System program problem detected

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson]

Binary package hint: gdm

Whether I do something or not after having launched a Natty session, after approx. 20 seconds the dialog "System program problem detected" is shown (attached as system-problem-dialog.png). No more information is given on the nature of the problem. A few days ago I clicked the "Report problem..." button and followed the instructions, which resulted in bug 718524.

I attached the xsession-errors file, even if I can't tell if that info is useful.

If there is an intention to show such problem alerts in 11.04, it's important IMO that they include more meaningful info.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

thank you for your bug report, that's not a bug though it's just ubuntu-bug telling you that a crash has been detected

[Raphael J. Schmid (raphael-j-schmid)]

I'm experiencing the same thing on every boot-up, on every machine where I've installed Natty, and it's annoying as hell. At the very least the window should tell about what the crash was caused by. Better yet, the other (default?) crash dialog could be used, the one with the "don't show for this program anymore" option. Seeing as it appears so frequently and seems to affect quite a lot of testers, I don't think it's "invalid"...

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

I agree with Raphael; indeed this ought to be fixed before the Natty release. We don't want to bother the common user with that pointless alert, do we?

Setting status "Confirmed" and subscribing Ubuntu Desktop. Sebastien: There may be more appropriate ways to give this bug attention, but please don't make it invisible again.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

is the crash dialog you get about policykit every time? that's likely a crash on session closing that you see on next login because the apport dialog is displayed, we turn apport off in stable version so it shouldn't be any issue there

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Sometimes I see a policykit dialog. However, much more common is a "System program problem detected" dialog - please see the system-problem-dialog.png attachment - and I can't tell what it is about (which makes it extra annoying).

Of course, if you are going to disable whatever it is that causes it, it's not a problem. But are we talking about the same thing?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

the dialog is just there because you have a .crash in /var/crash which is not from your user and update-notifier avoids locking your keyboard to ask for your password to access those while you are working, that's still not a gdm bug though

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Ok, Sebastien, thanks for the explanation, even if I don't fully understand it. Then I hope that somebody will go to the correct package and do something.

Basically all I want to say is that the "System program problem detected" dialog really should go away before the 11.04 release.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Right, I can see how it's confusing, we turn apport off by default in stable distribution because reporting bugs is not what stable users should have to deal with and we get most of the common issues reported during the unstable cycle or by technical users so that will take care of the issue for you.

The dialog which is confusing you is apport's way to tell you that a crash file is available which you didn't report yet without locking your keyboard asking for your admin password to be able to access it, it let you decide to report the bug or delay that to later. One reason you might see it often is because you do guest session testing and any crash in those session would trigger that dialog, the dialog will also be displayed every time a new issue is detected, that can be frequent in unstable cycle. You can turn apport off if you don't report those issues anyway and want to get ride of the dialog.

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

Disabling the thing before the final release will indeed take care of
the issue for me. That's what I wanted to hear. :)

On 2011-04-14 22:56, Sebastien Bacher wrote:
> You can turn apport off if you don't report those issues anyway and
> want to get ride of the dialog.

Nae, as long as I know it's just during the development cycle, I have no
problem with it. My only concern was common users who haven't chosen to
get involved in the development.

But I just come to think of another thing. Wouldn't it be wise to add a
short version of the explanation you just gave to the dialog? Doing so
might prevent some confusion for less experienced developers like me.

Thanks!

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

is that still an issue?

[Gunnar Hjalmarsson (gunnarhj)]

It's no longer an issue for me personally. But when closing this bug report, I just ask you to consider what I wrote in my previous comment:

"Wouldn't it be wise to add to the dialog a short version of the explanation you just gave? Doing so might prevent some confusion for less experienced developers like me."

[Hallvard Nygård (hnygard)]

I also experienced this dialog box after aborting a upgrade of Virtualbox (looked in /var/crash/). For a few days now I have just canceled the box since it asked for my password without telling what it was needing it for.

Resolve this issue by
- Explaining, in the dialog box attached in the initial report here at launchpad, why this message is appearing
- Explain what is in the report (or tell the user where the report is located)
- Explain what will happen to the report
- Cancel should delete the file or tell the user it could not and tell it what file to delete

The dialog box used today has REALLY bad usability.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gdm (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[robert (robert-kiwanuka)]

I am having this problem. Exactly as given in the .png file above. I have clicked "report problem" a few times and the same for "cancel" yet it comes back all the time! So frustrating that there is no information to help look for the cause of the problem!!!!!!!

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description: Ubuntu 12.04 LTS
Release: 12.04
Codename: precise