Can't provide comments when submitting an error report

Bug #1084624 reported by Matthew Paul Thomas
16
This bug affects 3 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Apport
Won't Fix
High
Unassigned
apport (Ubuntu)
Expired
Undecided
Unassigned

Bug Description

When submitting an error report, it is currently not possible for a user to provide free-form information about what happened.

Firefox presents this as "Add a comment (comments are publicly visible)". OS X presents it as "What were you doing when the application crashed?" or "Please describe what you were doing when the problem happened:".

This is a prerequisite for turning off Apport submission of bug reports to Launchpad, using just the error tracker instead. <https://blueprints.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+spec/foundations-r-crash-database>: "UI design for optionally providing a description of an error that just occurred".

<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ErrorTracker#comments>: "If you choose 'Show Details', it should change to 'Hide Details' while the details field and the 'What you were doing when the error occurred: (optional)' field appear above the buttons."

Changed in apport:
assignee: nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
Changed in apport:
status: New → Confirmed
Changed in apport (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Evan (ev)
Changed in apport:
importance: Undecided → High
status: Confirmed → Triaged
Changed in apport:
status: Triaged → In Progress
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :
description: updated
Changed in apport:
assignee: Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) → nobody
status: In Progress → Triaged
Revision history for this message
Evan (ev) wrote :

As part of the Ubuntu Error Tracker sprint this past week, we decided against the implementation of this as it would not adequately address the problem it set out to solve: providing a link between a user and a developer when the developer needs to converse with someone a bit more about the problem.

An input box that resulted in a description field in the database would likely result in lots of "I don't know" type responses, with no ability for the developer to follow up.

Instead, we will provide a checkbox in the server-side hooks page to request that the next user to experience this particular crash report it on Launchpad (if we're still in the development release). Apport will talk to Daisy via its REST API to see if we are asking to report the given StacktraceAddressSignature on Launchpad. If so, it will file this on Launchpad with just the SAS and a tag that crash-digger can use to identify and link this to an errors.ubuntu.com issue. When crash-digger creates such a link, it will tell Daisy to notify the developer that they now have a user they can communicate with.

Changed in apport:
status: Triaged → Won't Fix
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

Specification updated to remove the field again. <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ErrorTracker?action=diff&rev2=133&rev1=132>

Revision history for this message
Marcus Tomlinson (marcustomlinson) wrote :

This release of Ubuntu is no longer receiving maintenance updates. If this is still an issue on a maintained version of Ubuntu please let us know.

Changed in apport (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

[Expired for apport (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

Changed in apport (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → Expired
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