Snapcraft 7.0.11 doesn't run on Fedora, CentOS, Arch, Manjaro, etc

snapcraft
1

Hi,

As of at least July 8 (although possibly earlier), snapcraft broke on any host platform that does not natively run apt (which includes Fedora, CentOS/RedHat, Arch, Manjaro, and probably many others). I know it was working in May because I have a snap dated May 16. I don’t know when between May and July it broke because I didn’t attempt to build anything then and I’m not exactly sure when snapcraft updated or even what version I was using in May.

The output we get from 7.0.11 is:

snapcraft --help
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/snap/snapcraft/7923/bin/snapcraft", line 5, in <module>
    from snapcraft.cli import run
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/cli.py", line 33, in <module>
    from . import commands
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/commands/__init__.py", line 25, in <module>
    from .extensions import (
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/commands/extensions.py", line 30, in <module>
    from snapcraft.parts.lifecycle import get_snap_project, process_yaml
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/parts/__init__.py", line 19, in <module>
    from .parts import PartsLifecycle
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/parts/parts.py", line 26, in <module>
    from craft_parts.packages import Repository, deb
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/craft_parts/packages/deb.py", line 44, in <module>
    from .apt_cache import AptCache
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/craft_parts/packages/apt_cache.py", line 29, in <module>
    import apt
  File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7923/lib/python3.8/site-packages/apt/__init__.py", line 36, in <module>
    apt_pkg.init_system()
apt_pkg.Error: E:Unable to determine a suitable packaging system type

This has been reported at least twice so far without any replies:

but it is seriously affecting our ability to support snaps. Even trying to follow the instructions at Forum entry “t/revert-snapcraft-to-older-version/23923/13” (sorry, can’t include a 3rd link) to revert to an older version doesn’t work, because 7.0.10 and 7.0.9 aren’t in the the releases anymore, and snapcraft itself dies so early that it can’t build anything, so I cannot build a new snap to replace the existing snap. (I admit I have not spent the time to figure out how to build snapcraft directly from the github repo, yet).

In /snap/snapcraft I see 7882 July 6 and 7923 July 8 (with current pointing to 7923). I tried changing the current symlink but that didn’t help (of course I may not have changed everything I needed to change to back out to the July 6th version). I don’t have anything older than 7882 to test.

I am happy to help test out potential fixes to this or otherwise help debug the issue in any way I can. Is there any other information you need?

Thanks in advance!!!

2

This should be working again in snapcraft 7.1.1 currently on the 7.x/candidate channel.

3

Thank you @sergiusens – I can verify that at least snapcraft --help works properly on 7.1.1

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