Apport is not following the notification guidelines

[Conscious User]

Binary package hint: apport

The apport icon is still appearing in the notification area after certain crashes. The notification guidelines specify that this icon should not be used anymore and, furthermore, the notification area is scheduled for deprecation in future Ubuntu releases.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
CrashReports:
 600:1000:1000:42613:2010-03-11 11:55:10.431949000 +0100:2010-03-11 11:55:21.880739121 +0100:/var/crash/_usr_bin_gwibber.1000.crash
 600:1000:1000:9416:2010-03-10 10:05:52.635715000 +0100:2010-03-10 10:06:04.819220236 +0100:/var/crash/_usr_bin_gwibber-service.1000.crash
Date: Thu Mar 11 14:38:06 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha i386 (20100310)
Package: apport 1.12.1-0ubuntu5
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: apport
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic i686

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Apport should certainly be using appindicators and not the old systray.

[Conscious User (conscioususer)]

Mark, but doesn't the usage of appindicators assume that there will be an icon anyway? I don't think this is the case, there should *not* be an icon at all. At least the specification in https://wiki.ubuntu.com/NotifyOSD#apport says:

"When a system process crashes, an icon appears in the panel, and a “Crash report detected” bubble appears with the text “An application has crashed on your system (now or in the past). Click on the notification icon to display details.” The icon and bubble should not appear; instead an alert should appear unfocused."

Currently, there is no bubble, but the icon is still there (in some cases).

Taking a wild guess, I believe this has something to do with permissions. Back in the Lucid alphas, gwibber was crashing and the alert box was appearing directly, without the icon (as the specification says it should). Now in Lucid Beta, I see an icon when plymouthd is crashing, and I need to click it and type my password for the alert box to appear. I think this has something to do with the fact that gwibber was a local process and plymouthd is a root process.

Can someone confirm this?

If that is the case, I think Apport should be changed to ask for root permissions only to send the report, not just to show the alert box.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

I think the full change to using a window rather than a notification
icon won't happen for Lucid.

 importance low

Mark

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Since we disable Apport in stable releases anyway, most people won't even see it in the first place, thus setting to wishlist.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

If we're going to do the port, can I ask for the following UX:

 - the icon appears when crashes are known to have occurred
 - the menu looks like

  foo 2.1.3 crashed (x3)
  bar 24.2 crashed
  baz 1.5.6 crashed (x2)
  -----
  Clear all

Clicking on an entry brings up the crash report dialogs for that app, clicking on CLear all.... clears 'em.

Thanks!
Mark

[Karl Lattimer (karl-qdh)]

update-notifier in src/crash.c is the code to look at.

[Karl Lattimer (karl-qdh)]

also related to https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/update-notifier/+bug/497913

[Karl Lattimer (karl-qdh)]

This specific bug seems to be difficult as there doesn't appear to be a way to show/hide app indicators. Will discuss with tedg and see what can be done.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

update-notifier was changed ages ago to just pop up apport reports, no icon any more.