OR

The different states of bug life cycle are as shown in the above diagram:

New: When the bug is posted for the first time, its state will be “NEW”. This means that the bug is not yet approved.

Open: After a tester has posted a bug, the lead of the tester approves that the bug is genuine and he changes the state as “OPEN”.

Assign: Once the lead changes the state as “OPEN”, he assigns the bug to corresponding developer or developer team. The state of the bug now is changed to “ASSIGN”.

Test/Retest: Once the developer fixes the bug, he has to assign the bug to the testing team for next round of testing. Before he releases the software with bug fixed, he changes the state of bug to “TEST”. It specifies that the bug has been fixed and is released to testing team.// At this stage the tester do the retesting of the changed code which developer has given to him to check whether the defect got fixed or not.

Deferred: The bug, changed to deferred state means the bug is expected to be fixed in next releases. The reasons for changing the bug to this state have many factors. Some of them are priority of the bug may be low, lack of time for the release or the bug may not have major effect on the software.

Rejected: If the developer feels that the bug is not genuine, he rejects the bug. Then the state of the bug is changed to “REJECTED”.

Verified: Once the bug is fixed and the status is changed to “TEST”, the tester tests the bug. If the bug is not present in the software, he approves that the bug is fixed and changes the status to “VERIFIED”.

Reopened: If the bug still exists even after the bug is fixed by the developer, the tester changes the status to “REOPENED”. The bug traverses the life cycle once again.

Closed: Once the bug is fixed, it is tested by the tester. If the tester feels that the bug no longer exists in the software, he changes the status of the bug to “CLOSED”. This state means that the bug is fixed, tested and approved.

Fixed: When developer makes necessary code changes and verifies the changes then he/she can make bug status as „Fixed‟ and the bug is passed to testing team.

Pending retest: After fixing the defect the developer has given that particular code for retesting to the tester. Here the testing is pending on the testers end. Hence its status is pending retest.

Optional :

Duplicate: If the bug is repeated twice or the two bugs mention the same concept of the bug, then one bug status is changed to “duplicate“.

Not a bug: The state given as “Not a bug” if there is no change in the functionality of the application. For an example: If customer asks for some change in the look and field of the application like change of color of some text then it is not a bug but just some change in the looks of the application.