Ubuntu: Getting "System program problem detected" pops up regularly after upgrade
Channel: Roel Van de Paar
Date: 2019-06-17

Ubuntu: Getting "System program problem detected" pops up regularly after upgrade


The Question: This started to happen immediately after I had rebooted the first time after
doing a system upgrade. It first starts with a dialogue that says "System
program problem detected". Then when I try to hit 'report problem' not much
happens. I am led through a dialogue that always ends up the problem cannot be
solved.
I am aware this is not a lot of information, however I'm not sure which
information I need to publish and how should I obtain it to debug this problem.
Here's a screenshot! [enter image description here]

Solutions Sample (Please watch the whole video to see all solutions, in order of how many people found them helpful):

== This solution helped 353 people ==
Open a terminal (Ctrl+Alt+T) and type:
sudo rm /var/crash/*
Then hit Enter.
This will remove any old crashes, that might still be reported (in error).
After a reboot/re-starting, any further pop-ups still need to be investigated.

== This solution helped 14 people ==
I have had the same problem when upgrading from 12.04 to a higher version. As
it turns out, Ubuntu has an error reporting system called "apport", which was
deactivated in stabled releases of Ubuntu until 12.04 and is reactivated now.
Manuel Jose has made an excellent http://www.techdrivein.com/2012/08/how-to-
disable-system-program-problem.html

== This solution helped 57 people ==
Here's how to disable Apport, the system that reports errors to Canonical:
Open your terminal and type:
gksudo gedit /etc/default/apport
And hit Enter.
Change enabled=1 to enabled=0, then save and exit.
To solve this problem, you can watch this http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=cFzGxdzFg04.
See also: https://askubuntu.com/questions/93457/how-do-i-enable-or-disable-
apport

== This solution helped 124 people ==
****** Disabling error-reporting is not a desirable solution! ******
Ubuntu has an error reporting system called https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Apport
which tries to catch all program crashes in the background and report them to
help the developers.
It seems that after a dist-upgrade there are some stuck reports that continue
to display for unclear reasons, but disabling apport is not a desirable
solution.
****** Remove old crash-reports ******
Open a terminal and remove all old crash-reports that might exist in the crash-
report directory:
sudo rm /var/crash/*
After a reboot the popups are gone.
If you don't want to reboot, you can close all open popups with:
killall system-crash-notification
(Any further new pop-ups still should be investigated. If you want to see the
details,
look in /var/crash/ for any new reports)

With thanks & praise to God! With thanks to the many people who have made this project possible! | Content (except music & images) licensed under cc by-sa 3.0 | Music: https://www.bensound.com/royalty-free-music | Images: https://stocksnap.io/license & others | With thanks to user Ziyaddin Sadigov (https://askubuntu.com/users/107207), user ubuntu_fan_dk (https://askubuntu.com/users/105991), user rubo77 (https://askubuntu.com/users/34298), user Jorge Castro (https://askubuntu.com/users/235), user Jason (https://askubuntu.com/users/61425), user grrrbytes (https://askubuntu.com/users/45821), user gavin (https://askubuntu.com/users/54558), user Braiam (https://askubuntu.com/users/169736), and the Stack Exchange Network (http://stackoverflow.com/questions/133385). Trademarks are property of their respective owners. Disclaimer: All information is provided "AS IS" without warranty of any kind. You are responsible for your own actions. Please contact me if anything should be amiss at Roel D.OT VandePaar A.T gmail.com.