Documentation:Windows Section 6

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Bug Reports

Before submitting any bug reports to our forums, make sure that the bug is not already listed on our issue tracker on GitHub. Please remember that the POV-Ray users who provide assistance on our forums are volunteers who give their time for free so you can enjoy this program for no charge. Keep this in mind when wording your message.

Make sure that the subject of your report isn't already covered in this document. We also strongly recommend that you check out the online version of the POV-Ray Questions and Tips before submitting a report.

Bugs and GUI Extensions

If you have installed any GUI Extensions (or used any software that may have installed them), make sure you see if the problem exists with the extensions disabled and unloaded.

To do this, go to the GUI Extensions sub-menu of the Options menu, and deselect 'Use Extensions'. Then exit and restart POV-Ray for Windows. The GUI Extensions menu should then state 'No Extensions Loaded' (it may already do this if you've got none installed). Then attempt to duplicate the problem again.

Crash Upload Utility

In order to assist the team in tracking down crashes, Structured Exception Handling and mini-dump generation capabilities have been added. After an unhandled exception POVWIN will now offer the option of creating a mini-dump (brief or full) for submission either manually or via the crash upload utility which is installed with the program. If you want to draw immediate attention to a crash it is strongly recommended that you also post a comment in the povray.bugreports or povray.windows forum and provide the crash report ID supplied by the upload utility.

Bug Reporting via our Bug Tracking System

Bug reports may be lodged about POVWIN by using the issue tracker on GitHub. The issue tracker is monitored regularly by the POV-Ray development team and they will address any properly-lodged bug reports in the most timely manner possible.

You may like to remember, however, that no matter where you end up getting assistance from, users who show that they have looked in the documentation and read the POV-Ray Questions and Tips first, will be much more likely to receive the response they want than someone who obviously has not done their homework. It's also important to check that the bug hasn't already been reported - if it has, and is still open, don't add a new report - if you have relevant information not already in the existing report, consider adding a comment.

Any messages or reports sent to us may be re-posted in our forums, bug tracker, or our web site if we consider it appropriate to do so. We will in such cases of course remove any obvious identifying or personal information first.

You should not expect any reply to bug reports. If you wish to follow the progress of a bug, it's best to use the bug tracker (be sure to configure your account to receive notifications of replies to your bug). You can also request to be emailed when there are replies to an existing bug report.

The minimum information to include in your bug report is

1. The version number of POV-Ray for Windows. You can see this by selecting About from the Help Menu.
2. Your operating system. We need to know what version of Windows you are running.
3. Your computer ; what processor and how much memory.
4. A complete description of the problem and what led up to it. It will make it a lot easier to track a bug down if you can include a scene file that will cause the problem. If the file is large, try removing parts until you have the minimum scene file that will cause the problem.

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Speed Considerations

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