Some GTK UI tests are flaky due to timeout

[Didier Roche-Tolomelli]

[Impact]

The autopkgtests are sometimes passing, sometimes stuck for more than 2h:
http://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/packages/apport/cosmic/amd64.
It's blocking randomly on different tests.

All tests that are stucked, implements closing a request via a timeout (and then, executing "run"). The bet is that the timeout is short enough (1s) so that, when autopkgtests infra is busy, time to execute the bash subcommand is taking more than a second, and so "dismissing" is ran before execution happens and the whole testsuite hangs.

There are few instances of setting this timeout function:
$ grep eout_add_sec test/*
test/test_ui_gtk.py: GLib.timeout_add_seconds(1, cont)
test/test_ui_gtk.py: GLib.timeout_add_seconds(1, cont)
test/test_ui_gtk.py: GLib.timeout_add_seconds(1, cont)
test/test_ui_gtk.py: GLib.timeout_add_seconds(1, c)
test/test_ui_gtk.py: GLib.timeout_add_seconds(1, c)

Short term solution could be to increase the timeout. Long term would be to eliminate this potential race implementing cancelling differently. The short term workaround to increase the timeout increases the test execution time by five minutes.

[Test Plan]

Check that the autopkgtest succeed on all architectures (except for i386).

[Where problems could occur]

The test cases are only part of the apport source package and are not copied in any binary packages. Changes to the test will only affect the package build and test execution.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 2.20.10-0ubuntu7

---------------
apport (2.20.10-0ubuntu7) cosmic; urgency=medium

  * tests/test_ui_gtk.py: Increase the timeout so that when the autopkgtest
    infrastructure is busy the tests should not fail. (LP: #1780767)

 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Tue, 24 Jul 2018 08:03:49 -0700

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Could this be backported to bionic with the next SRU? We're possibly seeing the same timeout issues there.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Hello Didier, or anyone else affected,

Accepted apport into bionic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5 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 on 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-bionic to verification-done-bionic. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-bionic. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

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

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The i386 and amd64 autopkgtests passed for Ubuntu 18.04 with the new version of apport in -proposed.

http://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/packages/a/apport/bionic/amd64
http://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/packages/a/apport/bionic/i386

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for apport 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 regressions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5

---------------
apport (2.20.9-0ubuntu7.5) bionic; urgency=medium

  * apport/ui.py: when using ubuntu-bug properly handle executables which
    start with /snap/bin. (LP: #1760220)
  * test/test_ui_gtk.py: Increase the timeout so that when the autopkgtest
    infrastructure is busy the tests should not fail. (LP: #1780767)

 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Fri, 02 Nov 2018 08:19:37 -0700

[Łukasz Zemczak (sil2100)]

Interesting. This bug was 'fixed' for bionic in 2018, but now it's referenced again in 2022 for jammy. Was it a fix that got missed forward-porting? Or are we simply re-using existing bugs?

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

Some tests were flaky because they contained race conditions. A dirty workaround (to not trigger the race conditions) applied in bionic was to sleep for 60 seconds. The race conditions were fixed in Apport recently and are part of the SRU for jammy.

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

An upload of apport to jammy-proposed has been rejected from the upload queue for the following reason: "contains bugfixes without bug references or test cases, does not meet SRU policy".

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

The proper fix of the flaky tests were implemented in commit accf9969479fd39f28dc23dd1e6ec2aa06cc4303 ("tests: Fix GTK UI race condition and reduce timeout again") which is part of apport 2.21.0. Therefore the fix is in Ubuntu 22.10 (kinetic).

[Steve Langasek (vorlon)]

Hello Didier, or anyone else affected,

Accepted apport into jammy-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apport/2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5 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 on 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, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-jammy to verification-done-jammy. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-jammy. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

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

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[Benjamin Drung (bdrung)]

The autopkgtests for apport 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5 succeeded:

* amd64: https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-jammy/jammy/amd64/a/apport/20230513_011620_4e4be@/log.gz
* arm64: https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-jammy/jammy/arm64/a/apport/20230513_004013_dc931@/log.gz
* armhf: https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-jammy/jammy/armhf/a/apport/20230513_004303_6da9e@/log.gz
* ppc64el: https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-jammy/jammy/ppc64el/a/apport/20230513_003849_f2533@/log.gz
* s390x: https://autopkgtest.ubuntu.com/results/autopkgtest-jammy/jammy/s390x/a/apport/20230513_004752_eb29f@/log.gz

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5

---------------
apport (2.20.11-0ubuntu82.5) jammy; urgency=medium

  * apport-gtk: Exclude trailing dot from URL links (LP: #1978301)
  * apport-bug: Add /snap/bin to PATH for Firefox snap on Lubuntu
    (LP: #1973470)
  * test:
    - Clear environment for test_run_as_real_user_no_sudo
    - Fix GTK UI tests if whoopsie.path is disabled
    - tests: Fix GTK UI race condition and reduce timeout again, saving
      five minutes test execution time (LP: #1780767)
    - tests: Fix race in tests for run_report_bug()

 -- Benjamin Drung <email address hidden> Fri, 14 Apr 2023 01:08:26 +0200