/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt_check.py:subprocess.CalledProcessError:get_distro:_get_info_from_os_release:/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt_check.py@63:get_distro:_get_output_from_lsb_release:check_output:run

[errors.ubuntu.com bug bridge]

The Ubuntu Error Tracker has been receiving reports about a problem regarding update-notifier. This problem was most recently seen with package version 3.192.30.8, the problem page at https://errors.ubuntu.com/problem/4a420fb0aa23173e53e718729b33e8944f6f6ef0 contains more details, including versions of packages affected, stacktrace or traceback, and individual crash reports.
If you do not have access to the Ubuntu Error Tracker and are a software developer, you can request it at http://forms.canonical.com/reports/.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Here's the Traceback:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 55, in get_distro
    return _get_info_from_os_release(key="UBUNTU_CODENAME")
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 32, in _get_info_from_os_release
    raise Exception(
Exception: Could not find UBUNTU_CODENAME in /etc/os-release

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 63, in <module>
    DISTRO = get_distro()
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 60, in get_distro
    return _get_output_from_lsb_release("-c")
  File "/usr/lib/update-notifier/apt-check", line 47, in _get_output_from_lsb_release
    return subprocess.check_output(
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 411, in check_output
    return run(*popenargs, stdout=PIPE, timeout=timeout, check=True,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.8/subprocess.py", line 512, in run
    raise CalledProcessError(retcode, process.args,
subprocess.CalledProcessError: Command '['lsb_release', '-c', '-s']' returned non-zero exit status 1.

[Lucas Albuquerque Medeiros de Moura (lamoura)]

Hi Brian, do you have any suggestions about what could be done here ? It seems that the problem occurred on both the /etc/os-release file and the lsb_release command.

I don't think there is anything else we can do on that situation right ?

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Looking at the code I guess raising an Exception here could be useful but it ends up preventing a flavor from using apt-check and that doesn't seem great. What would the negative consequences be of not raising and exception and having DISTRO be empty?

[Lucas Albuquerque Medeiros de Moura (lamoura)]

We use the distro information all over the code, for example, to perform the check if a package is from a security pocket or if it is an ESM package.

We also use the distro to correctly select the ESM messages we will deliver to the user