DebuggingUbiquity

Revision 25 as of 2006-10-23 11:48:58

Crash report handling

Many Ubiquity bugs arrive in the form of cut-and-pastes from its crash helper dialog. In simple cases, these are often enough to completely diagnose the bug and allow a developer to fix it, which is why the crash dialog exists. However, if the crash occurs in install.py (the component of Ubiquity that actually constructs and configures the newly-installed system), then in Dapper a combination of technical awkwardness and lack of developer time means that the traceback from the crash dialog often ends like this:

RuntimeError: Install failed with exit code 1; see /var/log/installer/syslog and /var/log/syslog

(Edgy installations will produce a more verbose traceback.)

This traceback is moderately useless on its own, and you must not mark bugs as duplicates on the basis that they both contain a traceback such as this. The real error is hidden in /var/log/installer/syslog, so if the reporter didn't attach that, ask for it, and for /var/log/syslog and /var/log/partman as well for good measure. Look for the traceback from the crash dialog in /var/log/installer/syslog and then trace up a little bit; the real error should be there, often in the form of a subprocess exiting non-zero.

Standard text for asking for log files:

Could you please attach /var/log/installer/syslog, /var/log/syslog, and /var/log/partman to this bug, by commenting on the bug's web page? Thanks in advance.

Note from dufresnep, Colin said to me:

Paul, /var/log/installer/syslog no longer exists in Edgy. Please don't ask for it if the version of ubiquity in the log is 1.1.12 or greater.

And this is really 1.1.12, not 1.0.12!

Please do not assign ubiquity bugs to anyone unless you're a ubiquity developer or you manage a ubiquity developer. Please don't reject ubiquity bugs unless you're a ubiquity developer. In general, please try to refrain from causing unnecessary extra bug mail noise for ubiquity developers or from taking items off their to-do lists without consulting them first.

Specific known issues in Dapper

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy] Crash if /boot is on XFS: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/47848 #47848]
This can be recognised by grub-installer exiting 10 or 30, and /var/log/partman or /var/log/installer/syslog (look for "mountpoints:" in the latter) indicating that / is on XFS and there is no non-XFS /boot filesystem. Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #47848, with text such as:
```
Thanks for your report. Due to some reliability problems with GRUB and XFS, you need to use a non-XFS root filesystem or create a non-XFS /boot filesystem. The fact that the partitioner doesn't warn you about this up-front is also bug 47848, and is fixed in 6.06.1.
```
[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy Knot 1] Crash if system partitions are not reformatted: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/47046 #47046]
This can be recognised by an OSError exception being thrown from the copy_all function, usually "File exists" or similar, and a "mountpoints:" line in /var/log/installer/syslog that includes a tuple with a standard filesystem (e.g. /, /boot, /usr, or /var; not /home or /media/*) as the first item and False as the second item. Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #47046, with text such as:
```
Thanks for your report. At present, you must reformat system partitions (e.g. /, /boot, /usr, or /var) during installation; the fact that the partitioner doesn't warn you about this is also bug 47046, and is fixed in 6.06.1. If you are upgrading an existing installation, then please see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DapperUpgrades rather than using this installer.
```

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy] Crash if some packages on running live session are unconfigured: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/47859 #47859]

This can be recognised by a dpkg error in /var/log/installer/syslog while installing language packs, and a crash in the install_language_packs function. Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #47859, with text such as:

Thanks for your report. This is also bug 47859, and can be worked around by not installing [substitute the package that broke here] in the live session before running the installer. This is fixed in 6.06.1.

If one of the packages that broke was ntp, then use the following text:

Thanks for your report. This is also bug 47859, and can be worked around by not choosing to install NTP support while running the installer. It can be installed after rebooting into the newly-installed system by right-clicking on the date/time applet and selecting "Adjust Date & Time". This is fixed in 6.06.1.

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy Knot 1] Crash when installing in Chinese but with a non-Chinese-speaking country: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/47687 #47687]

This can be recognised by Chinese characters scattered through /var/log/installer/syslog and:

ubiquity: ['sh', '-c', '/usr/lib/ubiquity/localechooser/post-base-installer && /usr/lib/ubiquity/localechooser/prebaseconfig'] exited with code 1

Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #47687, with text such as:

Thanks for your report. This is also bug 47687, and occurs when you select a Chinese language (either Simplified or Traditional) but then select a non-Chinese-speaking country on the timezone/country selection page. This is fixed in 6.06.1, so you can work around it by upgrading all packages with 'ubiquity' in their names on the running live CD before starting the installer.

Crash when autopartitioning and disk is too small: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/48355 #48355]
This can be recognised by IOError: [Errno 28] No space left on device being thrown inside the copy_all function, and stepPartAdvanced not appearing in /var/log/installer/syslog; also check the end of /var/log/partman to make sure that the size of the disk is smaller than about 2.5GB (I'm not sure of the exact figure). Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #48355, with text such as:
```
Thanks for your report. I'm afraid that one of your partitions seems to be too small to complete an Ubuntu desktop installation successfully. Bug 48355 notes that the partitioner should have warned you about this. This is fixed in 6.06.1.
```

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy Knot 1] Crash with certain kinds of disk attached: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/48732 #48732]

This can be recognised by the following at the end of the traceback (ignoring line and byte number differences):

  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/components/partman.py", line 214, in run
    if not self.frontend.set_disk_choices(self.choices(question),
  File "/usr/lib/python2.4/site-packages/ubiquity/filteredcommand.py", line 189, in choices
    choices = unicode(self.db.metaget(question, 'choices'), 'utf-8')
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode bytes in position 204-205: invalid data

Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #48732, with text such as:

Thanks for your report. This is also bug 48732, and occurs due to strange model names on certain disks. This is fixed in 6.06.1, so you can work around it by upgrading all packages with 'ubiquity' in their names on the running live CD before starting the installer.

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy Knot 1] Crash when gparted crashes: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/48856 #48856]

This can be recognised by the following at the end of the traceback:

    print >>self.gparted_subp.stdin, "apply"
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'stdin'

Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #48856, with text such as:

Thanks for your report, which is also bug 48856. The program used for advanced partitioning, gparted, appears to have crashed. The version of the installer present in Ubuntu/Edubuntu/Xubuntu 6.06.1 deals with this more gracefully. If you can reproduce the gparted crash by running it directly from the System -> Administration menu, then please file a separate bug against gparted.

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy Knot 1] Crash when qtparted crashes: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/47194 #47194]

This can be recognised by the following at the end of the traceback:

    print >>self.qtparted_subp.stdin, "apply"
AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'stdin'

Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #47194, with text such as:

Thanks for your report, which is also bug 47194. The program used for advanced partitioning, qtparted, appears to have crashed. The version of the installer present in Kubuntu 6.06.1 deals with this more gracefully. If you can reproduce the qtparted crash by running it directly from K Menu -> System, then please file a separate bug against qtparted.

[fixed in dapper-updates and edgy Knot 1] Crash when hw-detect fails to load a module: [https://launchpad.net/bugs/48524 #48524]

This can be recognised by the following in /var/log/installer/syslog just before the traceback:

ubiquity: ['/bin/hw-detect'] exited with code 1

(AND ONLY THAT EXIT CODE!) and the following as the last message about hw-detect in /var/log/syslog:

Aug 24 18:02:10 ubuntu hw-detect: Detecting hardware...

Feel free to mark such bugs as duplicates of #48524, with text such as:

Thanks for your report. This is also bug 48524, and occurs due to a failure to handle module load errors on certain hardware. This is fixed in 6.06.1, so you can work around it by upgrading all packages with 'ubiquity' in their names on the running live CD before starting the installer.