If you have ever monitored your running processes in Ubuntu Linux, you might have noticed a mysterious background daemon named whoopsie quietly consuming a tiny amount of RAM. This process is Ubuntu’s official error tracker. Whenever an application crashes, the Apport system generates a crash log, and Whoopsie is responsible for collecting that log, anonymizing it, and securely transmitting it to Canonical’s servers to help developers fix bugs.
While this is generally helpful for the community, many privacy-conscious users, or system administrators running secure, air-gapped servers, do not want their machines automatically transmitting diagnostic telemetry over the internet. You can easily and permanently disable the Whoopsie daemon without harming your operating system.
How to Completely Disable the Whoopsie Error Tracker
You must edit the default configuration file for the service and then stop the currently running daemon.
- Open your Terminal application (Ctrl + Alt + T).
- Type the following command to open the Whoopsie configuration file in the nano text editor:
sudo nano /etc/default/whoopsie - Type your administrator password when prompted.
- The file is very short. Look for the line that says
report_crashes=true. - Use your arrow keys to navigate to the word
true. Delete it, and replace it with the wordfalse. - The line should now read:
report_crashes=false - Press Ctrl + O (the letter O) and press Enter to save the file.
- Press Ctrl + X to exit the nano editor.
- Now, you must forcefully stop the daemon that is currently running in your RAM. Type this command and press Enter:
sudo systemctl stop whoopsie - Finally, to ensure the service is completely disabled and cannot be triggered by other processes, type:
sudo systemctl disable whoopsie
Ubuntu’s error tracker is now completely disabled. Your system will no longer collect or transmit any crash diagnostic telemetry to Canonical’s servers, ensuring your machine remains completely silent regarding internal application failures.