked the “CCed” column’s “I’m added to or removed from this capacity” checkbox earlier, you should now receive an email indicating that you were added to the bug’s CC list.

Removing Yourself from a CC List

To remove yourself from a bug’s CC list, scroll in the lower list of email addresses seen in Figure 6 and select your email address. Then check the “Remove selected CCs” checkbox and click one of the [Save Changes] buttons to save your changes. If earlier you checked the “CCed” column’s “I’m added to or removed from this capacity” checkbox earlier, you should now receive an email indicating that you were removed from the bug’s CC list.