ubiquity crashed with TypeError in partman_column_format: argument of type 'NoneType' is not iterable

[Kate Stewart]

Was trying out Ubuntu Precise daily image from USB stick.
Had backed out of the install ubuntu path, when I wasn't sure on how it would be impacting the windows partition.
Pressing back key triggered this.

ProblemType: Crash
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 12.04
Package: ubiquity 2.9.10
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.2.0-7.13-generic-pae 3.2.0-rc7
Uname: Linux 3.2.0-7-generic-pae i686
ApportVersion: 1.90-0ubuntu1
Architecture: i386
CasperVersion: 1.296
Date: Thu Jan 5 21:03:13 2012
ExecutablePath: /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.7
LiveMediaBuild: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS "Precise Pangolin" - Alpha i386 (20120105)
ProcCmdline: /usr/bin/python /usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity --greeter --only
ProcEnviron: Error: [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/proc/2892/environ'
PythonArgs: ['/usr/lib/ubiquity/bin/ubiquity', '--greeter', '--only']
SourcePackage: ubiquity
Title: ubiquity crashed with AttributeError in _decode_value(): 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'decode'
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
UserGroups:

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

I haven't reproduced the failure but the same problem exists with software-center (bug 905605) and software-properties-gtk (bug 905602)
This is caused by the following change in pygobject
http://git.gnome.org/browse/pygobject/commit/gi/overrides/Gtk.py?id=654711d0f940d7480d0f1cdb25a3dc9996f7a706

[Jean-Baptiste Lallement (jibel)]

I also noticed the following error in your logs:
an 5 21:04:34 ubuntu ntfsresize: ERROR: NTFS is inconsistent. Run chkdsk /f on Windows then reboot it TWICE!
Jan 5 21:04:34 ubuntu ntfsresize: The usage of the /f parameter is very IMPORTANT! No modification was
Jan 5 21:04:34 ubuntu ntfsresize: and will be made to NTFS by this software until it gets repaired.
Jan 5 21:04:34 ubuntu partman: Error running 'ntfsresize --info'
Jan 5 21:04:35 ubuntu ubiquity[2892]: Exception in GTK frontend (invoking crash handler):
Jan 5 21:04:35 ubuntu ubiquity[2892]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Jan 5 21:04:35 ubuntu ubiquity[2892]: File "/usr/lib/ubiquity/plugins/ubi-partman.py", line 593, in partman_column_name
Jan 5 21:04:35 ubuntu ubiquity[2892]: if 'id' not in partition:
Jan 5 21:04:35 ubuntu ubiquity[2892]: TypeError: argument of type 'NoneType' is not iterable

which is reported in bug 912031

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Note, tracking the wrong None handling in pygobject in bug 905602, but Colin says the value is not supposed to be None, so it nicely exposes a deeper problem here.

Does anyone have a way to reproduce this reliably? I tried the back button in the manual partitioning screen a few times without any crash.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

In fact, the software-properties-gtk crash exposes exactly the same problem: Stuff _("Other") into the tree model, and None comes out. So I'm 90% sure that this is a perfect duplicate of bug 905602.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Sorry, it's not a duplicate after all, I examined bug 905602 more closely and will upload a fix for it now. So we do need a reproducer for this after all.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

The original Traceback.txt here is fixed with bug 905602, retitling for the more interesting partman crash pointed out in comment 4.

[Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)]

This bug has been reported on the Ubuntu ISO testing tracker.

A list of all reports related to this bug can be found here:
http://iso.qa.ubuntu.com/qatracker/reports/bugs/912563

[Kate Stewart (kate.stewart)]

This shouldn't be incomplete, given someone else just reproduced it. Please email me directly if you need me to try something out, I still have that netbook with me. It was reproduced in Budapest and the netbook used was there.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Bug 918797 is similar to this one and should probably be a duplicate of this one. The reporter in that bug says:

"I choose to install in auto resize, then in the resizing window I-ve clicked the little red written that redirect to manual partitioning, then the crash with the installer that still working."

So it seems like going into manual partitioning may cause it.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Kate, I've tried and failed to reproduce this locally. Would it be possible to get ssh remote access to your netbook when it's booted into a live environment?

[Kate Stewart (kate.stewart)]

Colin, will down load the latest image tomorrow morning (my time), and see if I can get it to reproduce. If so, will ping you and see what can be set up.