apport: Explain how to send crash reports that belong to root

[Till Ulen]

Binary package hint: apport

When you try to open a crash report for which you don't have sufficient permissions, apport (since version 0.99) will show a user interface error message (see apport 0.103, file ui.py, line 231). The message however does not explain how to upload the crash report in question.

In the common scenario when a program running as root has crashed, a novice user will have no clue how to report the crash. Novice users don't know they can open a terminal and run something like 'gksudo gnome-open /var/crash/foobar.0.crash' or 'sudo chown username:username /var/crash/foobar.0.crash'.

The error message should guide the user and tell her how to proceed to overcome the error. If the instructions are short, it can just show them immediately. If the instructions become too long for an error message, it can refer the user to a specific page in the help system.

[Daniel Hahler (blueyed)]

The message could say:
1. Open a console/terminal (e.g. gnome-terminal)"
2. Run "su-to-root -x /usr/share/apport/apport-$PLATFORM /var/crash/foobar.0.crash" (without the quotes)

[JustusWinter (4winter)]

Daniel, your instructions do not work for me since firefox complains about another firefox process being run that is not responding:

$ su-to-root -X -c "apport-cli --file-bug --pid 1"
*** Collecting problem information
[...]
<Box popping up>

[Menno (mlabakker)]

This also happens for programs started as ordinary users.
On my system I have a few apps that never run, but crash instead, thus presenting me with the "no access" bug.
These are nvclock, which I could imagine running with root permissions and the game Yo Frankie, about which I am not sure if it runs with root permission.
System: Kubuntu 12.04 64bit.

[Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson)]

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.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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