Having problems with Distance?

If you are having problems with Distance, there are a few places to check to see if someone else has had your issue before:

  • First check the manual and the ReadMe.rtffile for your version of Distance carefully.
  • Search the GitHub Issue page of known problems. When searching for bugs, make sure to search both open and closed bugs, this can be done by removing all text from the search bar before searching.
  • If you have an older version of Distance you may wish to check the bug has not yet been resolved in the latest version.
  • You may want to check the archives of the distance-sampling e-mail list.

Once you have exhausted these possibilities, new bugs can be submitted on the Distance Github Issue page or to the distance-sampling e-mail list.

The Github Issues page for Distance

Reporting a bug using GitHub Issues

Before you can report a bug you will need to create an account with GitHub, this allows you to track the bugs you report and get updates on your bug via e-mail (note replying to GitHub Issue e-mails will post the response to the web and will be publicly visible, be careful not to reply with sensitive information).

Once you have joined, navigate to the Distance GitHub Issue page and press “New Issue” (pictured above). You will then be presented with the page shown below:

Github Issues submission page

Where you can enter a title (please be as descriptive as possible) and text/images describing the problem you’re having.

Some tips:

  • Please submit only one bug per report.
  • Try to construct an exact set of instructions showing what you did and what the problem is. If you can produce the error using on the example data sets that come with Distance, even better.
  • It’s possible to upload photos as part of an issue, this can make things much clearer and save on typing!
  • Inform us of any internationalisation setup on your computer (e.g. which language edition of Windows; which regional settings you’re using).
  • No bug is too trivial to report - small bugs may hide big bugs!

Not sure?

If you’re not sure if what you have is a bug, you can still submit an issue and we can advise you. Alternatively, you can send an e-mail to the distance-sampling e-mail list and we’ll try to help!