ktimetracker starts some karm tasks after upgrade

[Reuben Thomas]

Binary package hint: kdepim

When I started ktimetracker for the first time after upgrading from karm, a seemingly random selection of tasks started running immediately.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
Package: ktimetracker 4:4.1.2-0ubuntu2
ProcEnviron:
 SHELL=/bin/bash
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/sbin:/usr/sbin:/usr/NX/bin:/usr/local/epocemx/bin:/home/username/bin:/home/username/local/i686/bin:/home/username/local/bin:/home/username/.luarocks/bin:/home/username/Work/Adsensus/svn/nancy/trunk:/home/username/Work/Adsensus/svn/adsensus/trunk:/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
SourcePackage: kdepim
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-7-generic i686

[Richard Birnie (rbirnie-deactivatedaccount)]

Thanks for reporting this bug. Could you describe the tasks that get started more fully. Do they resemble tasks that you had previously set up in karm. What I'm trying to get at is whether Karm is inappropriately starting previously set tasks or whether it is spontaneously generating new tasks. If possible a screen shot illustrating the problem would be a handy.

thanks.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

It was, as you excellently put it, inappropriately starting previously set tasks. Since it was a one-off bug at upgrade time (starting ktimetracker again shows everything being well), I can't provide a screenshot, sorry.

[Ralph Janke (txwikinger)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. We are sorry that we do not always have the capacity to look at all reported bugs in a timely manner.

There have been many changes in Ubuntu since that time you reported the bug and your problem may have been fixed with some of the updates. It would help us a lot if you could test the current Ubuntu version (10.04). If you can test it, and it is still an issue, we would appreciate if you could upload updated logs by running apport-collect <bug #>, and any other logs that are relevant for this particular issue.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

As the bug was indeed still present in 10.04, I gave up and started using gnome-time-tracker (Project Hamster) instead, so I no longer use KTimeTracker. However, I am unaware of any relevant log (none was ever posted by me or by apport when I originally reported the bug), and the bug is exactly the same as it ever was.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

I am unclear why merely because the user who originally reported a bug does not wish to reinstall a program that has a sufficiently serious bug that he no longer uses it makes the bug invalid.

As I reported above, the bug is still present in Lucid. I therefore no longer use ktimetracker, and do not wish to spend time helping to fix bugs in it.

It seems to me the severity of the problem makes the bug more, not less, valid.

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Well, it's not like we can spend time fixing something that might not even be broken anymore, especially since you seem to be the only person in the year and a half that this has been open that seems to have been affected by this.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

First, the bug is definitely still present in Lucid, as I have said above, twice.

Secondly, I quite appreciate your point about limited resources, but because the resources are not available to fix a bug does not mean it is invalid! There's no point simply closing bug reports because you do not have the resources to fix them, as that merely loses information which may help other users and/or developers in future. Note in particular that I am not demanding that this bug be fixed; on the contrary, I don't even use the program in question any more, as I have already said. Rather, I am saying that (for the moment at least), the bug remains valid.

[Harald Sitter (apachelogger)]

The thing is. This bug is in KDE software, ought to be fixed there, will be fixed... Only once fixed it will arrive in Ubuntu. The KDE software compilation consists of million lines of code and it is simply impossible for us to digg through a good part of that to fix, excuse the word, "minor" issue. I recon it were not minor to you nor anyone who noticed, but it is to us because it looks like this: bug reported 2 years ago, no additional acknowledgements of the issue, nor similar reports.

Anyhow. According to our current policy, issues of limited impact that are not caused by Ubuntu are to be filed with KDE directly at http://bugs.kde.org This ensures maximum efficiency because those that have the means to fix the issue in sensible time get notified about the issue.
If you have time and motivation it would be super nice if you could forward this bug to http://bugs.kde.org

Thanks.

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

Thanks, telling me to file the bug upstream is a much more useful reply than simply marking it "invalid". I shall do so.

I hope that in future Launchpad will help maintainers refile bugs automatically? The reason I ask is that it seems unreasonable to expect users to know where to file bugs, and equally unrealistic to expect them to do it even when asked to (not to mention that it takes a maintainer longer simply to ask a user to refile a bug than it should take a tool to refile it automatically, let alone the time taken by the poor user, if we consider all the users for whom it will be their first time; on the whole, a shocking waste of human resources).

[Reuben Thomas (rrt)]

I find that this bug is already filed upstream: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=169660