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I got a popup saying something along the lines of "There's an update for Firefox. Please make sure it's not running". So I make sure Firefox is not running and do:

Wizard Earth:snap refresh firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Run configure hook of "firefox" snap if present (run hook "configure": /snap/firefox/1993/snap/command-chain/hooks-configure-desktop: line 34: cannot create temp file for here-document: No such file or directory)
Wizard Earth:

So I start poking around:

Wizard Earth:ll /snap/firefox/
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Oct 24 06:21 ./
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 Oct 14 11:16 ../
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root  201 Oct  7 13:20 1943/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    4 Oct 24 06:21 current -> 1943/
Wizard Earth:

OK so there is no 1993, but there is a hooks-configure-desktop under 1943!

Wizard Earth:ls /snap/firefox/1943/snap/command-chain/hooks-configure-desktop 
/snap/firefox/1943/snap/command-chain/hooks-configure-desktop*
Wizard Earth:/snap/firefox/1943/snap/command-chain/hooks-configure-desktop
/usr/share/fonts: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 6 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 6 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/100dpi: caching, new cache contents: 358 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/75dpi: caching, new cache contents: 358 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/Type1: caching, new cache contents: 127 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 1 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/encodings/large: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/misc: caching, new cache contents: 90 fonts, 0 dirs
/usr/share/fonts/X11/util: caching, new cache contents: 0 fonts, 0 dirs
...
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/unhinted: skipping, looped directory detected
/usr/share/fonts/truetype/roboto/unhinted/RobotoTTF: skipping, looped directory detected
/fontconfig: cleaning cache directory
/var/cache/fontconfig: cleaning cache directory
/usr/bin/fc-cache: succeeded
Wizard Earth:

And it runs, but the problem remains.

Since the script exists in 1943 and there is no 1993 I figured I'd try to symlink it:

Wizard Earth:ln -s 1943 1993
Wizard Earth:snap refresh firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Mount snap "firefox" (1993) (systemctl command [start snap-firefox-1993.mount] failed with exit status 1: Job failed. See "journalctl -xe" for details.
)
Wizard Earth:ll
total 8
drwxr-xr-x  3 root root 4096 Oct 24 06:34 ./
drwxr-xr-x 21 root root 4096 Oct 14 11:16 ../
drwxr-xr-x  7 root root  201 Oct  7 13:20 1943/
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root root    4 Oct 24 06:28 current -> 1943/
Wizard Earth:

So it's not able to start the snap-firefox-1993.mount because somewhere in the process it removed 1993! Does Firefox need a mount anyway?

So then I think, "I wonder what happens if I mv 1943 -> 1993". This is where it gets weird:

Wizard Earth:mv 1943 1993
mv: cannot move '1943' to '1993': Device or resource busy
Wizard Earth:lsof 1943
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.gvfsd-fuse file system /run/user/1000/gvfs
      Output information may be incomplete.
lsof: WARNING: can't stat() fuse.portal file system /run/user/1000/doc
      Output information may be incomplete.
Wizard Earth:

Copy perhaps?

Wizard Earth:cp -rp 1943 1993
Wizard Earth:snap refresh firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Run configure hook of "firefox" snap if present (run hook "configure": /snap/firefox/1993/snap/command-chain/hooks-configure-desktop: line 34: cannot create temp file for here-document: No such file or directory)
Wizard Earth:ls
1943/  current@
Wizard Earth:

OK How about a remove and reinstall?

Wizard Earth:snap remove firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Disconnect firefox:x11 from snapd:x11 (cannot update mount namespace of snap "firefox": cannot update preserved namespace of snap "firefox": 
-----
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/snap/gtk-common-themes/1535/share/themes/Adwaita-dark /snap/firefox/1943/data-dir/themes/Adwaita-dark none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create writable mimic over "/snap/firefox/1943/data-dir/themes": cannot create directory "/tmp/.snap": no such file or directory
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/snap/gtk-common-themes/1535/share/themes/Adwaita /snap/firefox/1943/data-dir/themes/Adwaita none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create writable mimic over "/snap/firefox/1943/data-dir/themes": cannot create directory "/tmp/.snap": no such file or directory
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/snap/gtk-common-themes/1535/share/themes/Ambiance /snap/firefox/1943/data-dir/themes/Ambiance none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create writable mimic over "/snap/firefox/1943/data-dir/themes": cannot create directory "/tmp/.snap": no such file or directory
...
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/var/lib/snapd/hostfs/tmp/.X11-unix /tmp/.X11-unix none bind,ro 0 0): cannot create directory "/tmp/.X11-unix": no such file or directory
cannot update snap namespace: cannot create writable mimic over "/usr/share": cannot create directory "/tmp/.snap": no such file or directory
-----)

Hmmm... Did it remove it?

Earth:firefox
update.go:85: cannot change mount namespace according to change mount (/run/user/1000/doc/by-app/snap.firefox /run/user/1000/doc none bind,rw,x-snapd.ignore-missing 0 0): permission denied
/snap/firefox/1943/snap/command-chain/desktop-launch: line 52: /home/andrew/.config/user-dirs.dirs: Permission denied
ERROR: not connected to the gnome-3-38-2004 content interface.
Earth:ll .config/user-dirs.dirs 
-rw-r--r-- 1 andrew defaria 725 Mar  1  2022 .config/user-dirs.dirs
Earth:

Great! Now I can't run Firefox anymore! Maybe reinstall?

Wizard Earth:snap refresh firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Setup snap "firefox" (1993) security profiles (cannot update mount namespace of snap "firefox": cannot update preserved namespace of snap "firefox": cannot update snap namespace: cannot create writable mimic over "/snap/firefox/1993/gnome-platform": cannot create directory "/tmp/.snap": no such file or directory)
Wizard Earth:mkdir /tmp/.snap
Wizard Earth:snap refresh firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Setup snap "firefox" (1993) security profiles (cannot update mount namespace of snap "firefox": cannot update preserved namespace of snap "firefox": cannot update snap namespace: cannot create writable mimic over "/snap/firefox/1993/gnome-platform": cannot create directory "/tmp/.snap": no such file or directory)
Wizard Earth:
karel
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Andrew DeFaria
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    Workaround: Switch to the apt version. https://askubuntu.com/questions/1399383/how-to-install-firefox-as-a-traditional-deb-package-without-snap-in-ubuntu-22 – Archisman Panigrahi Oct 24 '22 at 14:05
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    I'm assuming you used sudo with your snap refresh firefox call or are on the root account, yes? – Thomas Ward Oct 24 '22 at 14:58
  • @thomas-ward snap will pop up a window for priv escalation, but seems like the 1993 directory got corrupted. – ubfan1 Oct 24 '22 at 15:57
  • The "Wizard" part of the prompt was a clue. Yes, I was root. The 1993 directory didn't get corrupted rather was never there! I had no idea you could go back to an apt-based install! So far snap has left a bad taste in my mouth but I wonder if is it inevitable that such apps would be snap only.

    You did see that I am unable to remove the snap version of firefox... Still, I seem to have been able to install and use the apt-based version. Still think snap sucks...

    – Andrew DeFaria Oct 24 '22 at 22:43

0 Answers0