update-manager crashed with FileNotFoundError in _execute_child(): [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'lsb_release'

[Brian Murray]

I removed the lsb_release binary to recreate a crash I'd seen in the Error Tracker, so that we have a Launchpad bug to track this.

https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/cb53b24a4527ac41429086509360e3b6b049c74f

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 22.04
Package: update-manager 1:22.04.19 [origin: unknown]
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 6.5.0-17.17~22.04.1-generic 6.5.8
Uname: Linux 6.5.0-17-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckMismatches: ./boot/grub/grub.cfg
CasperMD5CheckResult: fail
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Feb 14 12:46:01 2024
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/update-manager
ExecutableTimestamp: 1706278231
GsettingsChanges:
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'first-run' b'false'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'launch-count' b'7'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'launch-time' b'int64 1707943561'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'show-details' b'true'
 b'com.ubuntu.update-manager' b'window-width' b'593'
InstallationDate: Installed on 2023-11-02 (104 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS "Jammy Jellyfish" - Release amd64 (20230807.2)
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python3.10
JournalErrors:
 Feb 14 12:45:58 clean-jammy-amd64 gnome-calculato[10382]: search-provider.vala:140: Failed to spawn Calculator: Child process killed by signal 9
 Feb 14 12:45:58 clean-jammy-amd64 gnome-calculato[10382]: search-provider.vala:140: Failed to spawn Calculator: Child process killed by signal 9
 Feb 14 12:45:58 clean-jammy-amd64 gnome-calculato[10382]: search-provider.vala:140: Failed to spawn Calculator: Child process killed by signal 9
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/update-manager
ProcCwd: /home/bdmurray
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Python3Details: /usr/bin/python3.10, Python 3.10.12, python3-minimal, 3.10.6-1~22.04
PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/update-manager']
PythonDetails: N/A
SourcePackage: update-manager
Title: update-manager crashed with FileNotFoundError in _execute_child(): [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'lsb_release'
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to None on 2024-02-14 (0 days ago)
UserGroups: adm cdrom dip lpadmin lxd plugdev sambashare sudo

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The Traceback in the Error Tracker is slightly different but that's just because of how it was called.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/do-release-upgrade", line 133, in <module>
    m = MetaReleaseCore(useDevelopmentRelease=options.devel_release,
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/Core/MetaRelease.py", line 106, in __init__
    self.current_dist_name = get_dist()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/UpdateManager/Core/utils.py", line 220, in get_dist
    p = Popen(["lsb_release", "-c", "-s"], stdout=PIPE,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 971, in __init__
    self._execute_child(args, executable, preexec_fn, close_fds,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/subprocess.py", line 1863, in _execute_child
    raise child_exception_type(errno_num, err_msg, err_filename)
FileNotFoundError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'lsb_release'

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

I'm flagging this because while it's easy to say those systems are borked we should think about how this code happen and if there is a more resilient approach to figuring out what release the system is running.

Maybe like what was done in this commit.

commit d2634ad1b1022b76a4defd99738eb1652860cf70
Author: Benjamin Drung <email address hidden>
Date: Mon Feb 13 14:12:47 2023 +0100

    Replace lsb_release call with reading /etc/os-release directly