Issue Tracking Systems (ITSs) enable software developers and managers to collect and resolve issues collaboratively. While researchers have extensively analysed ITS data to automate or assist specific activities such as issue assignments, duplicate detection, or priority prediction, developer studies on ITSs remain rare. Particularly, little is known about the challenges Software Engineering (SE) teams encounter in ITSs and when certain practices and workarounds (such as leaving issue fields like "priority" empty) are considered problematic. To fill this gap, we conducted an in-depth interview study with 26 experienced SE practitioners from different organisations and industries. We asked them about general problems encountered, as well as the relevance of 31 ITS smells (aka potentially problematic practices) discussed in the literature. By applying Thematic Analysis to the interview notes, we identified 14 common problems including issue findability, zombie issues, workflow bloat, and lack of workflow enforcement. Participants also stated that many of the ITS smells do not occur or are not problematic. Our results suggest that ITS problems and smells are highly dependent on context factors such as ITS configuration, workflow stage, and team size. We also discuss potential tooling solutions to configure, monitor, and visualise ITS smells to cope with these challenges.

翻译：问题跟踪系统（ITS）使软件开发人员和管理者能够协同收集和解决问题。尽管研究人员已广泛分析ITS数据以自动化或辅助特定活动，如问题分配、重复检测或优先级预测，但针对ITS的开发者研究仍然罕见。特别是，关于软件工程（SE）团队在ITS中遇到的挑战，以及某些实践和变通方法（如将“优先级”等问题字段留空）何时被视为问题，目前知之甚少。为填补这一空白，我们对来自不同组织和行业的26位经验丰富的SE从业者进行了深度访谈研究。我们询问了他们遇到的一般性问题，以及文献中讨论的31种ITS不良实践（即潜在问题性实践）的相关性。通过对访谈记录应用主题分析，我们识别出14个常见问题，包括问题可发现性、僵尸问题、工作流膨胀以及工作流执行不力。参与者还指出，许多ITS不良实践并未发生或不构成问题。我们的结果表明，ITS问题和不良实践高度依赖于情境因素，如ITS配置、工作流阶段和团队规模。我们还讨论了潜在的工具解决方案，以配置、监控和可视化ITS不良实践，从而应对这些挑战。