The Constant Popups
Ubuntu utilizes a background service called “Apport” to handle application crashes. When a program unexpectedly closes or encounters a severe error, Apport automatically intercepts the crash, generates a detailed log file, and presents the user with a popup window asking to send the crash report back to the developers at Canonical. While this telemetry data is vital for developers to fix bugs, it can become incredibly annoying for the end-user. If you are running experimental software, or if a background service you do not even use is failing silently on a loop, you will be constantly bombarded with “System program problem detected” popups every time you log in.
Silencing the Error Reporter
To eliminate the persistent popups and stop Ubuntu from automatically sending crash reports or prompting you to do so, you must disable the Apport service entirely.
While you can dismiss the popups in the graphical settings, permanently disabling the underlying service requires a terminal command. Open your terminal by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T. You need to edit the main Apport configuration file. Type: sudo nano /etc/default/apport and press Enter (provide your password). The file will be very short. Look for the line that says exactly: enabled=1. Use your arrow keys to navigate to the “1”, delete it, and replace it with a “0”, so the line now reads: enabled=0. Press Ctrl+O then Enter to save the file, and Ctrl+X to exit the nano editor. To apply the changes without rebooting, type: sudo systemctl stop apport.service. Ubuntu will no longer intercept crashes or bother you with reporting prompts.