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The graph and bar chart at the Ubuntu Error reports page seem to contain a lot of information.

But I'm puzzled about the meaning of some of the values, and the page doesn't refer to any documentation.

  • What does the "frequency" column measure, in what units?
  • What does the "Mean Time Between Failure" vertical axis on the graph mean?
  • What do the "If all updates were installed" vs "Actual" toggle mean? For me, clicking "Actual" just blanks the whole graph.
  • Where is the code that generates the page?

Update: And where does the data come from? Is this related to ErrorTracker: how can I track a bug that caused a crash and was reported via apport / whoopsie??

1 Answer 1

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What does the "frequency" column measure, in what units?

Number of instances of that problem for the selected period.

A instance is one person experiencing a specific error. These errors have signatures which make them unique. A grouping of all of the instances with the same signature is a "problem".

In simpler terms, the frequency is the number of times this specific problem was encountered and reported.

What does the "Mean Time Between Failure" vertical axis on the graph mean?

This has since been replaced with "Average number of crashes." This is the total number of reports seen in the day divided by the number of unique users sending those reports.

What do the "If all updates were installed" vs "Actual" toggle mean? For me, clicking "Actual" just blanks the whole graph.

This is a placeholder. "If all updates were installed" will show the graph only for those users who had completely up to date systems. The gap between this ideal line and the "actual" line tells us the degree to which we need to fix our updates mechanism.

Where is the code that generates the page?

lp:errors

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  • A cumulative moving average of what? i.e. what are the events being averaged?
    – ish
    May 17, 2012 at 12:10
  • Thanks for the quick response, but I'm still a bit lost. I updated the question after running across the ErrorTracker stuff (wow!). Also, what defines a "problem", since several problems can exist for one package? What does the "Function" column tell us? I wish that column was wider. Will the mtbf be affected by how much a user uses Ubuntu, or how many packages they use?
    – nealmcb
    May 21, 2012 at 20:09
  • I've fixed the cumulative moving average comment. It's now "average number of crashes", which amongst other things is a much more straightforward concept.
    – Evan
    Jun 11, 2012 at 15:27

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