If you have ever used Ubuntu Desktop, you have almost certainly encountered the “System program problem detected” pop-up dialogue box. This error message appears when a background application or system process crashes. The prompt asks if you want to “Report the problem now,” which sends a crash dump to Canonical’s servers.
The daemon responsible for catching these crashes and generating these pop-ups is a background service named Whoopsie. While sending bug reports helps developers improve Ubuntu, experiencing this pop-up every single time you boot your computer due to a minor, non-critical background crash is incredibly frustrating. You can completely disable the Whoopsie daemon to stop these error reports permanently.
How to Disable the Whoopsie Error Reporting Daemon
The cleanest and most reliable way to stop the “System program problem detected” pop-ups is to simply disable the Whoopsie service entirely.
- Open your Terminal (Ctrl + Alt + T).
- First, stop the currently running Whoopsie process by typing:
sudo systemctl stop whoopsie - Next, disable the service so it cannot start again on the next reboot by typing:
sudo systemctl disable whoopsie - Finally, completely mask the service so that no other program can accidentally trigger or restart it:
sudo systemctl mask whoopsie
(Note: You will be prompted to enter your administrator password during these steps).
How to Remove Apport (The Crash Catcher)
Whoopsie handles the reporting, but a separate program called Apport handles the actual crash detection. If you have disabled Whoopsie but are still seeing local error logs or pop-ups, you should disable Apport as well.
- Open your Terminal.
- Edit the Apport configuration file:
sudo nano /etc/default/apport - Look for the line that says
enabled=1. - Change the 1 to a 0 so it reads
enabled=0. - Save the file (Ctrl + O, Enter) and exit (Ctrl + X).
With both Whoopsie and Apport disabled, your Ubuntu system will silently ignore non-fatal background crashes, and you will never see the “System program problem detected” dialogue box again.