[SOLVED] Error with “apport-autoreport”

[boospy33]

Hello all,

I updated from 24.04 to 26.04. Since then, the Systemd service “apport-autoreport” has been malfunctioning and no longer works properly. Here is a snippet from the log:

Mai 12 14:05:50 supertux systemd[1]: Starting apport-autoreport.service - Process error reports when automatic reporting is enabled...
Mai 12 14:05:50 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: INFO:root:/var/crash/_usr_share_apport_whoopsie-upload-all.0.crash already marked for upload, skipping
Mai 12 14:05:50 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: INFO:root:Collecting info for /var/crash/_usr_bin_kontact.2009.crash...
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: ERROR: hook /usr/share/apport/general-hooks/generic.py crashed:
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 369, in _run_hook
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     symb["add_info"](report, ui)
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/share/apport/general-hooks/generic.py", line 70, in add_info
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     for lib in re.finditer(r"\s(/[^ ]+\.so[.0-9]*)$", report["ProcMaps"], re.M):
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:                ~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/lib/python3.14/re/__init__.py", line 285, in finditer
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     return _compile(pattern, flags).finditer(string)
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:            ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^
Mai 12 14:05:51 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: TypeError: cannot use a string pattern on a bytes-like object
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: Traceback (most recent call last):
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/share/apport/whoopsie-upload-all", line 246, in <module>
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     main()
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     ~~~~^^
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/share/apport/whoopsie-upload-all", line 228, in main
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     stamps = collect_info()
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/share/apport/whoopsie-upload-all", line 162, in collect_info
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     res = process_report(r)
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/share/apport/whoopsie-upload-all", line 112, in process_report
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     r.add_gdb_info()
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 1118, in add_gdb_info
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     addr_signature = self.crash_signature_addresses()
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:   File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport/report.py", line 1858, in crash_signature_addresses
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:     if self["ProcMaps"].startswith("Error: "):
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]:        ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^^
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux whoopsie-upload-all[2658017]: TypeError: startswith first arg must be bytes or a tuple of bytes, not str
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux systemd[1]: apport-autoreport.service: Main process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux systemd[1]: apport-autoreport.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Mai 12 14:05:53 supertux systemd[1]: Failed to start apport-autoreport.service - Process error reports when automatic reporting is enabled.
​

After I installed a Kubuntu 26.04 as VM, and the problem doesn't occur there. As part of my troubleshooting, I also uninstalled the entire “apport” packages using --purge and reinstalled it, but that didn't help either.

apt remove apport apport-kde apport-symptoms --purge

Do you have any idea what might be causing this?

Thank you.

[die.boer]

run these in terminal

sudo systemctl stop apport-autoreport.service

sudo mkdir -p /var/crash/backup

sudo mv /var/crash/*.crash /var/crash/backup/

sudo mv /var/crash/*.upload* /var/crash/backup/ 2>/dev/null

sudo systemctl start apport-autoreport.service​

then check

systemctl status apport-autoreport.service

journalctl -u apport-autoreport.service -b

If the service starts normally afterward, you've confirmed the issue is one or more legacy crash reports.

do these 1st then we go from there

[claydoh]

Whoopsie is calling apport, but the apport service has been removed. And the game is crashing, the real problem.


Look at /etc/default/apport to disable crash reporting, if it exists, at least for now. Ubuntu has a checkbox for this, Kubuntu does not (I didn't find one).


Or look at disabling the Whoopsie service, which is what is calling the missing apport service.

systemctl stop whoopsie.service

then

systemctl disable whoopsie.service

And if this causes errors elswhere, then

systemctl mask whoopsie.service

You can do these in reverse to re-enable this, using unmask, enable, and start.

[boospy33]

Thank you very much die.boer That worked. Good find. Now I know what to look out for.
claydoh thanks for the tip about disabling it. But I need that feature on my computer because I occasionally submit bug reports and help debug things that annoy me.