The current handling of reports in the “Catalog Asset Bugs” category is less than ideal

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#16

I was nice at the start of making this request, but I’m going to be very frank after waiting for a month now. I’m very disappointed; The lack of response to my questions and this request is unacceptable and embarrassing. I hope some higher-ups have seen this request.

I’m afraid that this request was immediately disregarded as “low impact” even though I mentioned precedents that have been possibly set that will impact reports in the category. Users are wasting their time and the team’s time by reporting issues that are considered obsolete. I hope that those precedents have genuine reasons to support them and aren’t just phony excuses to close reports in order to reduce the backlog (doing this just looks lazy).

Overall, I’m very concerned by incompetence. From seeing the backlog, it’s obvious that there are issues with the handling of these reports. I understand that high impact issues are often prioritized over low impact issues; However, I think there should be a decent balance between triaging both. As minor issues build up over time, addressing them will only become more overwhelming. Additionally, the lack of response to my questions and this request explains a lot about the current condition of the category. If a well written request can’t even be answered in a timely manner (i.e., 1-2 weeks), then how can it be expected that the backlog of reports in the category will be eventually addressed?

Hooksmith has done all he can do. It’s the team(s) assigned to the category turn to acknowledge this request and make improvements for the better.

As a side note, isn’t it ironic that the criticism in this request hasn’t been addressed? It appears that the team(s) involved with this category dislike criticism. Let’s be open to criticism and not be stubborn. Don’t be scared of me, I just want answers.

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#17

I agree, I don’t appreciate the radio silence, pretending to ignore the problem and hoping that we will go away just isn’t appropriate.

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#18

Hi. I’m getting caught up on this particular thread and will help get the right people in the conversation as well.

Just to provide some internal context, as much as I can.
There’s definitely no internal effort to try and silence any criticism or not address it. Nor is there any attempt to ignore it and hope it goes away.

To my knowledge there’s also not been any explicit de-prioritizing of any category of bugs or feedback.

There’s been a lot of growth at the company that in some cases has complicated ownership and processes around various reporting channels. Just growing pain stuff, not intentional.
I can very much appreciate that it’s frustrating in addition to having bad optics, but we don’t take that lightly and are focused on trying to make the whole platform and ecosystem better wherever we can.

There’s a lot of disparate asset types at this point in time and some of those have some deep roots in various systems across the platform, so it’s not always trivial or even straightforward to resolve some bugs, especially if it involves data structures or other functionality exposed to devs or is tied to other internal functionality that would hurt backwards compatibility (again, speaking generally in case that context is helpful to understand why some things seemingly take forever).

All of that being said, I’m sorry this has been frustrating for you and we do appreciate the honesty.

Staff will follow up regarding the skimmers.

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Some gears break r15 idle animations on thumbnails
#20

I really appreciate the transparency in your response, but will staff follow up soon? I believe the handling of this category will become more efficient if the issues mentioned in this thread are addressed. Currently, this response appears to be all talk, no action because it’s been almost a month since a follow up(s) from staff was promised. I hope this is being actively discussed internally, and that’s why there hasn’t been a response yet.

Just to reiterate, here are the main questions that I have besides the problems mentioned in the OP.

  1. Does this category still cover issues with accessories in terms of aesthetics?
  2. Are issues with an accessory’s position considered obsolete due to the planned revamp to the Avatar Editor for custom positioning, scaling, and rotating of accessories?
  3. Is it a requirement to own the catalog asset in order to report issues with it?
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#21

It’s been over 2 months since my last reply, and staff have yet to provide a follow up or update on this request. Although the staff member who last posted on this thread seemed to have good intentions, it appears that they’re inactive on the forum. Can I please receive an update on this request?

Just to confirm, some of the issues that were mentioned in the OP are still occurring. For example, this report about the incorrect naming of specific accessories is currently marked as “Fixed” despite the names still being incorrect. This has been pointed out on that report, but staff haven’t followed up yet.

Also, when can we expect old reports in this category to be addressed? Right now, it appears that only new reports are being addressed. As Alpkurt2 said, some of these old reports have a decent impact. These old reports aren’t going to fix themselves.

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#22

Recently, I noticed another issue with the handling of reports in the category: Some reports are being marked as “Closed” without any communication or fix (1, 2, 3). The handling of the category still isn’t very efficient. Since 5-23-24, the total number of unresolved bug reports in the category has risen from approximately 110 to 176 (a 60% increase). I hope to see improvement soon!

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#23

This. My reports in this category have been abandoned for over a year (1, 2, 3, 4), marked as “Closed” without being fixed (1, 2), or even mistaken for a feature request by staff and completely locked.

Yes, this actually happened when I reported the deletion of a free shirt item uploaded by Roblox themselves for the Coco event in 2017. This is the response I received:

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This was around the time Roblox began hiding the Catalog pages of moderated assets, so I can see how there could be confusion with locating an asset that is no longer visible. Still, in the event that I do have to make a report for the deletion of a Roblox-created item, is Catalog Asset Bugs the right place?

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#24

@Hooksmith and @PerfectlyCromulent Could one of you please give me an update on this feature request? I don’t understand why it isn’t being prioritized. These issues are definitely impactful because multiple users have voiced their bad experiences with the category and several reports affected by poor handling have been mentioned.

On a side note, how does the specific team(s) that is assigned to this category prioritize reports?

The reason why I ask: A report for the Kitty Ears was recently addressed. It doesn’t make sense that they were prioritized over other older reports in the backlog because the report was relatively new and a low impact issue. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t a bad thing that the team fixed them.

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#25

Just a quick 2c: note from the other thread I told you that impact/effort make up the two main factors of prioritizing issues. There’s a “context switch” needed when you work on something that hasn’t been touched for a while vs. something you touched recently. This can impact the effort needed to address an issue and so it might be trivial for someone to quickly fix something on an item they recently worked on vs. finding all the files and context about an item made ages ago.

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#26

If it’s hard to find the source files of assets, then it’s safe to assume Roblox internally is under disarray, deplorable in my opinion, and should suggest serious internal restructuring.

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#27

This does not feel like you properly understood the spirit of my post above. :slightly_smiling_face:

Context switching is always difficult for older works, try thinking about how much effort it takes you to work on a year-old Roblox project vs one you worked on yesterday.

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#28

If this is the case, then it really doesn’t make sense that the Kitty Ears were fixed so quickly. They’ve been on the catalog since 2008.

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#29

I was answering your concern about older vs newer reports in the general sense. I don’t know the whole story about each catalog item published by Roblox.

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#30

I’m happy to report that I’ve seen the handling of this category significantly improve during the recent months: More reports are being resolved , gears are starting to be fixed, and mass criticism is being addressed.

The main problems that remain are reports in the backlog aren’t being addressed, issues that can’t be fixed aren’t stated in the category’s description (1, 2), and lack of quality control testing. As I’ve stated previously, it seems that mainly new reports are being resolved. I feel that it’s important for old reports to not be overlooked (especially, considering that most of them are of similar or greater impact). Most of these new reports seem to be about trivial issues with old accessories. Maybe, this problem is due to prioritization not being optimized. I understand that it’s probably more difficult to prioritize due to the recent influx of reports caused by YouTuber coverage of the category.

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#31

I’m making this reply to support the OP (@Proven_Right)! “Second this!” (as they say)

When this feature request was made and published by the OP, I read the replies of each forum user and I was not expecting that there would be some problems regarding prioritization. When I read @PerfectlyCromulent’s response, I understood that there are some problems with ownerships between these channels and they are trying their best to fix for the better for the company, which is comprehensive as everything has its ups and downs, but always looking forward to seeing a bright future.

However, we are talking about a response from 6 months and 20 days… You might think everything is good because it’s almost a year and everything should have been changed, right? From my perspective, the handling system of #bug-reports:catalog-asset-bugs remains imperfect. Even worse, the communication is odd.

Exhibit A:

The “Astronaut Helmet” had problems with its texture and model when it was published. It was eventually fixed but remained with a bit of a problem analyzing the new version. The person who addressed the fix allowed me to ask if there were any questions or concerns, and so I used it. To my surprise, the person never replied… They did the same thing for other bug reports:

Exhibit B:

Since December of 2024 (last year), the number of bug reports regarding problems with assets that are in the Roblox Marketplace (previously called “Catalog” and “Avatar Shop”) grew and it seems that the team that has to deal with these problems seems to be overwhelmed. If you were to do an “investigation”, you might encounter two situations:

  1. QA Testers analyze and submit a ticket for the team. After some days, the status changes from “Open” to “Closed” without any response.
  2. No tickets are submitted, but, after some days, they close the report.

Exhibit C:

Roblox gears. According to researchers, they were published 16 years ago with the simple purpose of being sold and used in-game. They have been used for Roblox experiences via gamepasses + to projects that depend on them to make their in-game content entertaining for the targetted audience. As Roblox released new technologies, most of them started to break and couldn’t be used any longer.

In November 2023, a user reported a bug regarding the visuals of the gear “Dual Illumina - Roblox” when wearing into your Roblox avatar. One of the swords was not attached to the left hand. The problem was not fixed because they no longer support nor intend to fix those that could be made or already exist in the Marketplace:

However, in December 2024, they fixed the gears “Ronin Katana - Roblox” and “ROBLOX Classic Brigand's Sword - Roblox”:

After the same user reported that other gears were broken regarding the visuals in their Roblox avatars, the person who addressed the previous fixes declined this request. This is now hypocrisy.

This whole situation is a mess and no matter how much the OP points out this problem, it looks like they are being ghosted, and/or this feedback is not being taken seriously whatsoever. I suppose you can say that this message below is now an irony:

Now, I’m not sure how this team will review my comment or my thoughts about this, whether I receive a hateful reply or anything similar. However, one thing is certain: ghosting and not addressing things properly is not professional.

9 Likes
#32

From what I can remember, the catalog team is fairly small compared to what it used to be.

Recently the forum has had almost a double or triple increase in activity, so it’s understandable why some things may be on the back burner compared to others. While I do believe that sometimes there is a lack of following up in the channel or responding to stuff still not working properly, it’s understandable that it takes them a while to assess changes on items with more prominent backgrounds, like the Workclock headphones, for example and that there may be more critical or important things they need to do before touching an item again.

The team tries their best, and they’ve pushed a lot of good out. Like Proven Right has said in this post it would be nice if stuff like the stance on gears would be clarified permanently It would benefit both People reporting and the people who work hard to fix these bugs :heart:

1 Like
#33

I’d like to add that in my experience the issues of #bug-reports:catalog-asset-bugs isn’t solely based in how Roblox staff handle these reports. Since “The Big Bug Reporting Update” as you called it, there have been a number of users commenting on bug reports about inconsistencies in assets, shading errors, placement issues, and the like as if they should not be handled as bugs.

Personally I have seen these arguments made and posted multiple times on bug-reports of this nature:

  1. “This shouldn’t be fixed because I enjoy the bug that is being reported.”
  • While yes, I think it’s important to recognize that many users have come to expect these assets in their current “bugged” forms, I also think its important to realize that many of these items weren’t always like this. I understand that due to the recent incident with the WCHPs people are up in arms about changes being made to their beloved items, but not every situation is directly comparable to this. Please use your due diligence and critical thinking.
  1. “This goes against the history of Roblox” (Refactor of argument 1).
  • Many of the bug-reports I see this on are actually attempting to restore items to their classic appearance, rather than how they looked when Roblox modified shading, textures, and some other things. A good example of this would be the Banded Top Hat series as discussed Here.
  1. “I don’t like the proposed fix to this bug, so I don’t think it should be considered a bug.”
  • This is counter-productive. If you have a better fix please describe it.
  1. “There are other bugs that deserve more immediate attention.”
  • Again, this is counter-productive. The goal of the #bug-reports forum should be reporting ALL bugs, not just those that are the most pressing. If you know of an immediate threat to Roblox security, please make a report on it or go through the HackerOne process.

I don’t see many of these comments under bug-reports getting flagged as that section seems to be used more as a general discussion of the bug and solutions to it. I think this is good, but as a rule of thumb please limit your criticism to what is constructive.

I’m not sure to what extent this has an effect on staff taking these reports on, but since at the end of the day we are all human I think it’s safe to say that it is present to some degree. Please be respectful of your fellow bug-reporters and Roblox staff alike.

1 Like
#34

Thank you to those who have recently supported this request! It’s sad to see that it’s almost a year old, and no significant action has been taken towards improvement. History has repeated itself during the past couple of weeks which goes to show how valid my original analysis was. As someone who has a customer service related job, I don’t think this situation is being handled very well. Due to this problem impacting many reports and a category, I’d expect this to be near top priority, so we should be receiving weekly or monthly updates at least. While I understand that fixing catalog assets might be viewed as not very impactful, these are still reports and should be taken seriously like those in other bug categories. This situation has gotten so out of hand that it’s been covered on YouTube (1, 2).

One of the biggest problems that I’ve seen recently is the handling of reports on gears. For context, the team started fixing gears last month and decided to stop fixing them, confusing reporters. Here’s my statement regarding the current situation with gears:

“It’s unprofessional to continue to be intentionally inconsistent by picking and choosing what to fix. I have pointed this out on other reports and have been ignored. This disregard of the reporter’s time is disrespectful. If they can’t even bother to update the category’s description to state these policies/limitations, then I think that these types of issues should be rightfully fixed. It can’t be assumed that users have seen these policies be stated for previous reports.

Knowingly selling nonfunctional gears (especially, to children) without any disclaimers is not a good look. I would strongly suggest fixing them, taking them off sale, stating in their descriptions that they are no longer supported, or converting them into accessories. If nothing is going to be done to make things right, then refunds should be issued (1).”

I realize that the main counter argument to fixing gears might be that not many games allow them to be used and users purchase them so their avatar can hold them on their profile. However, function is still stated in most gears’ descriptions which can mislead the users who purchase them (and are unaware that they might be broken because they’re depreciated). One can’t assume that no users purchase them for their functionality. Additionally, there are limited gears that experience issues and are very expensive like the Darkheart.

Just to reiterate, the purpose of this request isn’t to attack the team who handles these reports. I’d like to apologize for the moments where I got heated in this thread. My intent is to help them improve, and I’m not backing down. Because I’ve personally helped this team fix an asset, I’m a little disappointed that they haven’t reached out to me yet (1). I’m a reasonable person, but it’s hard for me to have much sympathy when I’m not seeing any effort being put forth to improve. If this issue is being caused by understaffing, then I understand that this is management’s problem, not the team’s. Implementing a program like Retexture Artists could be a viable option if money is an issue.

@Hooksmith please try to get DevRel/DET involved, someone else in the loop, and/or PerfectlyCromulent’s attention. This really needs to be escalated. I know users who file reports in this category (and the team who handles them) would probably appreciate it!

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Some gears break r15 idle animations on thumbnails
#35

Update: I can confirm that Creator Success and the team assigned to this category are aware of these problems. I realize that it’s easy to quickly place blame on people over their situation (i.e., the influx of reports and understaffing). The process is a lot more involved than just immediately working on an asset. Before fixing an asset, the team considers how users will perceive changing an asset, artist intent, and impact. They plan to announce a policy regarding what specific issues the category will cover soon. Going forward, I plan to be more understanding and sympathetic because I have more context now.

Also, Greg, Senior Director of Product, acknowledged this situation in the latest AMA.

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#36

I think they did a really great job in recent weeks of considering artist intent + user response when analyzing bugs, so things are definitely moving in the right direction.

Rolling out a clearer policy of what is in scope + slightly more frequent follow ups will fix most of the rest of the problems IMO. Frequent follow ups are especially helpful if the bug is high impact, high time-to-fix i.e. particle rendering.

As for context switching, maybe the devforum community can help make the lives of the Roblox team easier? Many forum users who submitted bug reports for old items know their stuff, and can provide additional context about an item’s peculiarities when submitting the report. Perhaps there’s some standard list of questions they could answer.

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