apport symptom based reporting

Leann Ogasawara leann.ogasawara at canonical.com
Mon Feb 22 19:39:45 UTC 2010


On Mon, 2010-02-22 at 12:57 +0000, Andy Whitcroft wrote:
> On Mon, Feb 22, 2010 at 12:51:06PM +0000, Andy Whitcroft wrote:
> > I have just had a strange experience with the symptom based reporting
> > in apport.  I have obviously had some kind of kernel issue, either a
> > delayed failed suspend/resume report or perhaps an oops which has not
> > had any physical effect I am aware of.  I get the apport report of a
> > 'serious kernel issue' and asked to report it; note that I was previously
> > unaware of the problem.  Now the first question is 'Has this issue been
> > confirmed to exist with the upstream kernel?" and I have yes/no as options.
> > But as I have no prior knowledge of the issue, and have yet to have had an
> > option to see the report, it is impossible for me to answer this question
> > meaningfully.  Perhaps we need some thought to this flow for these
> > cases?
> > 
> > Do we have a flow chart or similar we can look at to see how its means
> > to question you?

We unfortunately don't have a flow chart diagram at the moment, but for
immediate purposes you can take a look at the source_linux.py kernel
hook [1] and glean from the if statements the order in which questions
are asked etc.

> Indeed the next question is then 'Do I want to test it upstream?', and
> after that 'Is this a regression?', then 'is it reproducible'?
> 
> I suspect as a minimal fix we need an 'Unknown' on the first question,
> which probabally skips the second, and an 'Unknown' on the rest.  Or
> perhaps a question which first which lets me skip them all if I have no
> clue what is going on.  To be honest, whatever happens 'unknown' may be
> a sensible additional answer to all of the questions in case people
> don't understand.

Yup, should be easy to add an "Unknown" or "I don't know" option.  I can
get a patch together for apport and submit it.

> Finally it offers to send this thing to Kerneloops before I have had a
> chance to review it.  Things seem a little muddled as consumer.  For an
> Oops I wonder if we can show them the oops message before they have to
> answer anything.

I think it should be possible to show the OopsText along with the
question.  I can investigate and send a patch.

Thanks,
Leann

[1] http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~ubuntu-core-dev/ubuntu/lucid/apport/ubuntu/annotate/head:/data/package-hooks/source_linux.py






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