System Settings fails to start

[Ed Kapitein]

When using the gear icon on the left side of the screen, there is a complete white, empty settings menu with a spinner for a couple of seconds, and then the settings screen closes.
this is on a aquaris BQ 4.5 latest stable release (OTA8).
Restarting the device does not help. One time pressing the power off button for a long time made the menu come back once.
After that one time the settings menu was gone again.
The second time the long power off button press did not help at all.

Kind regards,
Ed

[Jonas G. Drange (jonas-drange)]

Thank you for reporting this, Ed.

Is there a crash file in /var/crash?

[Ed Kapitein (ed-kapitein)]

Nope:

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ ls -al /var/crash/
total 12
drwxrwsrwt 2 root whoopsie 8192 Dec 12 06:25 .
drwxr-xr-x 13 root root 4096 Jan 29 2015 ..

Thanks for looking in to this.

On Tue, 2015-12-22 at 10:40 +0000, Jonas G. Drange wrote:
> Thank you for reporting this, Ed.
>
> Is there a crash file in /var/crash?
>

[Jonas G. Drange (jonas-drange)]

Could you append the output from $ system-image-cli -i to the bug
description?

Also, you say there is no
“~/.cache/upstart/application-legacy-ubuntu-system-settings-.log”? Could
you check again, it might have been rotated.

Thank you.

[Ed Kapitein (ed-kapitein)]

On Tue, 2015-12-22 at 11:06 +0000, Jonas G. Drange wrote:
> Could you append the output from $ system-image-cli -i to the bug
> description?
>
> Also, you say there is no
> “~/.cache/upstart/application-legacy-ubuntu-system-settings-.log”?
> Could
> you check again, it might have been rotated.

ls -actrl ~/.cache/upstart/application-legacy-ubuntu-system-settings-*

ls: cannot access /home/phablet/.cache/upstart/application-legacy
-ubuntu-system-settings-*: No such file or directory

However, there is one file with legacy in its name:
ls -actrl ~/.cache/upstart/ | grep legacy
-rw-r----- 1 phablet phablet 877 Dec 21 16:06 application-legacy
-dialer-app-.log.1.gz

But that is not the file you are looking for right?

I will attach system-image-cli -i to the ticket as well, but here it
is:

current build number: 28
device name: krillin
channel: ubuntu-touch/stable/bq-aquaris.en
last update: 2015-12-16 20:32:55
version version: 28
version ubuntu: 20151210
version tag: OTA-8.5
version device: 20150821-736d127
version custom: 20151111--36-46-vivid

>
> Thank you.
>

Kind regards,
Ed

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

Just in case, please delete the QML cache and try again

rm -r /home/phablet/.cache/QML/Apps/ubuntu-system-settings/

[Jonas G. Drange (jonas-drange)]

Also, could you try starting System Settings via the command line like so:

system-settings
--desktop_file_hint=/usr/share/applications/ubuntu-system-settings.desktop

[Ed Kapitein (ed-kapitein)]

On Tue, 2015-12-22 at 14:10 +0000, Jonas G. Drange wrote:
> Also, could you try starting System Settings via the command line
> like
> so:
>
> system-settings
> --desktop_file_hint=/usr/share/applications/ubuntu-system
> -settings.desktop
>

Hmm. that does give a clue:

 system-settings --desktop_file_hint=/usr/share/applications/ubuntu
-system-settings.desktop
Loading module: 'libubuntu_application_api_touch_mirclient.so.3.0.0'
UCUriHandler: Empty "APP_ID" environment variable, ignoring.
Segmentation fault

I am doing it as the user phablet, correct?

Kind regards,
Ed

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

That's normal output so no clue there

Did you try clearing the cache?
Just to confirm, have you installed anything or changed your system in any non-standard way?

You could reflash using
ubuntu-device-flash touch --channel ubuntu-touch/stable/bq-aquaris.en
This will keep your data in tact.
If that doesn't fix it then there is some issue with the data on the system causing the crash

[Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan)]

@Ed

Can you enable crash reporting then trigger the failure again and attach the .crash file here.

To enable reporting from the command line
sudo touch /var/lib/apport/autoreport
then reboot

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

What types of networks do you have configured on the device? enterprise wifi, hotspot, anything?

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

Also, can you try and open the addressbook? Please let me know if that crashes on startup or not.

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

I've reproduced this by enabling rndis, based on seeing you asking about that on the mailing list a while back. That creates a wired interface, which is triggering this crash. You can either disable rndis or switch to the rc-proposed channel. The crash has been fixed in rc-proposed already, and will be included in ota-9.

[Ed Kapitein (ed-kapitein)]

On 12/22/15 17:56, Pat McGowan wrote:
> That's normal output so no clue there
>
> Did you try clearing the cache?
> Just to confirm, have you installed anything or changed your system in any non-standard way?
>
> You could reflash using
> ubuntu-device-flash touch --channel ubuntu-touch/stable/bq-aquaris.en
> This will keep your data in tact.
> If that doesn't fix it then there is some issue with the data on the system causing the crash
>
You mean the Segmentation fault is expected output?

After sudo touch /var/lib/apport/autoreport and the reboot, opening the
settings menu is still not possible.
Clearing the cache and then rebooting brought back the settings menu
once, i closed it, and now i am unable to open it again, just as before.

Kind regards,
Ed

PS
If needed i will reflash, but i'll wait a while, in case someone want to
find the root cause of this situation.

[Ed Kapitein (ed-kapitein)]

On 12/22/15 20:00, Ken VanDine wrote:
> Also, can you try and open the addressbook? Please let me know if that
> crashes on startup or not.
>
Yup that crashes too!

[Ed Kapitein (ed-kapitein)]

Seems like it, i disabled rndis and i am able to open the settings menu
again.
I can live with a disabled rndis interface for a while and wait for OTA9.

Thanks for all the support so far!

Kind regards,
Ed

On 12/22/15 20:13, Ken VanDine wrote:
> *** This bug is a duplicate of bug 1523975 ***
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1523975
>
> I've reproduced this by enabling rndis, based on seeing you asking about
> that on the mailing list a while back. That creates a wired interface,
> which is triggering this crash. You can either disable rndis or switch
> to the rc-proposed channel. The crash has been fixed in rc-proposed
> already, and will be included in ota-9.
>
> ** This bug has been marked a duplicate of bug 1523975
> [desktop] system-settings crashes on startup with 5.4.1+dfsg-2ubuntu11~vivid1
>