Launcher thinking app is running still when it's dead

If you change apps and come back to the one that was unresponsive does that fix it? i.e. is the app just not properly focused and not getting the touch events.

Is this only the case for the app that was last in the foreground?

Please add the software version you are running

No, i didn't tried it in this video, but other times i tried to change between apps and which are unresponsive still have the problem.
Usually i don't have enough time to wait or to make tests, but last week i saw that one time, changing between apps the unresponsive app turned to unfocused, and after few seconds the app restarted itself.
I can't say which app was...

I'll try to reproduce it again and make a video changing between app with multitasking gesture.

I don't know what do you mean asking if this is the only case for the app that was last in the foreground...

Sorry, i forgot to add the data of my device:
Bq 4.5 ubuntu ed. OTA 10.1

I've also experienced this bug many times since OTA-10. I've seen it with the System Settings app and with Telegram, but that's probably because they are the only apps which I usually leave open in the background.

What happens is that, after I get back to these apps, they are completely frozen; if I rotate the phone, the apps also do rotate, but only as a static image, without properly resizing. They only way to bring them back to life is by swiping them off (to kill them) and restart them.

When anyone encounters this again, please post the output of:

$ ps aux | grep -i <app_name>

Where app_name is part of the frozen app.

Please also attach ~/.cache/upstart/unity8.log

Also please note that there are 2 different cases described in this report:

a) The app freezes completely and never returns <- this is a bug
b) The app appears frozen and blurry for a couple of seconds and then restarts <- this is expected (OOM killer)

Try to distinguish between those two when adding more detail to this bug.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm talking about real freezes when I need to kill
and restart manually.
I also noticed apps being blurry and restarting spontaneously and took it
as a feature of the system; though it might be better if they would save
their status and restart where they were, but that's quite another matter.

Le mercredi 1 juin 2016 11:41:36 CEST, Michael Zanetti
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> Also please note that there are 2 different cases described in this
> report:
>
> a) The app freezes completely and never returns <- this is a bug
> b) The app appears frozen and blurry for a couple of seconds
> and then restarts <- this is expected (OOM killer)
>
> Try to distinguish between those two when adding more detail to this
> bug.
>

@Michael I forgot to say that the last time that it happened to me (when i recorded the video) i also took some logs to track the bug, also the unity 8 log. You'll find attached.
Tell me if you need some other else, maybe I already have it. Ill try to do also what you are asking.

Hi,

I just upgraded to OTA-11 and it seems to get worse.
I was surprised so I didn't think to ps|grep at first but here is the unity
log.

What happened was that Dekko freezed (I think), was still running according
to Launcher but wouldn't focus if selected and not visible with right
swipe. I had to kill it with long press in Launcher and then restart.

I'll try to get the right PID next time, but if the misbehaviour shows up
in unity log it should be within 5mins before the end.

Thanks,
TM

Le mercredi 1 juin 2016 09:32:17 CEST, Michał Sawicz
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> When anyone encounters this again, please post the output of:
>
> $ ps aux | grep -i <app_name>
>
> Where app_name is part of the frozen app.
>
> Please also attach ~/.cache/upstart/unity8.log
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>

I think what you described is that the launcher thought the app was still running, but it wasn't, in fact?

It would be good to find out if the process was actually running, and what it state was in:

$ initctl list | grep dekko

Unfortunately the phone ran out of battery and shut down while I was
sleeping (it happens sometimes) so today initctl list has forgotten about
that specific instance (if I get things right).
Would that still be in a log file somwhere, by any chance ?

Also, possibly it's an altogether different issue, maybe it won't happen
again and maybe it's specific to dekko.

Le vendredi 3 juin 2016 10:15:31 CEST, Michał Sawicz
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> I think what you described is that the launcher thought the app was
> still running, but it wasn't, in fact?
>
> It would be good to find out if the process was actually running, and
> what it state was in:
>
> $ initctl list | grep dekko
>

It just happened again and the stated line returns nothing.
Didn't think to ps|grep but I guess the app wasn't running at all.
Attaching unity8.log.

Le vendredi 3 juin 2016 10:15:31 CEST, Michał Sawicz
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> I think what you described is that the launcher thought the app was
> still running, but it wasn't, in fact?
>
> It would be good to find out if the process was actually running, and
> what it state was in:
>
> $ initctl list | grep dekko
>

So what was the problem exactly? You couldn't launch the app via the left-side launcher? Could you launch it via the Apps scope? Was it there on the right-edge spread?

Are there related .crash files in /var/crash? You may want to clear that dir and see what happens the next time you get this issue.

Sorry, I was sick recently and didn't reply to mail.
No crash files left, the only ones from dekko are from today, while I was
sleeping so I couldn't describe what happened.

I was talking about an application (only dekko so far) disappearing from
views (right swipe), also from initctl list, and still marked as active in
Launcher (left swipe), though clicking had no result. I had to kill it in
launcher and restart it. No idea how the apps scope would have behaved, I
hadn't thought of that.

It happened twice in a few days but now it doesn't seem to be happening
again. As I said I haven't been too much on mail these days, so maybe it's
going to occur again sometime, I'll post the info then if I can.

Le samedi 4 juin 2016 09:16:47 CEST, Michał Sawicz
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> Are there related .crash files in /var/crash? You may want to clear that
> dir and see what happens the next time you get this issue.
>

It just happened again, and it seems very weird:
- app disappears completely (not visible in ps or initctl list, but no
crash log either)
- launcher thinks it's active, but clicking has no effect
- clicking in apps view gets it back immediately (I'm not sure it needs to
restart, have to pay more attention at that point next time); ps and
initctl list then find it, and still no crash log

???

Le mardi 7 juin 2016 23:23:57 CEST, Michał Sawicz
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> ** Summary changed:
>
> - app blocked after suspend
> + Launcher thinking app is running still when it's dead
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Status: Incomplete => Triaged
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Status: Incomplete => Triaged
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Importance: Undecided => High
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Importance: Undecided => High
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Assignee: (unassigned) => Michael Zanetti (mzanetti)
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Milestone: None => backlog
>

This has been fixed as part of ~mzanetti/unity8/alerting-pips

Should land in rc-proposed soonish

Here, it freezed again, and then disappeared.
I quickly got a log of initctl list and then ps aux, but for ps the process
terminated before I wrote it to file (it did show up at first).

Here is the log, with corresponding crash log and unity8.log.

Application seemed to resume without restarting when started from apps
scope.

But Michael's answer sounds satisfying, maybe we should drop this for now,
hoping it gets merged backwards for stable users like me.

Thanks,
TM

Le mercredi 8 juin 2016 00:08:28 CEST, Michael Zanetti
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> This has been fixed as part of ~mzanetti/unity8/alerting-pips
>
> Should land in rc-proposed soonish
>
> ** Branch linked: lp:~mzanetti/unity8/alerting-pips
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Status: Triaged => In Progress
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Status: Triaged => In Progress
>

I just got a freeze from Navigator, so it still happens in current stable
(OTA-11).

Can't give the details because I have no idea of the application name
(Ubuntu Touch doesn't give much information about the underlying system,
sounds like a bad idea seeing as it's still beta, for what I've seen).

Should I go on reporting or is this bug fixed in the future, and should be
marked as such ?

Le mercredi 8 juin 2016 00:08:28 CEST, Michael Zanetti
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> This has been fixed as part of ~mzanetti/unity8/alerting-pips
>
> Should land in rc-proposed soonish
>
> ** Branch linked: lp:~mzanetti/unity8/alerting-pips
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Status: Triaged => In Progress
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Status: Triaged => In Progress
>

Thomas, it seems you are mixing two different things. One is apps that are crashing, the other is the Launcher (left side panel) not noticing that the app is gone after it crashed. the above linked branch fixes the issue in the launcher. When that lands (probably with OTA-12) the launcher will notice when an app is gone and update its state accordingly.

The other issue, that some apps are crashing in some cases, are different and should be reported separately for each application that is crashing.

Thanks for the explanation, it sound quite right.
However, the combination of the two makes things worse, and it's probably
what makes me react.
I guess I'm going to check the current bugs for Dekko as soon as I have the
time, seeing as it seems to be the real problem in my case.

Thanks, keep up the good work !
TM

Le jeudi 9 juin 2016 06:14:14 CEST, Michael Zanetti
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> Thomas, it seems you are mixing two different things. One is apps that
> are crashing, the other is the Launcher (left side panel) not noticing
> that the app is gone after it crashed. the above linked branch fixes the
> issue in the launcher. When that lands (probably with OTA-12) the
> launcher will notice when an app is gone and update its state
> accordingly.
>
> The other issue, that some apps are crashing in some cases, are
> different and should be reported separately for each application that is
> crashing.
>

Happened again, this time with webbrowser.
App freezes, is still reacheable from launcher and still alive, but no
response.
Here is freeze.log (ps + initctl list) and unity8.log. Time is about 5mins
before this message.

Le mercredi 1 juin 2016 09:32:17 CEST, Michał Sawicz
<email address hidden> a écrit :
> When anyone encounters this again, please post the output of:
>
> $ ps aux | grep -i <app_name>
>
> Where app_name is part of the frozen app.
>
> Please also attach ~/.cache/upstart/unity8.log
>
> ** Changed in: unity8 (Ubuntu)
> Status: New => Incomplete
>
> ** Changed in: canonical-devices-system-image
> Status: Confirmed => Incomplete
>

This bug was fixed in the package unity8 - 8.12+16.10.20160617-0ubuntu1

---------------
unity8 (8.12+16.10.20160617-0ubuntu1) yakkety; urgency=medium

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 -- Michael Terry <email address hidden> Fri, 17 Jun 2016 01:22:57 +0000