You could try passing a core file to apport when there is not a graphical shell running via a command like the following:
/usr/share/apport/apport <pid> <signal number> <core file ulimit> <dump mode> < $my-pretend.core
With that you should get a .crash file in /var/crash. Here's an example where 11736 was a running xeyes process and core was real crashdump file.
$ /usr/share/apport/apport 11736 11 0 1 < /etc/X11/core ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:35 2018: called for pid 11736, signal 11, core limit 0, dump mode 1 ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:35 2018: executable: /usr/bin/xeyes (command line "xeyes") ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:35 2018: debug: session gdbus call: (true,)
ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:49 2018: wrote report /var/crash/_usr_bin_xeyes.1000.crash
Keep in mind that if you stop the apport service /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern will revert back to the default which is just core.
$ cat /proc/sys/kernel/core_pattern core
So it's likely apport wasn't running on the system and is not the issue.
You could try passing a core file to apport when there is not a graphical shell running via a command like the following:
/usr/share/ apport/ apport <pid> <signal number> <core file ulimit> <dump mode> < $my-pretend.core
With that you should get a .crash file in /var/crash. Here's an example where 11736 was a running xeyes process and core was real crashdump file.
$ /usr/share/ apport/ apport 11736 11 0 1 < /etc/X11/core
ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:35 2018: called for pid 11736, signal 11, core limit 0, dump mode 1
ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:35 2018: executable: /usr/bin/xeyes (command line "xeyes")
ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:35 2018: debug: session gdbus call: (true,)
ERROR: apport (pid 11743) Fri Feb 2 14:47:49 2018: wrote report /var/crash/ _usr_bin_ xeyes.1000. crash
Keep in mind that if you stop the apport service /proc/sys/ kernel/ core_pattern will revert back to the default which is just core.
$ cat /proc/sys/ kernel/ core_pattern
core
So it's likely apport wasn't running on the system and is not the issue.