crashes while reporting a Synaptics bug - fills up /tmp

[LAZA]

[Impact]
If an application crashes and /tmp is full or nearly full, and the application crash file is not fully written to /tmp (due to the lack of free space), then apport will crash when processing the incomplete core dump. This is occurring more frequently in Ubuntu 13.04 and apport version 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.3 (as it add core dumps of setuid binaries).

[Test Case]
Confirm that apport version 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.4 does not appear at the problem page for this bug.

https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/58c0161985991c62487ced8e88f9fc318050694c

[Regression Potential]
Little as it just adds exception handling for EOFErrors.

I have problems with Synpatic, which crashes often.
Then apport wants to file the bug and crashes also (apport-gtk).

This leads to a lot of apport files on /tmp --> finally my complete / partition is full! with over 4 GB of apport-gtk files!

Got this many times, always the same procedure:
1. start Synaptics
2. try(!) mark unneeded config files from removed packages
2b. Synaptic crashes, open up the apport file
3. Apport crashes
4. Synaptics crashes again (window was not closed before)
5. Apport crashes
...
5b. Apport writes a lot of files in /tmp
...
6. systems hangs while /tmp (which is normally mounted on / directly) partition is full!

.

Xubuntu 13.04 beta2

Apport:
ii apport 2.9.2-0ubuntu8 all automatically generate crash reports for debugging
ii apport-gtk 2.9.2-0ubuntu8 all GTK+ frontend for the apport crash report system
ii apport-symptoms 0.19 all symptom scripts for apport
ii python-apport 2.9.2-0ubuntu8 all Python library for Apport crash report handling
ii python3-apport 2.9.2-0ubuntu8 all Python 3 library for Apport crash report handling

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Fixed in trunk r2642

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 2.10.2-0ubuntu1

---------------
apport (2.10.2-0ubuntu1) saucy; urgency=low

  * New upstream bug fix release:
    - Resolve symlinks in file references in Python crash signatures.
      (LP: #1179979)
    - Fix endless loop of EOFErrors with broken core dumps. (LP: #1168849)
    - report.py, add_gdb_info(): Fix crash if gdb did not determine an
      assertion message. (LP: #1171484)
    - apt/dpkg: Fix get_file_package()'s "release" field to actually mean
      DistroRelease:, not a distro code name. This now requires a previous
      call to install_packages() with a configdir, which needs to have a file
      <configdir>/<release>/codename with the release's code name in it.
    - sandboxutils.py: Call get_file_package() with the report's release, so
      that we actually get files from the target release, not the host
      release.
    - test_hookutils.py: Don't assume that /etc/motd exists.
  * Move to dh compat level 9.
 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Wed, 22 May 2013 12:39:21 +0200

[Vikram Ambrose (noel-ambrose)]

This bug still exists in the latest 13.04. I see 4 python instances and when a program crashes apport fills up /tmp.

When /tmp fills up everything else on the system slowly stops working.

Latest 13.04 as of today is 3.8.0-25-generic

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Vikram - this has only been fixed in Ubuntu 13.10 and additionally the fix was to stop apport from crashing when /tmp is full, not to resolve the issue about system performance with a full /tmp partition.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello LAZA, or anyone else affected,

Accepted apport into raring-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/2.9.2-0ubuntu8.4 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

[LAZA (laza74)]

Installed the proposed package today, but was not able to crash Synaptics like before...

A little hint how i could test the package would be appreciated!

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

As a part of the Stable Release Updates quality process a search for Launchpad bug reports using the version of apport from raring-proposed was performed and bug 1224307 was found. Please investigate this bug report to ensure that a regression will not be created by this SRU. In the event that this is not a regression remove the "verification-failed" tag from this bug report and tag 1224307 "bot-stop-nagging". Thanks!

[Julien-Charles Lévesque (jclevesque)]

I had this problem when trying to upgrade from 13.04 to 13.10. Something crashed (the upgrader), apport filled /tmp with junk. Had to kill it.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

As a part of the Stable Release Updates quality process a search for Launchpad bug reports using the version of apport from raring-proposed was performed and bug 1239466 was found. Please investigate this bug report to ensure that a regression will not be created by this SRU. In the event that this is not a regression remove the "verification-failed" tag from this bug report and tag 1239466 "bot-stop-nagging". Thanks!

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

While this hasn't completely disappeared in raring (looking at the errors bucket) it is happening much less. Taking that and the size of the patch into consideration I'm going to mark this SRU as verified and release it.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.4

---------------
apport (2.9.2-0ubuntu8.4) raring-proposed; urgency=low

  * Fix endless loop of EOFErrors with broken core dumps. (LP: #1168849)
 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Wed, 21 Aug 2013 13:58:08 -0700

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The verification of this Stable Release Update has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regresssions.

[Håkon Enger (hakon-enger)]

I just experienced that apport crached repeatedly, filling my /tmp with thousands of apport_core_... files in a few seconds. I am not convinced that this bug is fixed. This is on a fully updated 13.04 system with apport 2.9.2-0ubuntu8.5.