"Fixed an Issue..." annoyances of release notes.

[ebonjour]

Is it a Palo Alto requirement that all descriptions of addressed issues must start with "Fixed an issue"?

After reading through an exhaustive list of bug fixes it gets quite annoying.

Bigger issue though, is there a bug database that is searchable?  Current list of open bugs for a release or device?

[TranceforLife]

No, there is no public bug database serch. I also would like to be able to see any upcoming ufixed bugs wich were reported by customers on the newest PAN-OS 😄 But unfortunetly there is no way unless you raise the TAC case.

[ebonjour]

Another annoyance, why is there a single release note for a PanOS release? 

I could really care less about bugs on Panorama when I'm looking at issues currently impacting my PA-220.  Fixed bugs should be broken up into categories, right now its just jumbled mess.

[TranceforLife]

Yeah l know. l use Ctrl +F 😄

[BPry]

@ebonjour,

I've raised the issue of not having open bugs and open feature request databases open to the public for a while now and I don't think it's something they are changing anytime soon; but it's a massive sour point within the community. 

As far as the release notes goes it really depends on what gear you're running. I wouldn't want a device specific release note document because I have multiple different platforms that I would have to download individual release notes for instead of just reading through the one document. In the case of someone having just a single device I can see where it would be an advatage though. 

[ebonjour]

I don't think different documents are needed, just different subsections for device specific bugs.

[BPry]

@ebonjour,

Missed that part, I thought you wanted different documents all together. That would actually be kind of nice, as you could reference the sections that you actually care about. 

[BPry]

@ebonjour,

To throw a little bit more info at the 'open bug' issue I actually can speak to that a little bit. 

The issue with publishing an 'open' or 'investigating' bug list to the public is that until the bug is actively identified, tested, reproducable, and really fixed there isn't any guarentee what the bug actually is for certain. So if the bug isn't out of an 'investigative' stage publishing information about the bug could cause people to self diagnos the issue incorrectly and stops the engineers from gathering any more 'real-world' scenarios about the bug. 

The known bugs that have been verified and just haven't been fixed yet before the next maintenance release are supposed to be published in the release notes in the Known Issues section. This is really Palo Alto's 'open bug' list that is available to customers; obviously the downside to this is that the document is only updated at the release of a new maintenance release to the best of my knowledge, so you could potentially be missing known issues not present in the document yet. 

I'm all for an 'open bug' list as it at the very least would tell us if an issue we are facing could even potentially be caused by a known bug. From a Palo Alto perspective though this means that customers could be self-diagnosis issues that closely relate to an already open bug, but they don't actually line up exactly so they aren't fixed come the next maintenance release. They also get less 'real-world' information that could help them pinpoint the process of why the bug is happening.  

[ebonjour]

@BPry,

I totally understand the point you are trying to make and maybe some people will not open tickets after finding open bugs in database.  I can say from using Cisco's bug search tool I have found many bugs that I have hit along the years, but everytime I then opened a ticket to confirm that I was in fact hitting that bug.  I do it for more of a CYA than trying to help the investigation.

With the current method of how Palo Alto is providing bug notices, I have to search through high 100s of notices if I am behind a couple releases.  Most of the time if this issue is minor I'd rather poke myself in the eye repeatedly than to open a case with Palo Alto (but thats another issue).  Maybe I should just pull out all of the bug fixes from the release notes in put them in my own database to search.

[BPry]

@ebonjour,

I get that, but most people wouldn't actually engadge TAC after they have 'found' the bug. We could have a whole different discussion on TAC support, and why I don't think people are contacting them, but that's a bigger issue 😉

[TranceforLife]

I must  agree with all points 🙂

[nextgenhappines]

@ebonjour

1.  Send an email to your local Palo Alto Networks sales team to requst them to esclate internal.  I hope they will listen.   It may take a while, it is better to be late than never?  

E