Public bug reported:
Binary package hint: apport
This is sort of a reconsideration of bug 62542, wherein much of the work
of collecting system state for crashes was moved to the frontend. This
gave us some benefits:
- The user isn't unexpectedly subjected to lots of random I/O (and thus an
unresponsive system)
- We have the opportunity to interact with the user while collecting system
state (including running sudo)
- We don't waste time collecting data which won't be used for a bug report
However, it also created a problem: the system state may change between
the time when the crash happens, and the time when the frontend is run.
This period can be days or weeks. System updates may be installed. The
system may be rebooted. Hardware may be added or removed. These can all
lead to incorrect data in bug reports.
This issue applies to data collected by apport itself (such as package
versions) as well as by hooks (such as log files).
In my view, the closer the system state to the time of the crash, the
more useful it will be in processing bug reports, especially with
automated tools which need to rely on accurate data for things like
package versions.
I don't know how big a problem this is in practice, but I often think
about it when I'm filing a bug and I *know* the system state is wrong.
:-/
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.04
Package: apport 1.19-0ubuntu2
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.38-4.31-generic 2.6.38-rc5
Uname: Linux 2.6.38-4-generic x86_64
Architecture: amd64
CrashReports:
600:0:0:362548:2011-03-04 13:45:13.000000000 +0000:2011-03-04
13:45:13.000000000 +0000:/var/crash/sysvinit-utils.0.crash
600:1000:1000:7462257:2011-02-24 21:31:17.000000000 +0000:2011-02-24
21:51:52.000000000 +0000:/var/crash/_usr_bin_nautilus.1000.crash
600:0:0:362566:2011-03-04 13:45:13.000000000 +0000:2011-03-04
13:45:12.000000000 +0000:/var/crash/keyboard-configuration.0.crash
Date: Fri Mar 4 14:09:43 2011
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: apport
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to natty on 2011-02-10 (21 days ago)
** Affects: apport (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
** Tags: amd64 apport-bug natty
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/729099
Title:
System state for crashes is sometimes collected too late
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