memory/info test failing with traceback in Eoan

[Rod Smith]

In a test run on Eoan pre-release, the memory/info test failed with the following traceback:

ERROR:root:Unable to parse JSON: Expecting ',' delimiter: line 24 column 8 (char 657)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/tmp/nest-_z0cpg8g.440b17a5ec0d6b6a647c77b4732450c74e22a9f9253d55dd13ad0aa9afafc812/memory_compare", line 138, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/tmp/nest-_z0cpg8g.440b17a5ec0d6b6a647c77b4732450c74e22a9f9253d55dd13ad0aa9afafc812/memory_compare", line 101, in main
    installed_memory = HumanReadableBytes(get_installed_memory_size())
  File "/tmp/nest-_z0cpg8g.440b17a5ec0d6b6a647c77b4732450c74e22a9f9253d55dd13ad0aa9afafc812/memory_compare", line 62, in get_installed_memory_size
    lshw.run(result)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/checkbox_support/parsers/lshwjson.py", line 47, in run
    self._parse_lshw(lshw, result)
UnboundLocalError: local variable 'lshw' referenced before assignment

This is from a test on jehan in 18T:

https://certification.canonical.com/hardware/201802-26109/submission/149154/

I'm running another Eoan test on another system now.

[Rod Smith (rodsmith)]

This seems to be a bug either in the "lshw -json" output or in the Python json module's ability to parse said output. In particular, there's been a change in the output with Eoan. Previous versions produce something like this:

  "capabilities" : {
    "smbios-2.7" : "SMBIOS version 2.7",
    "dmi-2.7" : "DMI version 2.7",
    "vsyscall32" : "32-bit processes"
  },
  "children" : [
    {
      "id" : "core",
      "class" : "bus",

In Eoan, the equivalent segment looks like this:

  "capabilities" : {
    "smbios-2.7" : "SMBIOS version 2.7",
    "dmi-2.7" : "DMI version 2.7",
    "smp" : "Symmetric Multi-Processing",
    "vsyscall32" : "32-bit processes"
  } {
      "id" : "core",
      "class" : "bus",

I'm making inquiries to try to determine whether the new JSON output is valid or not, which will determine whether to file a bug against lshw or the Python json library.

[Rod Smith (rodsmith)]

Upon consulting with Sylvain, it looks like this is a bug in lshw's JSON output, so I've filed bug #1843063 against lshw. I'm marking this bug as a duplicate, since fixing the lshw output SHOULD resolve this bug. If a fix to lshw doesn't appear before 20.04's release, though, we may need to implement a workaround.

[Rod Smith (rodsmith)]

Per comments on bug #1843063, a fix has been identified. I've tested it in Checkbox's memory/info test, and it works fine, so I'm hoping it will be merged into Ubuntu's lshw before the release of 20.04.

[Rod Smith (rodsmith)]

See also bug #1857129.