auto-close bugs with unusable stack trace and outdated packages

[Martin Pitt]

Binary package hint: apport

If during retraces we encounter a version mismatch, i. e. a package or some dependency is out of date, and the resulting stack trace is unusable, bug should automatically be closed as invalid with a proper comment. This is currently done manually by triaging teams, but that's just a waste of work.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

Martin,

Sometimes we don't close the bugs straight away, but often give the reporter the opportunity to obtain a backtrace if the crash is repeatable. I don't know if that's the correct way to handle them though.

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Chris Coulson [2008-12-17 13:15 -0000]:
> Sometimes we don't close the bugs straight away, but often give the
> reporter the opportunity to obtain a backtrace if the crash is
> repeatable. I don't know if that's the correct way to handle them
> though.

For obsolete packages I thought about providing a comment about
updating the system and attempting to get the crash again. Apport will
file a new bug in that case anyway, so there isn't much use in keeping
the old one around IMHO.

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

What about crash reports that are submitted from users with up-to-date packages, but the traces are still missing symbols for some other reason? Would those reports be closed automatically too?

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

Chris Coulson [2008-12-17 14:04 -0000]:
> What about crash reports that are submitted from users with up-to-date
> packages, but the traces are still missing symbols for some other
> reason? Would those reports be closed automatically too?

That wasn't my plan (see bug description). Should I?

[Chris Coulson (chrisccoulson)]

No, I don't think you should close reports with unusable traces due to reasons other than version mismatch. My concern was that you were planning to automatically close those too (sorry, I misunderstood the original description)

[Martin Pitt (pitti)]

r1211

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package apport - 0.124

---------------
apport (0.124) jaunty; urgency=low

  * debian/local/ubuntu-fat-chroot: Divert touch to touch.real and
    wrap it into a shell wrapper which ignores failures. Some packages
    use "touch -m" which fails with EPERM on directories under
    fakechroot. Also disable gconf-schemas and polkit-auth, since they
    do not work in fakechroots.
  * apport/crashdb_impl/launchpad.py: Allow using staging for testing.
  * apport/crashdb.py, mark_retrace_failed(): Add new optional
    argument "invalid_msg", intended for crashes which cannot be
    retraced properly (e. g. due to outdated packages). Implement this
    in apport/crashdb_impl/launchpad.py.
  * bin/apport-retrace: If we do not have an usable stack trace, and
    encounter outdated package versions in the crash, close the report
    as invalid with an appropriate comment. (LP: #308917)
  * bin/apport-retrace: Update the apt cache before looking for, and
    installing packages. (Part of UbuntuSpec:apport-retracer-maintenance)
  * debian/apport.default: Enable by default again for Jaunty. Let the
    flood begin!

 -- Martin Pitt <email address hidden> Thu, 08 Jan 2009 14:05:07 +0100