What is the difference between a critical and a major bug in software testing?

Question

I want to clarify my definition of a critical and a major bug in software testing According to my understanding a critical bug is one which does not have a work around solution and a major bug is one which does. (Please correct me if i am wrong) But HOW does a tester determine whether or not a bug will have a work around solution or not??

Answer 1

I use the terminology

blocker - the functionality does not work in main area (businness cannot be provided)

critical - the functionality does not work in main area but there is a work around

major - the functionality does not work but not in main area (business can be provided)

minor - there are user interface problems or functional but in area which is used rarely

trivial - misspellings

Testers do not decided about solutions but can say their opinion.

Answer 2

A critical defect is show stopper which means the functionality cannot be delivered unless that defect is cleared. And a major defect is a major flaw in functionality but it still can be released.

As a simple example, for an application maintaining list of people. If the user is not able to add/update details of a person in the list, it is a critical defect. But if the user is not able to delete the information of a person it is a major defect.

Hope this helps..

Answer 3

Testers don't. They categorize bugs in terms of empirical user experience. A test engineer will write up a bug as critical if it makes the system undeliverable, eg 'system consistently crashes after 255 transactions have been made, corrupting the tables'.

Typically, a project management review team will then decide on what impact the bug will have and what action is required, so setting a priority for action. A critical bug may require no action at all, eg "Yeah - I totally derped. It's already fixed in the source and will be gone in the next build. It's on now and will be done by the time the meeting is over".