Filing a Crash Report

When an application crashes in Kubuntu, the appropriate crash dialog will appear. It is usually easy to file a bug report from the dialog. With a KDE™ application, the KDE™ crash dialog will appear along with instructions for reporting the bug. Otherwise, the Ubuntu crash dialog will appear with instructions for filing a bug on Launchpad™.

KDE

When an application crashes in KDE™, a crash dialog will be presented that is similar to the following images. The first image shows the General tab, which provides an overview of the crash. The second image shows the Developer Information tab, which provides trace information that is useful to developers.

Example 1. KDE Crash Dialog (General tab)




Example 2. KDE Crash Dialog (Developer Information tab)




If the trace information is deemed valuable, filing a bug report is easy with the crash dialog wizard. If the trace is not deemed valuable, then it is not possible to file a bug report with the wizard. The bug report can still be filed manually at https://bugs.kde.org/.

To complete the bug reporting process, follow the procedure below.

Procedure 1. Filing the bug report after a crash

  1. Click the Report Bug button. The following dialog will appear:

    Example 3. Welcome to the Reporting Assistant




  2. Click the Next button. The following dialog will appear:

    Example 4. What do you know about the crash?




  3. Select the applicable options. The drop-down box under the question, Does the application crash again if you repeat the same situation? has several options.

    Example 5. Does the application crash again if you repeat the same situation?




  4. After selecting the applicable items from the dialog in the previous step, click the Next button.

  5. Depending on the information available in the crash report, either of two dialogs will appear. One is a dialog that indicates that there is not enough information to file a good report. The other is a dialog indicating that the information is useful and that it would be helpful to continue with filing the report.

    Example 6. Not enough information for developers to continue the reporting process




    Example 7. This crash information is useful




    If there was not enough information...

    It may be necessary to install the proper debug packages in order to get a good trace. Such packages include kdebase-dbg, kdebase-workspace-dbg, and kdebase-runtime-dbg.

  6. If enough information was provided to continue filing a bug report using the assistant, a dialog will appear to allow logging in to KDE™'s Bugzilla™.

    Example 8. KDE Bug Tracking System Login




    Use e-mail address as username

    Use the email address that was used to register with KDE™'s Bugzilla™.

  7. After logging in with your username (email address) and password, click the Login button. The assistant will check for duplicates and display the following dialog:

    Example 9. Bug Report Possible Duplicates List




  8. If there is a possible duplicate report, click the report in the list and then click the Open selected report button. Either of the following dialogs will be presented:

    Example 10. The report you selected is already marked as a duplicate of bug...




    Example 11. Showing the duplicate bug report you selected




  9. If the bug appears to be a duplicate, click the Add as a possible duplicate button. This will file the bug report and inform the developers that it may be a duplicate. This is recommended, except in cases with experienced users where it is clearly not a duplicate. Clicking the Attach to this report (Advanced) button will attach the crash information to the report.

    If the bug is not a duplicate, simply click the Next button in the dialog showing the possible duplicates. A dialog will appear with Let me check more reports. To prevent checking for more reports and continue filing the report, click the There are no real duplicates button. A dialog will appear asking you to enter additional information concerning the report.

    Example 12. Details of the Bug Report




  10. Once the details of the bug report are complete, click the Next button. The following dialog will be presented:

    Example 13. Preview Report




  11. If the information looks correct, click the Next button. The following dialog will be presented:

    Example 14. Send Crash Report




Congratulations on a successful bug report! Identifying and reporting bugs are essential to improving Kubuntu and KDE™. Some emails may be sent to the registered address to update progress or to allow developers to get additional information about the bug.

Launchpad

When an application that is not KDE™ crashes in Kubuntu, a pop-up notification will appear from Apport that is similar to the following image:

Example 15. Apport Crash Pop-pup Notification




Crash information may be different

The screen shots below were created by crashing the application VLC deliberately. Crash dialogs associated with other applications will be different. In an actual bug situation, the application name, VLC, will be replaced by the name of the application that actually crashed.

To complete the bug reporting process, follow the procedure below.

Procedure 2. Filing the bug report after a crash

  1. Click the Details buttons on the System Notification Helper. The following dialog will be presented:

    Example 16. Sorry, the program "vlc" closed unexpectedly.




  2. Click the Report Problem... button. The Collecting Problem Information progress dialog will be presented.

    Example 17. Collecting Problem Information




  3. After all information concerning the crash is collected, a dialog will be presented that displays the details of the report, and the report is sent to the developers. Click the Details... button to view details of the report. The following dialog will be presented:

    Example 18. Send problem report to the developers? (Details)




  4. Click the Send button to send the report to the developers. In this case, it will send the report to Launchpad™. The following progress dialog will be presented:

    Example 19. Uploading problem information




  5. After the progress dialog completes, the default web browser will open to Launchpad™, presenting either the log-in page or the beginning of the online version of the bug reporting process. After logging in (if necessary), the following page will be presented:

    Example 20. Please wait while bug data is processed...




  6. When Launchpad™ is finished processing the bug data, the following page will be presented:

    Example 21. Extra debug information will be added...




  7. Click the Next button. The following page will be presented:

    Example 22. Further information




  8. Any extra information about the bug report can be filled in to describe, for example, what was being done when the application crashed or the online file locations that may have caused the crash. The following is a brief description filed with the report in this procedure:

    Example 23. Further information (Completed)




  9. Click the Submit Bug Report button on the bottom of the page. The following page will be presented:

    Example 24. Thank you for your bug report




Congratulations on making a successful crash report! Identifying and reporting bugs are essential to improving Kubuntu. Some emails may be sent to the registered address to update progress or to allow developers to get additional information about the bug.