apport-retrace fails with error: report file does not contain one of the required fields

I installed an application from the developer's website and it was crashing.

I tried using this form of apport-retrace to get a report I could email to the dev myself:

apport-retrace --confirm --gdb --sandbox system --verbose --cache /my/path/cache/apport-retrace --output /mypath/apport-retrace/appname.1000.crash /var/crash/_usr_bin_appname.1000.crash

The error is:

ERROR: report file does not contain one of the required fields: CoreDump DistroRelease Package ExecutablePath

I checked the crash file and the missing field is "Package." However, the application does not come from a Debian package. Is there a way I can tell apport-retrace to ignore this field and generate the best report it can?

EDIT: I am not trying to report the bug to Ubuntu. I'm also not seeking to submit a bug report to any bug tracker. My goal is to read the crash report myself. That's really my only goal. Once I read the crash report in this particular case I'll email the dev. But in general, I want a tool that will let me read the crash reports generated by the standard tools installed on Ubuntu.

Thanks.

Solution 1:

This is not the answer to the OP's question. He already figured out that if you know the package name you can simply add it see

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/29571866/use-apport-crash-dump-to-debug-python-program

In my /var/crash directory I found a _usr_bin_gconftool-2.0.crash crash file and wanted to find out more details with:

 apport-retrace -g _usr_bin_gconftool-2.0.crash

I got the error message:

ERROR: report file does not contain one of the required fields: CoreDump DistroRelease Package ExecutablePath

Since searching the web pointed me to this question I got all confused about the long discussion which distracted me from the simple solution.

Just adding

Package: gconftool-2

at the start of the file allowed me to get:

...
Core was generated by `gconftool-2 --get /desktop/gnome/interface/accessibility'.
Program terminated with signal SIGABRT, Aborted.
#0  0x00007f5032236428 in __GI_raise (sig=sig@entry=6)
    at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c:54
54  ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/raise.c: No such file or directory.

Please do not downvote this answer only since it is not a about the original questions. This is specifically for people who got here with the "normal" problem of having a crash dump from a standard package where the package name is simply missing.