ubuntu-but does not accept "program" paramater as documented in --help

[Henning Sprang]

ubuntu-bug --help says

$ ubuntu-bug --help
usage: ubuntu-bug [options] [symptom|pid|package|program path|.apport/.crash file]

which suggest I can type a symptom after "ubuntu-bug" that I want to report.

But doing something like:

$ ubuntu-bug "Ubuntu Software tells me at every boot that it installed important OS update 'UEFI dbx'"

only results in the error:

dpkg-query: no packages found matching Ubuntu

The man page of ubuntu-bug states that the symptoms are asked for when I run "ubuntu-bug" without parameters.

So the --help output is wrong or the program is lacking some fallback if the message given as sysmptom is neither a pid, nor a package name nor a program path nor a crash file, the given parameter must be accepted as a symptom description.

Probably the easiest part to solve that is to remove the nonworking symptom parameter from the --help output as long as that is not working.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 23.10
Package: apport 2.27.0-0ubuntu5
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.2.0-1015.15-lowlatency 6.2.16
Uname: Linux 6.2.0-1015-lowlatency x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.27.0-0ubuntu5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: pass
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Tue Nov 21 14:31:49 2023
InstallationDate: Installed on 2023-08-21 (92 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 23.04 "Lunar Lobster" - Release amd64 (20230418)
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 TERM=xterm-256color
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
RebootRequiredPkgs: Error: path contained symlinks.
SourcePackage: apport
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to mantic on 2023-11-05 (16 days ago)

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.

The --help output mislead you. "symptom" refers to one short name like "audio", "display", or "installer" (look into /usr/share/apport/symptoms/ to see all), but not describing the symptom in full sentences.

Suggestions how to rephrase the documentation to avoid this confusion will be appreciated.

[Henning Sprang (henning)]

Thanks for helping me - yes, that clarifies it.

Maybe exactly the sentence you write here to explain it to me would be good to have in the --help and man page?

Closer to the root, to me, these things that are referred to as "symptom" are more an "area of occurence" where the symptoms appear. For example, a symptom to me would be "broken and distorted sound" - not "sound".

I assume that it's not an option / easy to rename this completely, at least it's not just a documentation rephrasing and needs changes in many places.
But maybe it's something that could be taken in consideration for sometime in the future.