Ubuntu
apport package

ubuntu-bug can't always report bugs against "no particular package"

Bug #902714 reported by LukeKendall
10
This bug affects 1 person
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
apport (Ubuntu)
Expired
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

If you choose the option in ubuntu-bug to report a bug against "no particular package", if you follow the instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs you will fail if the bug is not within a currently-running process.
In my case, I wanted to report a bug in whatever it is that handles an Ubuntu upgrade.
When started as recommended on the above web page, ubuntu-bug demands a PID, and without one, it won't work.

I suggest adding some text to the ReportingBugs page to explain that if you can't provide a process ID, you can provide a package name. And that if you don't know the package name (e.g. if you were trying to report a bug against ubuntu-bug itself), you can do a search to find what package the command comes from, like so:
apt-cache search ubuntu-bug (which tells you that ubuntu-bug is in the reportbug package, therefore you would have to run ubuntu-bug reportbug).

lsb_release -rd:
Description: Ubuntu 10.04.3 LTS
Release: 10.04

apt-cache policy reportbug
reportbug:
  Installed: 4.10.2ubuntu1
  Candidate: 4.10.2ubuntu1
  Version table:
 *** 4.10.2ubuntu1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/ lucid/universe Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
Package: reportbug 4.10.2ubuntu1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-36.79-generic-pae 2.6.32.46+drm33.20
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-36-generic-pae i686
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Architecture: i386
Date: Sun Dec 11 17:18:22 2011
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 9.10 "Karmic Koala" - Release i386 (20091028.5)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANGUAGE=en_AU:en
 LC_COLLATE=C
 PATH=(custom, user)
 LANG=en_AU.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: reportbug

Revision history for this message
LukeKendall (luke-zeta) wrote :
Revision history for this message
LukeKendall (luke-zeta) wrote :

I should add, it seems to me that there's no way to report a bug if you don't know what package the bug is in. In my case, I don't know the name of the package that handles a system update.
I don't know how a novice would find that out. From some thinking and poking about, I've guessed that it's probably update-manager.

Revision history for this message
Micah Gersten (micahg) wrote :

ubuntu-bug is in apport, not reportbug, reassigning

affects: reportbug (Ubuntu) → apport (Ubuntu)
Revision history for this message
LukeKendall (luke-zeta) wrote :

So, what happened? I see that 3 years later, the exact same problem exists.

Revision history for this message
Gary Mercado (gary18) wrote : Re: [Bug 902714] Re: ubuntu-bug can't always report bugs against "no particular package"

​hi. what problem?

On Wed, Oct 15, 2014 at 8:45 PM, LukeKendall <email address hidden> wrote:

> So, what happened? I see that 3 years later, the exact same problem
> exists.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/902714
>
> Title:
> ubuntu-bug can't always report bugs against "no particular package"
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/902714/+subscriptions
>

Revision history for this message
LukeKendall (luke-zeta) wrote :

This one, the bug 'ubuntu-bug can't always report bugs against "no particular package"', https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/902714. Unfortunately, no mention of an ID for the above transferred apparently to apport appears in the above note by micahg in 2011, so I can't follow up to see what actions occurred in the intervening years.

Since the same problem happened to me yesterday with Ubuntu 14.04, I saw that the error in the documentation remains or else in ubuntu-bug, as once again I tried to follow the instructions at https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs:

"Filing a general bug against no particular package

If you’re not sure which package is affected by the bug, type ubuntu-bug in the “Run Command” screen and press Enter. This will guide you through a series of questions to gather more information about the bug and help you assign it to the appropriate package. "

However, if you do try this, and then select the category Other in the first panel, ubuntu-bug just pops up a warning that you must specify a particular package, and exits. This contradicts the topic itself: "Filing a general bug against no particular package".

In my case I was trying to report a problem in the printing area when I discovered this problem of reporting bugs of uncertain origin was unchanged.

Revision history for this message
Gary Mercado (gary18) wrote :

hello.
try the other option, " report non-crash hardware and desktop application
bug" tell "apport" which package at fault.

I hope it helps

On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 9:14 PM, LukeKendall <email address hidden> wrote:

> This one, the bug 'ubuntu-bug can't always report bugs against "no
> particular package"',
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/902714.
> Unfortunately, no mention of an ID for the above transferred apparently
> to apport appears in the above note by micahg in 2011, so I can't follow
> up to see what actions occurred in the intervening years.
>
> Since the same problem happened to me yesterday with Ubuntu 14.04, I saw
> that the error in the documentation remains or else in ubuntu-bug, as
> once again I tried to follow the instructions at
> https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs:
>
> "Filing a general bug against no particular package
>
> If you’re not sure which package is affected by the bug, type ubuntu-bug
> in the “Run Command” screen and press Enter. This will guide you through
> a series of questions to gather more information about the bug and help
> you assign it to the appropriate package. "
>
> However, if you do try this, and then select the category Other in the
> first panel, ubuntu-bug just pops up a warning that you must specify a
> particular package, and exits. This contradicts the topic itself:
> "Filing a general bug against no particular package".
>
> In my case I was trying to report a problem in the printing area when I
> discovered this problem of reporting bugs of uncertain origin was
> unchanged.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/902714
>
> Title:
> ubuntu-bug can't always report bugs against "no particular package"
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/+bug/902714/+subscriptions
>

Revision history for this message
Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson) wrote :

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

Changed in apport (Ubuntu):
status: New → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for apport (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in apport (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
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