Can't report bugs on packages installed from a PPA

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

I download a package from someone's PPA. I install it and try it out. I find a bug in it, that's not present in the mainline package. What do I do?

I shouldn't report a bug against the distribution package, because the bug isn't present in the distribution package. I might be able to contact the PPA owner directly, or I might not, depending on whether they've provided contact information.

Should I be able to report bugs on PPA packages? If so, the packages will need to be established as structural objects with their own Overview pages (e.g. <https://launchpad.net/~asac/+archive/ubuntu/firefox-2.0.0.8+2nobinonly-0ubuntu1~ppa1>), and their own Bugs pages (e.g. <https://bugs.launchpad.net/~asac/+archive/ubuntu/firefox-2.0.0.8+2nobinonly-0ubuntu1~ppa1>).

[Originally suggested by Sarah Hobbs.]

[Cody A.W. Somerville (cody-somerville)]

Could this possibly be a duplicate of bug #245183?

[Christopher Armstrong (radix)]

This bug affects me, but I don't see how bug #245183 is the same thing. Maybe it's a dependency, or maybe it's got a similar implementation, but this here ticket is specifically about the user experience of filing bugs.

[Andres Mujica (andres.mujica)]

Hi, currently at the bugsquad list, a discussion is being held about this issue.

https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-bugsquad/2009-March/001347.html

I wonder how is the status of this functionality?

Thanks in advance!

[Björn Tillenius (bjornt)]

On Fri, Mar 06, 2009 at 08:12:10PM -0000, Andres Mujica wrote:
> Hi, currently at the bugsquad list, a discussion is being held about
> this issue.
>
> https://lists.ubuntu.com/archives/ubuntu-bugsquad/2009-March/001347.html
>
> I wonder how is the status of this functionality?

It didn't make it onto our 3.0 list, but I think it will be included in
the next set of features that we work on. I.e, it won't be done before
July.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

Not currently in our roadmap; making the priority explicit.

[Julian Edwards (julian-edwards)]

On Tuesday 11 January 2011 05:25:58 you wrote:
> Not currently in our roadmap; making the priority explicit.

Really? It was part of Briding The Gap I thought (so we can report bugs on
daily builds).

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

I'll check with jml, I had heard it was complicated and contentious - I'd personally be delighted to see this be available.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

Jml says: this should be done after/in concert with a story around projects and ppas and finding bugs in similar contexts: we don't want to create a situation where bugs can rot in an un-cared-for-location.

[zsolt.ruszinyák (zsolt-ruszinyak)]

This a is a good pro-development decision!

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

For finding bugs in similar contexts, see bug 3152 etc.

[Antti Kaihola (akaihola)]

What's the suggested work-around? Should I just e-mail the PPA owner?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Apport does support this. The PPA package merely needs to define a package hook and a new Apport crash database which directs bug reports to the corresponding project instead of the Ubuntu distro in Launchpad.

See /usr/share/doc/apport/package-hooks.txt.gz, /usr/share/doc/apport/crashdb-conf.txt.gz, and the various examples in /etc/apport/crashdb.conf.d/ for this.