Automatic crash report bug reports opened in gedit rather than the browser

[Alex Murray]

If a crash report is triggered automatically (say from a program crash etc) then the Apport UI pops up asking whether to report this - if I choose to proceed, after about 30 seconds gedit pops up with a HTML document showing 'OpenID transaction in progress' - which is the login.launchpad.net openid page. Looking at the gedit document title this shows the URL which should have got loaded by firefox - and so it appears that gedit has been spawned instead of firefox to handle the xdg-open call to report the bug.

From journalctl I can see that it is root spawning this xdg-open call:

Feb 11 13:06:24 slate sudo[266010]: root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/root ; USER=amurray ; ENV=DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/xdg-open https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/dleyna-core/+filebug/4bc4c494-4c77-11ea-b34a-002481e7f48a?field.title=package+libdleyna-core-1.0-5+%28not+installed%29+failed+to+install%2Fupgrade%3A+trying+to+overwrite+%27%2Fusr%2Flib%2Fx86_64-linux-gnu%2Flibdleyna-core-1.0.so.5.0.0%27%2C+which+is+also+in+package+libdleyna-core-1.0-3%3Aamd64+0.6.0-1

And so I wonder if it is something to do with root's configuration for preferred applications (or not...)

This does not occur when running ubuntu-bug from a terminal (since I assume in this case, the xdg-open call ends up coming from the users' own session).

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: apport 2.20.11-0ubuntu16
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-12.15-generic 5.4.8
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-12-generic x86_64
NonfreeKernelModules: zfs zunicode zavl icp zcommon znvpair
ApportLog:

ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu16
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Tue Feb 11 13:34:42 2020
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-11-18 (84 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 19.10 "Eoan Ermine" - Release amd64 (20191017)
PackageArchitecture: all
SourcePackage: apport
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-01-22 (19 days ago)

[Alex Murray (alexmurray)]

Relevant parts from journalctl:

Feb 11 13:03:53 slate systemd[6652]: Starting Notification regarding a crash report...
Feb 11 13:03:53 slate update-notifier-crash[260823]: /usr/bin/whoopsie
Feb 11 13:03:54 slate update-notifier-crash[260837]: /var/crash/libdleyna-core-1
Feb 11 13:04:19 slate systemd[6652]: update-notifier-crash.service: Succeeded.
Feb 11 13:04:19 slate systemd[6652]: Started Notification regarding a crash report.
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate polkitd(authority=local)[2853]: Operator of unix-session:2 successfully authenticated as unix-user:amurray to gain ONE-SHOT authorization for action com.ubuntu.apport.apport-gtk-root for unix-process:6652:3047 [/lib/systemd/systemd --user] (>
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate pkexec[264867]: pam_unix(polkit-1:session): session opened for user root by (uid=1000)
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate pkexec[264867]: amurray: Executing command [USER=root] [TTY=unknown] [CWD=/home/amurray] [COMMAND=/usr/share/apport/apport-gtk]
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate systemd[6652]: Starting Notification regarding a crash report...
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate update-notifier-crash[265049]: /usr/bin/whoopsie
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate systemd[6652]: update-notifier-crash.service: Succeeded.
Feb 11 13:05:51 slate systemd[6652]: Started Notification regarding a crash report.
Feb 11 13:05:57 slate systemd[6652]: Starting Notification regarding a crash report...
Feb 11 13:05:57 slate update-notifier-crash[265340]: /usr/bin/whoopsie
Feb 11 13:05:58 slate systemd[6652]: update-notifier-crash.service: Succeeded.
Feb 11 13:05:58 slate systemd[6652]: Started Notification regarding a crash report.
Feb 11 13:06:13 slate systemd[6652]: Starting Notification regarding a crash report...
Feb 11 13:06:13 slate update-notifier-crash[265816]: /usr/bin/whoopsie
Feb 11 13:06:14 slate systemd[6652]: update-notifier-crash.service: Succeeded.
Feb 11 13:06:14 slate systemd[6652]: Started Notification regarding a crash report.
Feb 11 13:06:17 slate whoopsie[5815]: [13:06:17] Parsing /var/crash/libdleyna-core-1.0-5.0.crash.
Feb 11 13:06:17 slate systemd[6652]: Starting Notification regarding a crash report...
Feb 11 13:06:17 slate whoopsie[5815]: [13:06:17] Uploading /var/crash/libdleyna-core-1.0-5.0.crash.
Feb 11 13:06:17 slate update-notifier-crash[265873]: /usr/bin/whoopsie
Feb 11 13:06:17 slate systemd[6652]: update-notifier-crash.service: Succeeded.
Feb 11 13:06:17 slate systemd[6652]: Started Notification regarding a crash report.
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate whoopsie[5815]: [13:06:20] Sent; server replied with: No error
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate whoopsie[5815]: [13:06:20] Response code: 200
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate whoopsie[5815]: [13:06:20] Reported OOPS ID 4948a47e-4c77-11ea-a966-fa163e983629
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate systemd[6652]: Starting Notification regarding a crash report...
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate update-notifier-crash[265936]: /usr/bin/whoopsie
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate systemd[6652]: update-notifier-crash.service: Succeeded.
Feb 11 13:06:20 slate systemd[6652]: Started Notification regarding a crash report.
Feb 11 13:06:24 slate sudo[266010]: root : TTY=unknown ; PWD=/root ; USER=amurray ; ENV=DBUS_SESSION_BUS_ADDRESS=unix:path=/run/user/1000/bus ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/xdg-open https://...