Just Fucking Send the Error Report

The Opening Punch

Something broke. You saw the error. You know exactly what happened. And instead of sending it to the developer, you said "it doesn't work" and waited for them to magically figure it out.

You are the reason bugs take forever to fix.

That stack trace on your screen? That's gold. That error message you screenshot and then kept to yourself? That's the exact information developers need. But you decided to play treasure hunt instead of sharing what you already found.

Hoarding error messages doesn't make you important. It makes you an obstacle.

The Lie You Tell Yourself

"They're the developer, they should be able to figure it out."

Figure out what? You gave them nothing. "It's broken" is not a bug report. It's a cry into the void. Developers aren't psychic. They can't debug your machine through telepathy.

"But I don't understand the technical stuff."

You don't have to understand it. You just have to copy and paste it. That wall of red text you dismissed? Screenshot it. That console error you ignored? Copy it. That popup you clicked away? Read it first.

Your job isn't to interpret the error. Your job is to not hide it.

The Reality Check

Here's what happens when you don't send the error:

• Developer asks: "What error did you see?" You say: "I don't remember, I closed it."
• Developer spends 2 hours trying to reproduce an issue that your screenshot would have explained in 2 seconds.
• Developer fixes something that wasn't the actual problem because they had to guess.
• The real bug stays in the codebase. It bites someone else. The cycle continues.
• Everyone's time is wasted. Including yours, because the bug isn't actually fixed.

The error message is the map to the treasure. You're burying it and then complaining that nobody found the treasure.

The Example That Hurts

The Slack message you sent:

"hey the thing isn't working"

What the developer has to ask:

• What thing?
• What were you doing?
• What did you expect to happen?
• What actually happened?
• Was there an error message?
• What browser/device?
• Can you reproduce it?

What you should have sent:

"Export PDF button throws this error:
TypeError: Cannot read property 'save' of undefined
at PDFExporter.js:47

Steps: Dashboard → Reports → Click Export PDF
Browser: Chrome 120, macOS
Screenshot attached"

That's it. That's a bug report. One message. Zero back-and-forth. Developer can start fixing immediately instead of playing 20 questions.

The Future You're Creating

Every time you hide an error, you're voting for slower fixes. You're telling developers that their time is worth less than your 30 seconds of copy-pasting.

Teams that share errors fix things fast. Teams where people say "it's broken" and nothing else? They drown in support tickets and mysterious bugs that nobody can reproduce.

You want better software? Be a better bug reporter. It's the lowest effort, highest impact thing you can do.

The Closing Hammer

When something breaks:

• Screenshot the error. All of it.
• Copy the error message text.
• Write what you were doing when it happened.
• Send it. Immediately. To the developer.

Don't summarize. Don't interpret. Don't assume they don't need it. Don't close the error dialog and pretend it didn't happen.

The error message is not your private property. It's the evidence that something is wrong. Hand it over.

Just fucking send the error report.