Quick answer: Publish it on a known-issues page or status update so players see you're aware and working on it. Acknowledging a bug openly makes players far more patient than discovering you hid it, and it deflects duplicate reports.
Telling players about a bug you haven't fixed yet feels like admitting weakness, but it usually does the opposite, players are far more forgiving of an acknowledged bug than one they think you're hiding. Here's how to communicate a known bug well.
Acknowledge It Publicly
The way to tell players about a known bug is to acknowledge it where they'll see it, a known-issues page, a pinned post, a status update. Public acknowledgment tells players you're aware and working on it, which defuses frustration far better than silence, and signals competence rather than weakness.
Bugnet's public tracker and known-issues view let you publish acknowledged issues easily. Players hitting a bug they can see you know about react with patience; players hitting an unacknowledged one wonder whether you know or care, so acknowledgment is the key move.
Say What You Know and What's Next
A good known-bug communication says what the bug is, that you're aware of it, and ideally that a fix is coming (without over-promising a date). Players mostly want to know you've seen it and are on it, that reassurance is worth more than a precise timeline you might miss.
Bugnet lets you show issue status, acknowledged, in progress, so players can see a known bug is being worked on. Telling players what you know and what's next, honestly and without hard date commitments, is what turns an acknowledged bug into reassurance rather than a broken promise.
Curate to the Bugs Players Hit
You don't need to publish every trivial, rarely-hit bug, that just creates noise and an alarming list. Tell players about the bugs they actually encounter, the ones generating reports and frustration, and keep the long tail of minor internal bugs to yourself.
Bugnet lets you keep your full bug list internal while publishing a curated set of known issues, so you control what's shown. Telling players about a known bug is acknowledging it publicly, saying what's next, and curating to what players actually hit, the combination that builds trust and deflects duplicate reports.
Acknowledge the bug publicly on a known-issues page, say what you know and that a fix is coming (no hard dates), and curate to the bugs players actually hit. Acknowledgment builds patience and deflects duplicates.