"Hardware Information" (hal-device-manager) crashes when started

Bug #192623 reported by akhenaton
10
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
hal (Ubuntu)
Invalid
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

Binary package hint: hal-device-manager

i'm using:
1) ubuntu 7.10 (gutsy)
2) hal-device-manager 0.5.9.1-6ubuntu5

i'm trying to launch "Hardware Information" from System->Preferences and the app's window pops up for a very short amount of time and immediately dissappears
this used to work before and noticed it doesn't [anymore] just after an auto-update [the latest, which, if i'm not mistaken, was a security update for the kernel and some other stuff]

Revision history for this message
akhenaton (aky-home) wrote :
Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. However, your crash report is challenging to deal with as a ".crash" file. Please follow these instructions to have apport report a new bug about your crash that can be dealt with by the automatic retracer.

If you are using Ubuntu with the Gnome desktop environment - launch nautilus and navigate to your /var/crash directory and double click on the crash report you wish to submit.
If you are using Kubuntu or Xubuntu you can file the crash using /usr/share/apport/apport-qt --crash-file=/var/crash/_my_crash_report.crash in a terminal - where _my_crash_report.crash is the crash you would like to report.

I'm closing this bug report since the process outlined above will automatically open a new bug report which can then dealt with more efficiently. Thanks in advance for your cooperation and understanding.

Changed in hal:
status: New → Invalid
Revision history for this message
f37u5g0d (enovak) wrote :

I followed those instructions to send the crash report because I am using ubuntu 8.04 and I have the same problem (didn't have it in 7.10 though). It wasn't able to send, it claims that that crash file isn't a genuine ubuntu package. What should I do?

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

The hal-device-manager package is actually no longer included with Hardy and that is why the crash report can not be reported.

Revision history for this message
f37u5g0d (enovak) wrote : Re: [Bug 192623] Re: "Hardware Information" (hal-device-manager) crashes when started

    So will this bug ever be fixed? Or is there another way to view
info about the hardware on my comp?

Brian Murray wrote:
> The hal-device-manager package is actually no longer included with Hardy
> and that is why the crash report can not be reported.
>
> --
> "Hardware Information" (hal-device-manager) crashes when started
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/192623
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Revision history for this message
Michael Vogt (mvo) wrote :

Thanks for your bugreport.

Please attach the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade to this bugreport.
 Thanks Michael

Changed in hal:
status: Invalid → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
f37u5g0d (enovak) wrote :

I am no longer experiencing this problem. Do you still want to see the
files?

-Ed

Michael Vogt wrote:
> Thanks for your bugreport.
>
> Please attach the files in /var/log/dist-upgrade to this bugreport.
> Thanks Michael
>
> ** Changed in: hal (Ubuntu)
> Status: Invalid => Incomplete
>
> --
> "Hardware Information" (hal-device-manager) crashes when started
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/192623
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Yes, we are trying to determine why hal-device-manager was not automatically removed from your system.

Revision history for this message
akhenaton (aky-home) wrote :

i no longer saw "Hardware Information" (hal-device-manager) in System->Preferences [after appling all the lates updates]
anyway, in the meantime i did a clean ubuntu install using the 8.04 "final" [release] cd
thanks for your time on this; i wish the other bugs reported [by me and others] in ubuntu's launchpad be treated as seriously as this one and draw more attention from the devs [and not being labelled as "medium" and stay there unfixed for another 3 or 4 releases as they currently do / will]

Revision history for this message
f37u5g0d (enovak) wrote :

    Is there a way to attach more than one file at a time as part of a
comment? Is there a better way to upload these log files? I don't want
to make one post for each of the log files I have (total of 5 posts).
Or is there one specific log file you want? I have apt-term, main,
main_pre_req, term, and apt. All ending in .log in that folder. Thank
you! Also like I said before it now works but I am not sure when it
started or why it works.

-Ed

Brian Murray wrote:
> Yes, we are trying to determine why hal-device-manager was not
> automatically removed from your system.
>
> --
> "Hardware Information" (hal-device-manager) crashes when started
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/192623
> You received this bug notification because you are a direct subscriber
> of the bug.
>

Revision history for this message
A K (kulkarni-fas) wrote :

"Hardware Information" crashes on my machine too (Hardy 8.04). Is there another way to view hardware info?

Revision history for this message
Lie Ryan (lie-1296) wrote :

I made a duplicate report about Hardware Information crashing because of hal-device-manager is not replaced with gnome-device-manager as bug #225217 before seeing this bug (https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/hal/+bug/225217). I made that report using the error reporter, and since the OP's error reporter seems unable to catch this, it might contain some useful information which could be replicated here and that one closed.

My current state, now, I've installed gnome-device-manager and it worked, the h-d-m is still installed and non-functional.

PS1: how do you close bug as duplicate? or should dups be marked invalid? Bear with me, I'm just one-day-old in Launchpad

Here, is a transcript of that bug report [things in square brackets are later additions]:

----

When I tried running the "Hardware Information" tool from Control Center and System > Preferences > Hardware Information [and also from Terminal], it only opened for a second then crashes immediately.

Interestingly, the Error Reporting automatic error summary is: "hal-device-manager crashed with AttributeError in populate_gtk_tree()", while the thread #196793 get a won't fix because they say hal-device-manager is already replaced by gnome-device-manager.

When I tried running hal-device-manager on a Terminal, it printed the attached traceback [the one titled: Traceback from running hal-device-manager from terminal]. While gnome-device-manager is not installed.

This is on a Hardy Heron system, just upgraded from Gutsy Gibbon. No prerelease Hardy Heron is ever installed[, the original installation is Gutsy].

ProblemType: Crash
Architecture: amd64
Date: Thu May 1 19:30:29 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/hal-device-manager
InterpreterPath: /usr/bin/python2.5
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: hal-device-manager 0.5.9.1-6ubuntu5
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcCmdline: python /usr/bin/hal-device-manager
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
PythonArgs: ['/usr/bin/hal-device-manager']
SourcePackage: hal
Title: hal-device-manager crashed with AttributeError in populate_gtk_tree()
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-16-generic x86_64
UserGroups: adm admin audio cdrom dialout dip floppy lpadmin netdev plugdev powerdev scanner video

----

Attachments:
    * Traceback from running hal-device-manager from terminal (1.1 KiB, text/plain)
    * Dependencies.txt (5.5 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
    * ProcMaps.txt (47.7 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
    * ProcStatus.txt (681 bytes, text/plain; charset="utf-8")
    * Traceback.txt (1.0 KiB, text/plain; charset="utf-8")

[PS2: I attached all these files as one file, with separate file separated by this funny looking, purely random, separator <&(^%%)&> filename.txt (FYI: the only thing that's not random is the angle bracket, the ampersand and round brackets symmetry is pure coincidental, but please don't worry, it's not a second funny looking fork bomb)]

----

Revision history for this message
Lie Ryan (lie-1296) wrote :

On a probably (un)related note, I tried "lshw", and it prints "PCI (sysfs)", then runs for an hour taking 50% of my dual core CPU before I Ctrl+C it. "lspci" works though.

If there is any reason hal-device-manager fails, could it probably roots from lshw? But then, why gnome-device-manager works? Is it not using lshw? (I'm not familiar with Ubuntu's/GNOME/Linux internals, as you might have guessed from my 'wild' guesses).

Revision history for this message
Brian Murray (brian-murray) wrote :

Lie Ryan:
The 'lshw' bug you are experiencing may be due to bug 202460.

In regards to marking a bug as a duplicate there is a "Mark as duplicate" in the "Actions" portlet on the left hand side of the bug report.

Revision history for this message
Dave Vree (hdave) wrote :

I recently upgraded from Gutsy to Hardy and found that hal-device-manager was crashing for me too. Attached is the crash report.

After reading the helpful post above, I installed gnome-device-manager (it was not installed as part of the upgrade) and it works fine.

Changed in hal:
status: Incomplete → Confirmed
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Revision history for this message
dino99 (9d9) wrote :
Changed in hal (Ubuntu):
status: Triaged → Invalid
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