whoopsie spams the log with "online" messages

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Not sure it is related, but I also happen to lose the dns from time to time... something weird is happening with my networking stack since I switched to saucy.

I wonder whether this is related to (or even a duplicate of) bug 991481?

I really do not see why this is a duplicate... maybe bug #991481 is the reason that makes whoopsie check its status so often; but the fact that it is printing a completely useless message is still here. You should say you're online only if you were offline before... this is like saying "nothing happening" all the time...

What one should see is something like this in the log:

Jan 28 23:44:37 localhost whoopsie[29806]: online
Jan 29 00:01:34 localhost whoopsie[29806]: message repeated 163 times: [ online]
Jan 29 00:01:34 localhost whoopsie[29806]: offline

This seems to be system or networking configuration dependent as I see this on one system and not another.

@Brian: this is what you see if whoopsie is the only thing reporting on syslog. If any other thing report something, it breaks the "repeated" logic of the syslog daemon and you ends up with the thing reported here.

What should happen is that whoopsie should log the "online" message only when it is BACK online (from offline or other statuses), not every few seconds of so. The logic would be something like (pseudo code).

if status==ONLINE and last_syslog_message==ONLINE then
    do nothing
else
    log ONLINE
fi

Meanwhile, a workaround is offered here: http://askubuntu.com/a/407935/16395:

you can add this in /etc/rsyslog.d/00-whoopsie.conf and the messages won't be logged anymore:

  # whoopsie generates a lot of messages of "online"
  # these are worthless and can be filtered
  if $programname == 'whoopsie' and $msg == ' online' then ~

but that way you do not see even the first "online" which is arguably worth to be logged.

Huh. For me, it started happening immediately with a fresh install of
13.10. Networking is also vanilla -- just using the default "Wired
connection" profile, DHCP everything.

Eh, my workaround was apt-get purge whoopsie. Very effective. :) I'd
like to be a good citizen, though, so I'll reinstall it once I see it
marked fixed.

On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Romano Giannetti
<email address hidden> wrote:
> @Brian: this is what you see if whoopsie is the only thing reporting on
> syslog. If any other thing report something, it breaks the "repeated"
> logic of the syslog daemon and you ends up with the thing reported here.
>
> What should happen is that whoopsie should log the "online" message only
> when it is BACK online (from offline or other statuses), not every few
> seconds of so. The logic would be something like (pseudo code).
>
> if status==ONLINE and last_syslog_message==ONLINE then
> do nothing
> else
> log ONLINE
> fi
>
> Meanwhile, a workaround is offered here:
> http://askubuntu.com/a/407935/16395:
>
> you can add this in /etc/rsyslog.d/00-whoopsie.conf and the messages
> won't be logged anymore:
>
> # whoopsie generates a lot of messages of "online"
> # these are worthless and can be filtered
> if $programname == 'whoopsie' and $msg == ' online' then ~
>
> but that way you do not see even the first "online" which is arguably
> worth to be logged.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1264798).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1217407
>
> Title:
> whoopsie spams the log with "online" messages
>
> Status in Ubuntu error tracker client (whoopsie):
> Confirmed
> Status in “whoopsie” package in Ubuntu:
> Confirmed
>
> Bug description:
> It is mostly the "online" messages:
>
> $ grep whoopsie /var/log/syslog
> Aug 27 07:42:21 xango3 whoopsie[1832]: online
> Aug 27 07:42:27 xango3 whoopsie[1832]: online
> Aug 27 07:43:32 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 18 times
> Aug 27 07:44:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 17 times
> Aug 27 07:45:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 16 times
> Aug 27 07:46:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 16 times
> Aug 27 07:47:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 18 times
> Aug 27 07:48:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 15 times
> Aug 27 07:49:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 16 times
> Aug 27 07:50:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 21 times
> Aug 27 07:51:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 18 times
> Aug 27 07:52:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 20 times
> Aug 27 07:53:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 22 times
> Aug 27 07:54:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 15 times
> Aug 27 07:55:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 22 times
> Aug 27 07:56:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 20 times
> Aug 27 07:57:50 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 18 times
> Aug 27 07:58:51 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 16 times
> Aug 27 07:59:46 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 17 times
> Aug 27 07:59:47 xango3 whoopsie[1832]: online
> Aug 27 08:00:51 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 24 times
> Aug 27 08:01:51 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 24 times
> Aug 27 08:02:51 whoopsie[1832]: last message repeated 19 times
> Aug 27 08:03:51 who...

Well, I guess it's a little better than before. Fresh install of 14.04:

Jul 26 00:18:18 vane whoopsie[996]: whoopsie 0.2.24.6 starting up.
Jul 26 00:18:18 vane whoopsie[996]: Using lock path: /var/lock/whoopsie/lock
Jul 26 00:18:18 vane whoopsie[1041]: offline
Jul 26 00:18:22 vane whoopsie[1041]: message repeated 2 times: [ offline]
Jul 26 00:18:22 vane whoopsie[1041]: online
Jul 26 00:35:38 vane whoopsie[1041]: message repeated 6 times: [ online]

If you are still experiencing this bug, please:

 1. Write the affected Ubuntu release name into the tag list.
 2. Set this bug report status back to "confirmed".

On an up to date 14.04 LTS system, I have what I guess is a mild remnant of the original bug?

syslog.1:Nov 23 14:45:36 vane whoopsie[1280]: message repeated 73 times: [ offline]
syslog.1:Nov 24 08:33:59 vane whoopsie[1280]: online
syslog.1:Nov 24 08:34:01 vane whoopsie[1280]: message repeated 3 times: [ online]
syslog.1:Nov 24 08:56:55 vane whoopsie[1280]: offline
syslog.1:Nov 24 20:09:37 vane whoopsie[1280]: message repeated 3 times: [ offline]
syslog.1:Nov 24 20:09:37 vane whoopsie[1280]: online

No more log messages as of now, Tue Nov 25 11:46:47 EST, which is nice. The 73 redundant "offline" messages would seem to satisfy the definition of "spamming syslog." I personally couldn't stomach reopening this bug myself though, at least not without the ability to also change importance to low.

I can confirm this running Vivid using systemd as the init system.

Whoopsie Toal $ sudo journalctl | grep whoopsie | wc -l
4498
Just telling me it's online $ sudo journalctl | grep whoopsie | grep online | wc -l
4470
Total log $ sudo journalctl | wc -l
36838

This is for 1 day of use...

Simple check to see if the state has changed before printing.

The attachment "only_log_when_changed.patch" seems to be a patch. If it isn't, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are a member of the ~ubuntu-reviewers, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issues please contact him.]

This bug was fixed in the package whoopsie - 0.2.45

---------------
whoopsie (0.2.45) vivid; urgency=medium

  * Merge patch from Bryan Quigley to only log when whoopsie's state changes.
    (LP: #1217407)
 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Mon, 02 Feb 2015 13:54:58 -0800

Hello C, or anyone else affected,

Accepted whoopsie into trusty-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/whoopsie/0.2.24.6ubuntu1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

Hello C, or anyone else affected,

Accepted whoopsie into utopic-proposed. The package will build now and be available at http://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/whoopsie/0.2.39ubuntu0.2 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, and change the tag from verification-needed to verification-done. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed. In either case, details of your testing will help us make a better decision.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance!

I've done the verification in Utopic and it passed the test case.

I was unable to recreate the bug given the test case provided with Trusty so it'd be useful if someone affected by the bug were to verify the package from -proposed for Trusty.

This bug was fixed in the package whoopsie - 0.2.39ubuntu0.2

---------------
whoopsie (0.2.39ubuntu0.2) utopic-proposed; urgency=medium

  * Merge patch from Bryan Quigley to only log when whoopsie's state changes.
    (LP: #1217407)
 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Mon, 02 Feb 2015 14:18:29 -0800

The verification of the Stable Release Update for whoopsie has completed successfully and the package has now been released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

I tried to reproduce this problem in two trusty machines but I was unable to. syslog did not contain a single line from whoopsie on 1 machine and only about a dozen entries on the other. I checked syslog.1, too, to be sure.

This bug was fixed in the package whoopsie - 0.2.24.6ubuntu2

---------------
whoopsie (0.2.24.6ubuntu2) trusty-proposed; urgency=medium

  * src/whoopsie.c: Send UnreportableReason to the Error Tracker that way we
    know apport's opinion of the crash. (LP: #1382233)

 -- Brian Murray <email address hidden> Mon, 09 Nov 2015 13:24:00 -0800