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I'm dealing with this issue: Ubuntu won't shutdown (stuck on "Stopping VirtualBox kernel modules")

and I almost lost my nerves when I wanted to report a bug. I'm studying this "How to report a bug" topic for two hours now and I still feel like a total newby.

First I go here https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ and try to click on "Report a bug" link which takes me here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs and I actually read that article but I'm still lost. When I came to the "System crash" there's just one sentence:

If your system lockups up, freezes, logs you out, etc., 
then this is not an application crash, but a system crash.
Please see below, and consult the following article for 
these types of problems 
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/DebuggingSystemCrash.

So does it say that you cannot report a system crash bug? Because on that "DebuggingSystemCrash" article there's nothing about reporting a bug.

Then I came here on askubuntu and found questions like this: How do I report a bug? ...but again none of them helped me. They all had a bug about some application. So they just ran "ubuntu-bug PID, but I can't do that because I don't know the PID neither the package where the bug is. It just happens during shutdown process.

Where are the good old fashion days when you just went to launchpad and clicked on "Report a bug" and that was it. Maybe that caused a lot of bad reports, but the new way people just won't report bugs if they don't find out how...

Community
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user568021
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  • Well in your case it is not a system crash, at least not in the way the authors of the article think. I assume that some script does not what it should when your computer shuts down. The first problem could be the VirtualBox module. But it could also be some following command. I commented on your question. Let's see if we could find out. – qbi Nov 02 '12 at 14:06
  • Thanks... is good to know there's 1 person who understands my frustration. So should I change the title of this if it's not a system crash? – user568021 Nov 02 '12 at 15:10
  • As I understand it, you are asking: "How to report a bug where a kernel module cannot unload?" I've posted this, to answer that. If that's what you're asking here, I recommend editing the title of your post to clarify that. Otherwise, this might end up closed as too localized (since it relates to a problem you were able to solve, whose solution is documented in your other question). – Eliah Kagan Jan 16 '13 at 02:11
  • https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug/?no-redirect – Richard Sep 13 '23 at 08:10

3 Answers3

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Determining Where Failure Occurs

If your system fails to shut down, and the last text you see tells you that it is trying to unload a particular kernel module (or perform any other particular task), and there is no indication to the right of it, on the same line, that it succeeded or failed, then the problem is almost certainly with that specific action, and not with whatever comes next. In this situation, you can report a bug documenting the failure of the kernel module to unload.

Reporting a Bug Affecting a Kernel Module

If you have a bug that is due kernel modules provided by a particular, non-kernel package, you can report the bug against that package. If there is actually a kernel service running (ps ax shows kernel threads as well as normal processes) for the module, which you believe is causing the problem, then you can run ubuntu-bug with its PID if you can run ubuntu-bug at all.

Since you likely cannot run any commands in this situation, and since there is often no running process that is clearly responsible, after rebooting, you should instead run:

ubuntu-bug packagename

Here, that's somewhat difficult--the VirtualBox userspace program is provided by virtualbox. VirtualBox kernel modules for virtualization hosts are typically built from source, which is provided by virtualbox-dkms.

I would report this bug against virtualbox-dkms (assuming VirtualBox compiled and installed kernel modules on your machine). The technical details of the bug would likely indicate what package is best, and it is not always practical to determine what package a bug is best considered to affect, before reporting the bug. So you do your best. It can always be changed later on Launchpad, either by you or by someone else (usually a triager or developer).

If you wanted to report a bug against a kernel module that ships with the kernel, you could report it against linux:

ubuntu-bug linux
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Eliah Kagan
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  • You answered my question but also it was interesting that the problem was caused by xampp. So maybe it wasn't connected to virtualbox or virtualbox-dkms... Well I guess I could report a bug against 'linux' as I didn't know xampp was cousing this, right...? – user568021 Jan 20 '13 at 16:59
  • @user568021 XAMPP may be triggering it, but from your description, the system hangs while trying to unload modules. The best thing to do would be to completely uninstall VirtualBox and its kernel modules and see if you can still produce the bug (once XAMPP is re-enabled). If you can, then it's not a bug in VirtualBox. But if it's stopping kernel modules from being unloaded, I recommend assuming it's in the kernel or in a package that provides the modules that are failing to unload, even if it is triggered by software in another package. (Of course, in the bug explain the workaround!) – Eliah Kagan Jan 20 '13 at 17:08
  • @EliahKagan As user568021 pointed out in (t)his question, I too am going in circles trying to find a "report bug" button on launchpad. My supposed bug: when my system (12.04 LTS) is asleep and I connect my android phone (via USB, for charging purposes only), the system promptly reboots. Where to raise the flag? – nutty about natty Mar 09 '15 at 13:25
  • PS: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug on https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/ redirects to https://help.ubuntu.com/community/ReportingBugs :-( – nutty about natty Mar 09 '15 at 13:27
  • Possibly related to the bug itself (rather than the issue of how and where to report it) and a hint towards a conceivable work-around: http://kodi.wiki/view/HOW-TO:Suspend_and_wake_in_Ubuntu#Enable_Wake_on_USB_Activity – nutty about natty Mar 09 '15 at 13:39
  • ... and also here: http://www.thomasmonaco.com/prevent-usb-devices-waking-ubuntu-sleep/ – nutty about natty Mar 09 '15 at 13:46
  • Absolutely unbelievable that reporting a bug is a command line interface. How does one report a bug >>>on<<< launchpad (emphasis on launchpad, I really mean on). – kleinfreund Nov 15 '17 at 12:53
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+filebug/?no-redirect

That’s the URL that should be opened when clicking on "Report a bug" on Launchpad.

kleinfreund
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  • Thank you! This is the only way to actually report a bug and should be the correct answer. I will report not being able to report a bug on the system now. – Richard Sep 15 '22 at 13:43
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There are two ways of reporting a bug:

You can make a guess of which package to report against by using the "Synaptic Package Manager" application. On the other hand, in the worst case, you can simply report against "linux".

Alberto Salvia Novella
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