Snaps not starting after removing other snaps

snapd
1

Hello, today I removed some snaps. They seemed to be unused because snapd didn’t return any “dependecy error”.

Eg: I removed “gnome-46-2404” and broke the “element-desktop” snap.

I fixed it reinstalling the “gnome-46-2404” snap, but:

  1. Why snapd didn’t return any error like the message it shows when you try to remove the core* snap? error: cannot remove "core22": snap "core22" is not removable: snap is being used by snaps brave,[...]
  2. I still have Thunderbird broken, how can I understand which is the missing snap I should reinstall? It returns Content snap command-chain for /snap/thunderbird/549/gnome-platform/command-chain/desktop-launch not found: ensure slot is connected.
    I don’t want to reconfigure all my thunderbird accounts after removing and reinstalling Thunderbird…
2

Certain snaps like the gnome extension are actually replaceable and not a hard requirement … i.e. i could fork the gnome extension and create a gnome-ogra one with special features and you could use it by simply removing the existing one and installing the gnome-ogra one instead …

While i agree there should perhaps be a warning, a hard roadblock like for core22 which is essential and actually un-replaceable would break this feature …

you should open an issue against snapd on github …

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3

Thanks for the reply, but I’m not sure what should I write in the bug report on GitHub. :sweat_smile:

Should I ask for a warning when removing a “soft dependency” to another snap package?

4

@aci you should explain the problem you are having.

As for asking for a warning, snapd has information about the relationships between snaps. In the case you mention above:

$ snap connections gnome-46-2404
Interface               Plug                              Slot                         Notes
content[gnome-46-2404]  element-desktop:gnome-46-2404     gnome-46-2404:gnome-46-2404  -
content[gnome-46-2404]  mattermost-desktop:gnome-46-2404  gnome-46-2404:gnome-46-2404  -

Based on that information, it sounds feasible to respond to a remove request with: “Warning: gnome-46-2404 is providing content to element-desktop and mattermost-desktop. Are you sure?”

5

Yes, I think a warning like this would be very useful. At the moment you can remove gnome-46-2404 and snapd says nothing at all. :slightly_smiling_face:

I’ll open this bug report on github, thanks for the suggestions

[EDIT] This page seems not to allow “Issues” but only pull requests :man_shrugging:

6

@aci They track issues on Launchpad: bugs.launchpad.net/snapd/+filebug

1 Like
7

Here you can find the bug report if you want to add other informations or share your thoughts about this “issue”

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