Please do not display crash reports for non-Ubuntu programs

[Vassilis Pandis]

Binary package hint: apport

(This is with Feisty)

When a self-compiled program crashes[1], I get a crash report. Clicking on it I get a "This report does not apply to a packaged program" error. As it is inevitable that some users will compile software on their own, and that it will crash, maybe it would be better if this wasn't shown at all? i.e. If apport detects that this has nothing to do with Ubuntu, do not display the crash notification because it only confuses the user.

This is an unimportant request, agreed - feel free to reject it.

[1]
int main() { char *ptr; ptr=0; *ptr='a'; } /* My masterpiece - distribute under the GPL :p */

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Indeed apport only considers crashes which belong to programs in /usr/bin, /usr/lib, etc. If I crash a program in /tmp or in my home directory, apport does:

apport (pid 29130) Mon Feb 5 12:47:05 2007: executable: /tmp/test (command line "./test")
apport (pid 29130) Mon Feb 5 12:47:05 2007: executable does not belong to a package, ignoring

Where did you build/run this test program?

[Vassilis Pandis (pandisv)]

It was in /usr/bin . Indeed, if I run it from my home directory it doesn't trigger. What I get is a dialog with "This report does not apply to a packaged program" and my thought was "Well, since this apport can not do anything about it, why not ignore it altogether, without even bringing up the dialog".

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Ah, I see. When apport runs, it does not check the dpkg database for the originin of the executuable, it just applies some heuristics (checking dpkg takes ages).

And since /usr is reserved for distro packages (you should put custom stuff into /usr/local/), this usually does the right thing.

Not displaying the dialog would be confusing if you previously got a bomb icon in update-notifier. It's a bit tricky to get this right.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

People normally develop software in their home directory. In particular /usr is the distribution's realm, and while I agree that getting this dialog box is a bit inconvenient, it's incredibly hard to avoid at all.