Too many crash files kill the device
Affects | Status | Importance | Assigned to | Milestone | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Canonical System Image |
Fix Released
|
Critical
|
Steve Langasek | ||
apport (Ubuntu) |
Fix Released
|
High
|
Brian Murray | ||
Vivid |
Fix Released
|
Undecided
|
Brian Murray |
Bug Description
Tested on krillin.
TEST CASE:
1. adb shell to the phone and create a crash file
$ sh -c 'kill -SEGV $$'
2. Now create dozens
$ for n in $(seq 50); do ln /var/crash/
3. Remove any "upload" and "uploaded" files that have been created and reboot
$ sudo rm /var/crash/*upload* && sudo reboot
ACTUAL RESULT
Lot of whoopsie-upload-all and apport processes are created on boot, consume all the resources of the system and make the phone unbootable or partially functional. OOM killer kills random system tasks such as upstart. Depending on the processes killed, the phone hangs on boot, reboots, dash doesn't come up...
The number of crashes in this test is a bit excessive but we can imagine a scenario where a dozen of crash files are not uploaded because the phone is on cellular data, and uploads everything when it connects to wifi, disabling the user session.
A way to recover is to go into recovery and clean /var/crash.
EXPECTED RESULT
crash uploads are serialized and can be uploaded only one at a time
If system resources are already low, the crash file is not uploaded.
description: | updated |
description: | updated |
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image: | |
assignee: | nobody → Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan) |
importance: | Undecided → Critical |
milestone: | none → ww34-2015 |
status: | New → Confirmed |
Changed in apport (Ubuntu): | |
assignee: | nobody → Steve Langasek (vorlon) |
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image: | |
assignee: | Pat McGowan (pat-mcgowan) → Steve Langasek (vorlon) |
Changed in apport (Ubuntu): | |
status: | Triaged → In Progress |
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image: | |
status: | Confirmed → Fix Committed |
Changed in canonical-devices-system-image: | |
status: | Fix Committed → Fix Released |
This is implicated in cases of 'ota bricked my phone', as the reboot that occurs triggers the process documented above.