Content interface connection issues

[kalikiana]

Recently I ran into an issue with the handbrake-jz not connecting to the gnome-3-24 snap properly without re-installing it.

Auto-connection for gnome-3-24 content interface

I just noticed I'm affected by this the other day. handbrake-jz stopped working and prompted me to do snap install --edge gnome-3-24 snap connect handbrake-jz:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform I'm told the --edge may not be necessary, but that's what the error message in the terminal asks me to do.

Her’s some versions from the system I’m running:

$ snap version
snap    2.15.2+git2550.g0ac9c21.dirty
snapd   2.26.14
series  16
ubuntu  16.04
$ apt-cache policy snapd
snapd:
  Installed: 2.25
  Candidate: 2.25
  Version table:
 *** 2.25 500
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     2.0.2 500
        500 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial/main amd64 Packages

I don’t know where the “dirty” comes from there. I did at one point use a locally built snapd, but afterwards reverted to running it from the archives. The checksum seems to confirm I’m not using the old snapd from my $GOPATH.

file /usr/lib/snapd/snapd
/usr/lib/snapd/snapd: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=f4b6cf3f5428dc8c7f4e80d803644db2038403a6, stripped
md5sum /usr/lib/snapd/snapd
f71616ceb824634e1e171cdd40f1e823  /usr/lib/snapd/snapd

[zyga]

Can you please reinstall the deb package and check if the version changes? Check if you have something weird set in your environment (like SNAP_REEXEC=0).

[kalikiana]

Nothing starting with $SNAP... in my environment.

$ env | grep SNAP
$ sudo apt install --reinstall snapd
[sudo] password for cris: 
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 90 not upgraded.
Need to get 9.706 kB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/main amd64 snapd amd64 2.25 [9.706 kB]
Fetched 9.706 kB in 12s (786 kB/s)                                                    
(Reading database ... 304467 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../archives/snapd_2.25_amd64.deb ...
Warning: Stopping snapd.service, but it can still be activated by:
  snapd.socket
Unpacking snapd (2.25) over (2.25) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up snapd (2.25) ...
$ file /usr/lib/snapd/snapd
/usr/lib/snapd/snapd: ELF 64-bit LSB shared object, x86-64, version 1 (SYSV), dynamically linked, interpreter /lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2, for GNU/Linux 2.6.32, BuildID[sha1]=f4b6cf3f5428dc8c7f4e80d803644db2038403a6, stripped
$ snap version
snap    2.15.2+git2550.g0ac9c21.dirty
snapd   2.26.14
series  16
ubuntu  16.04

[kalikiana]

$ sudo apt install --reinstall snap
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree       
Reading state information... Done
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  snap
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 to remove and 90 not upgraded.
Need to get 372 kB of archives.
After this operation, 2.710 kB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 http://de.archive.ubuntu.com/ubuntu xenial-updates/universe amd64 snap amd64 2013-11-29-1ubuntu2.16.04.1 [372 kB]
Fetched 372 kB in 1s (321 kB/s)
Selecting previously unselected package snap.
(Reading database ... 304467 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../snap_2013-11-29-1ubuntu2.16.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking snap (2013-11-29-1ubuntu2.16.04.1) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.7.5-1) ...
Setting up snap (2013-11-29-1ubuntu2.16.04.1) ...
$ snap version
snap    2.15.2+git2550.g0ac9c21.dirty
snapd   2.26.14
series  16
ubuntu  16.04

[zyga]

How about which snap?

[kalikiana]

Aha! That’s indeed pointing at $GOPATH/bin. Somehow I was too focussed on looking at snapd to check that.

$ snap version
snap    2.26.14
snapd   2.26.14
series  16
ubuntu  16.04
kernel  4.4.0-87-generic

The output looks better after removing the binary.

[zyga]

Perfect.

Can you now look at reproducing the issue you started with, that affected the content interface?

[kalikiana]

I seems that I’m still seeing the same problem. Commands below.

$ snap remove handbrake-jz
handbrake-jz removed
$ snap remove gnome-3-24
gnome-3-24 removed
$ snap install handbrake-jz
handbrake-jz 1.0.7-1 from 'jz' installed
$ handbrake-jz.ghb 
You need to connect this snap to the gnome platform snap.

You can do this with those commands:
snap install --edge gnome-3-24
snap connect handbrake-jz:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform

(the '3-24' number defines the platform version and might change)
$ snap install --edge gnome-3-24
gnome-3-24 (edge) 3.24 from 'canonical' installed
$ snap connect handbrake-jz:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform
$ handbrake-jz.ghb 
You need to connect this snap to the gnome platform snap.

You can do this with those commands:
snap install --edge gnome-3-24
snap connect handbrake-jz:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform

(the '3-24' number defines the platform version and might change)

[niemeyer]

@kalikiana That message is being emitted by the snap itself, so it’s hard to tell from our end what it’s really complaining about. It’s probably misjudging an issue it is finding and thinking that the interface isn’t connected.

@jzimm Is that snap yours, by any chance?

[jzimm]

Yes, that’s my snap. I don’t know if there is anything I can do from the package side to get it autoconnected, AFAIK at the moment it has to be done manually. It’s very irritating, I know

[daniel]

the message about gnome-platform is from the desktop-helper script from gnome-platform[1] which checks whether ${SNAP}/gnome-platform has been mounted, i.e. isn’t the empty folder that ships in the consumer snap.

[1] https://github.com/ubuntu/snapcraft-desktop-helpers/blob/master/gtk/runtime-exports

[niemeyer]

@jzimm The issue above is that after being connected it’s still complaining. What sort of logic is it using to detect when it is connected or not? Can you debug this a bit with @kalikiana?

Thanks in advance…

Update: If that’s the desktop-helper script and before your application is called, we’ll get the person maintaining the script to figure this out. Sorry for the trouble there.

[niemeyer]

@daniel @willcooke Do you know who maintains the “desktop-helper” script? Can we get the person to have a look at the case above?

[daniel]

there are four contributors to that specific section of the desktop-launcher:

@kenvandine, @didrocks, @seb128, and @Trevinho. Is it Ken’s baby?

[daniel]

There’s a launchpad issue tracking the auto connection of interfaces after a snap has been previously run at https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu-app-platform/+bug/1645731

[zyga]

I’ll try to reproduce and investigate this now.

[didrocks]

The issue isn’t in the desktop-launcher. This one just ls <mount-point> on start to check if the platform snap is connected or not. I’ve reported that particular issue via multiple channels upstream, but I can’t find the bug anymore, so maybe it has been wrongly closed?

This can be easily reproduced by the snapd team, so that you can debug it:

$ snap install gnome-3-24
$ snap install gnome-calculator
$ snap run gnome-calculator
You need to connect this snap to the gnome platform snap.

You can do this with those commands:
snap install --edge gnome-3-24
snap connect gnome-calculator:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform

(the '3-24' number defines the platform version and might change)
$ snap connect gnome-calculator:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform
$ snap run gnome-calculator
You need to connect this snap to the gnome platform snap.

You can do this with those commands:
snap install --edge gnome-3-24
snap connect gnome-calculator:gnome-3-24-platform gnome-3-24:gnome-3-24-platform

(the '3-24' number defines the platform version and might change)
$ snap run --shell gnome-calculator 
ls $SNAP/gnome-platform/

-> as you can see the destination directory is still empty, despite the connection after first run. @niemeyer @zyga, do you need any other information from us to get this fixed?

[zyga]

No this is fine for now.

[seb128]

The issue is a reported snapd problem, see

https://bugs.launchpad.net/snappy/+bug/1671446

https://bugs.launchpad.net/snappy/+bug/1645731

Jamie added it as a “priority to the Snappy Team’s roadmap” in january
and it was raised as a problem several time on the mailing list without
a reply. The bug also didn’t get any activity until this week where Zyga
closed it without apparently even testing if the issue was resolved…

Anyway, yes, would be nice if the snappy team could finally look at that
issue, it has been an ongoing problem for us for a while

[niemeyer]

@seb128 The snapd team has been looking at that issue for good part of the last year, and you can search here in the forum for snap-update-ns and enjoy quite a bit of information around it. Also, in the bug you refer to you’ll see @zyga responding a few days ago saying:

Zygmunt Krynicki (zyga) wrote on 2017-08-07: #10
This should be fixed now. Can you please try with snapd 2.26.14 (just use stable channel) and report back if it is a problem for you?

So let’s please calm down and try to have a more productive and friendly conversation.