firefox/snap broken

[mv-879]

hello.

i have broken my snap-whatever by deleting /usr/lib/snap (i think) which after some googling i assumed to be leftover packages after installation process that seemed safe to be deleted (there were multiple versions of each file and the folder was quite big).

most significant result of this unwise action is broken firefox that i can't get back to work. any advice, please?


# snap remove firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Remove data for snap "firefox" (3290) (unlinkat /var/snap/firefox/common/host-hunspell/en_GB.dic: read-only file system)

# snap install firefox
snap "firefox" is already installed, see 'snap help refresh'

# snap refresh firefox
error: cannot refresh "firefox": refreshing disabled snap "firefox" not supported

# snap enable firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Setup snap "firefox" (3290) security profiles (cannot find installed snap "firefox" at revision 3290: missing file /snap/firefox/3290/meta/snap.yaml)

#

[#&thj^%]

NOTE: Deleting /usr is pretty much the equivalent of deleting the OS.
ie:

ls /usr
bin include lib32 libexec local share
games lib lib64 libx32 sbin src
### And
*me**~**ls /usr/lib
apg libxnee.so.0
apparmor libxnee.so.0.0.0
apt lightdm
aspell linux
bfd-plugins linux-boot-probes
binfmt.d linux-sound-base
bluetooth locale
casper lp_solve
chroot-setup.sh lsb
cnf-update-db man-db
command-not-found memtest86+
compat-ld menu
compiz mime
conky mintstick
console-setup modprobe.d
cpp modules
crda modules-load.d
cryptsetup msttcorefonts
cups netplan
dbus-1.0 networkd-dispatcher
debug NetworkManager
dhcpcd nvidia
discover openssh
dkms openvpn
dpkg os-probes
dracut os-release
emacsen-common p7zip
environment.d pam.d
fetch-url partconf
file partman
finalrd pcmciautils
firefox pkgconfig
firefox-addons pm-utils
firetools policykit-1
firewalld policykit-1-gnome
firmware polkit-1
gcc post-base-installer.d
gimp pppd
girepository-1.0 printer-driver-escpr
gnome-settings-daemon-3.0 python3
gnupg python3.10
gnupg2 python3.11
gold-ld python3.12
groff recovery-mode
grub rsyslog
grub-installer ruby
grub-legacy sasl2
gvfs shim
hdparm software-properties
i386-linux-gnu speech-dispatcher-modules
ifupdown ssl
indicators3 sysctl.d
init syslinux
initramfs-tools SYSLINUX
ISOLINUX systemd
ispell sysusers.d
jvm tasksel
kernel tcltk
klibc thunderbird
klibc-qrjdleQmVUSXMeCB-fuBoSLiQ0A.so thunderbird-addons
ld-linux.so.2 tmpfiles.d
libau.so ubiquity
libau.so.2 ubuntu-advantage
libau.so.2.10 ubuntu-release-upgrader
libdvd-pkg udev
libfreecell-solver.so.0 udisks2
libfreecell-solver.so.0.6.0 unity-settings-daemon-1.0
libhardsid-builder.so.0 update-notifier
libhardsid-builder.so.0.0.1 user-setup
libnetpbm.so.10 usrmerge
libnetpbm.so.10.0 valgrind
libreoffice w3m
libresid-builder.so.0 WolfLandBuilder
libresid-builder.so.0.0.1 X11
libsidplay2.so.1 x86_64-linux-gnu
libsidplay2.so.1.0.1 xorg
libtcp-portmon.a xpra
libxmmsclient.so.6 xserver-xorg-video-intel
libxmmsclient.so.6.0.0 zfs-linux

[deadflowr]

Not sure about /usr/lib/snap but there is the snapd folder there.
Maybe try reinstalling snapd

sudo apt install --reinstall snapd
Can also try refreshing into a newer snap channel like beta or edge

snap refresh --channel=beta firefox

[mv-879]

NOTE: Deleting /usr is pretty much the equivalent of deleting the OS.

not whole /usr/, just that specific folder with "snaps"

[mv-879]

Not sure about /usr/lib/snap but there is the snapd folder there.
Maybe try reinstalling snapd
Can also try refreshing into a newer snap channel like beta or edge



thank you. reinstall went through, but the refresh still refuse to refresh, because firefox is "disabled".








# sudo apt install --reinstall snapd
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 1 reinstalled, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.
Need to get 0 B/23,8 MB of archives.
After this operation, 0 B of additional disk space will be used.
(Reading database ... 300111 files and directories currently installed.)
Preparing to unpack .../snapd_2.58+22.04.1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking snapd (2.58+22.04.1) over (2.58+22.04.1) ...
Setting up snapd (2.58+22.04.1) ...
snapd.failure.service is a disabled or a static unit not running, not starting it.
snapd.snap-repair.service is a disabled or a static unit not running, not starting it.
Failed to restart snapd.mounts-pre.target: Operation refused, unit snapd.mounts-pre.target may be requested by dependency only (it is configured to refuse manual start/stop).
See system logs and 'systemctl status snapd.mounts-pre.target' for details.
Could not execute systemctl: at /usr/bin/deb-systemd-invoke line 142.
Processing triggers for desktop-file-utils (0.26-1ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for gnome-menus (3.36.0-1ubuntu3) ...
Processing triggers for man-db (2.10.2-1) ...
Processing triggers for dbus (1.12.20-2ubuntu4.1) ...
Processing triggers for mailcap (3.70+nmu1ubuntu1) ...
Processing triggers for bamfdaemon (0.5.6+22.04.20220217-0ubuntu1) ...
Rebuilding /usr/share/applications/bamf-2.index...


# snap install firefox
snap "firefox" is already installed, see 'snap help refresh'


# snap refresh firefox
error: cannot refresh "firefox": refreshing disabled snap "firefox" not supported


# snap enable firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Setup snap "firefox" (3290) security profiles (cannot find installed snap "firefox" at revision 3290: missing file /snap/firefox/3290/meta/snap.yaml)


# snap refresh --channel=beta firefox
error: cannot refresh "firefox": refreshing disabled snap "firefox" not supported



i found that there is download option for snap and for a moment it seemed it will fix the problem, but no.




# snap download firefox
Fetching snap "firefox"
2023/11/01 21:46:33.438774 store_download.go:142: no host system xdelta3 available to use deltas
Fetching assertions for "firefox"
Install the snap with:
snap ack firefox_3290.assert
snap install firefox_3290.snap


# snap ack firefox_3290.assert


# snap install firefox_3290.snap
error: cannot install snap file: cannot update disabled snap "firefox"


# snap enable firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Setup snap "firefox" (3290) security profiles (cannot find installed snap "firefox" at revision 3290: missing file /snap/firefox/3290/meta/snap.yaml)


# apt-get install firefox
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
firefox is already the newest version (1:1snap1-0ubuntu2).
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 2 not upgraded.


# snap enable firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Setup snap "firefox" (3290) security profiles (cannot find installed snap "firefox" at revision 3290: missing file /snap/firefox/3290/meta/snap.yaml)

[#&thj^%]

not whole /usr/, just that specific folder with "snaps"

I was aware and noticed the whole path, and as your aware "/usr" anything or Directory is not advised, unless you explicitly know what your doing there.
Enough said about that now ;) but will you show us this please:

systemctl status snapd.mounts-pre.target
FTR not a snap fan myself. :(

systemctl status snapd.mounts-pre.target
○ snapd.mounts-pre.target
Loaded: masked (Reason: Unit snapd.mounts-pre.target is masked.)
Active: inactive (dead) since Wed 2023-11-01 17:53:15 MDT; 1min 13s ago

Nov 01 16:41:20 me-zfs systemd[1]: Reached target snapd.mounts-pre.target - Mou>
Nov 01 17:53:15 me-zfs systemd[1]: Stopped target snapd.mounts-pre.target - Mou>

[mv-879]

systemctl status snapd.mounts-pre.target


# systemctl status snapd.mounts-pre.target
● snapd.mounts-pre.target - Mounting snaps
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/snapd.mounts-pre.target; static)
Active: active since Wed 2023-11-01 16:50:43 CET; 8h ago

Notice: journal has been rotated since unit was started, output may be incomplete.

[#&thj^%]

This is not looking good my friend, might back-up now all important data you want to keep, and re-install.

There is a very *slight* chance you could try to copy " /usr/lib/snap" or just " /usr/lib/" off the live installer
Info here for that: https://askubuntu.com/questions/1158169/access-files-in-home-directory-from-live-mode
Good Luck and keep us posted

[mv-879]

There is a very *slight* chance you could try to copy " /usr/lib/snap" or just " /usr/lib/" off the live installer


i will try that, thank you. if it comes to that, i guess reinstall is as good way to increase space in root as any.

btw i realized i have the list of packages i deleted from that /usr/lib/snap folder, if it would be any help - https://i.imgur.com/ZBSQW4M.jpg

(edit: it seems the folder was /usr/lib/snapd/snaps)

[TheFu]

The lesson here is to only use snap tools to manage snap packages. By default, when a snap is loaded, 3 copies will be retained. You can change that to be more or fewer, but 2 is the minimal number. Canonical decided we aren't responsible enough to decide that we only need 1 copy of a snap package, once we know it is working well. Whatever.

If you are running out of space in /, there might easily be other culprits. Open a new thread and post the output from these commands:

df -hT -x squashfs -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs
sudo du -sh /* 2> /dev/null | sort -h |tail -n 10

The 2nd command might take some time. It only shows the largest 10 areas.

When posting those things, use the forum 'code' tags, so the columns line up.
For example, on a system here:

$ sudo du -sh /* 2> /dev/null | sort -h |tail -n 10
333M /tmp
335M /opt
640M /snap
6.0G /home
6.7G /usr
37G /TV
128G /Backups
135G /var
384G /raid2
1.7T /raid1

Note that I sorted them from smallest to largest, so any directories not being shown are smaller than 333M. The last 2 aren't on the OS storage, so those are completely unimportant.
/var/ is 135G (huge, but I know a Windows Virtual machine is there eating 130GB of that storage) ... and that is actually on a special mount /var/lib/libvirt/ because I knew the exact size needed.


6.0G /home
6.7G /usr

Those aren't abusively large. /home could be smaller. For a desktop system, /usr is already fairly small compared to most users' setup that are using 20.04 and later versions.

335M /opt isn't part of the OS ... ah ... that's where I put some driver packages BEFORE they get installed. It is only 335MB, so all other directories have less space. That's the point of the sort command. Let's me see what's important with little effort.

Almost always, /home and /var are the main places with bloat that can be better managed. I do this by putting both on separate storage volumes, not shared with the OS. BTW, my / (OS) volume is sized at 35G with 7.1G currently used. That means 26G is still available.

Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/vg01-root01 ext4 35G 7.1G 26G 22% /
/dev/nvme0n1p3 ext4 672M 283M 340M 46% /boot
/dev/mapper/vg01-home01 ext4 20G 6.0G 13G 32% /home
/dev/mapper/vg01-tmp01 ext4 3.9G 349M 3.4G 10% /tmp
/dev/mapper/vg01-var01 ext4 20G 3.2G 16G 18% /var
/dev/nvme0n1p2 vfat 50M 6.1M 44M 13% /boot/efi
/dev/mapper/vg01-libvirt--01 ext4 134G 131G 2.8G 98% /var/lib/libvirt

Those are all the volumes that the OS cares about.

See how nicely the code tags makes the terminal output columns?

[mv-879]

https://dwsaur.files.wordpress.com/2021/07/good-news-everyone.jpg


There is a very *slight* chance you could try to copy " /usr/lib/snap" or just " /usr/lib/" off the live installer

i successfully copied the snaps from live usb:



# ls -lah /var/lib/snapd/snaps/
total 2,3G
drwxr-xr-x 3 root root 4,0K lis 2 05:43 .
drwxr-xr-x 24 root root 4,0K lis 2 05:48 ..
-rw------- 1 root root 4,0K srp 8 00:58 bare_5.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 64M srp 8 00:58 core20_1974.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 64M lis 2 05:17 core20_2015.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 74M srp 8 00:58 core22_858.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 74M lis 2 05:17 core22_864.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 238M srp 8 00:58 firefox_2987.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 241M lis 2 05:16 firefox_3290.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 350M srp 8 00:58 gnome-3-38-2004_143.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 486M srp 8 00:58 gnome-42-2204_120.snap
-rw------- 2 root root 497M lis 1 14:47 gnome-42-2204_141.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 92M srp 8 00:58 gtk-common-themes_1535.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 23M lis 2 05:22 mc-pasman_37.snap
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4,0K kvě 29 14:08 partial
-rw------- 1 root root 54M srp 8 00:58 snapd_19457.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 41M lis 2 05:18 snapd_20290.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 452K srp 8 00:58 snapd-desktop-integration_83.snap
-rw------- 1 root root 13M srp 8 00:58 snap-store_959.snap


and fixed the problem:


# snap refresh firefox
error: cannot refresh "firefox": refreshing disabled snap "firefox" not supported

# snap enable firefox
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Run hook connect-plug-host-hunspell of snap "firefox" (run hook "connect-plug-host-hunspell": cannot locate base snap core22: No such file or directory)

# snap download core22
Fetching snap "core22"
Fetching assertions for "core22"
Install the snap with:
snap ack core22_864.assert
snap install core22_864.snap

# snap ack core22_864.assert

# snap install core22_864.snap
core22 20230801 from Canonical✓ installed

# snap enable firefox
firefox enabled

# snap refresh firefox
firefox 119.0-2 from Mozilla✓ refreshed

i still lost the firefox profile, someone obviously thought it is great idea to move it from the location in home where it always was to some snap-folder - other than the one where i deleted the snaps - but it disappeared anyway. I have no civil words for this. luckily for me i had some 2 month old backup, so i only lost few recent bookmarks and some history.

Thank you 1fallen for your help and good luck to any future archeologist!

[mv-879]

If you are running out of space in /, there might easily be other culprits. Open a new thread and post the output from these commands:

df -hT -x squashfs -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs
sudo du -sh /* 2> /dev/null | sort -h |tail -n 10


thank you for your tips as well.

now look and see that i am clearly running out of space...


# df -hT -x squashfs -x tmpfs -x devtmpfs
Filesystem Type Size Used Avail Use% Mounted on
/dev/sdb4 ext4 43G 20G 22G 48% /
/dev/sda1 fuseblk 1,9T 1,9T 4,5G 100% /media/storage1
/dev/sdc2 fuseblk 3,7T 3,7T 683M 100% /media/storage2
/dev/sdd1 ext4 220G 158G 51G 76% /media/storage0
/dev/sdb3 ext4 67G 55G 8,6G 87% /home
/dev/sdb1 vfat 240M 6,1M 234M 3% /boot/efi

... and behold the respectable fifth position of the snap folder. now you have to understand i tried to clean it, right? :P


# sudo du -sh /* 2> /dev/null | sort -h |tail -n 10
11M /run
22M /etc
190M /boot
392M /opt
979M /root
3,7G /snap
4,6G /var
14G /usr
55G /home
5,5T /media


(when i was in the live system, i merged my root partition with 15 gb swap partition that i no longer need. it may now not be clear why i did so drastic cleaning with 20 gb of free space, but that is why, i was literally getting to zero free space before)

[TheFu]

I don't think /snap is where anything "real" is stored. I think it is all under /var/snap/ in truth. Inside /snap/README is explains.


DISK SPACE USAGE

The disk space consumed by the content under this directory is
minimal as the real snap content never leaves the .snap file.
Snaps are *mounted* rather than unpacked.

For further details please visit
https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/the-snap-directory/2817



I minimize my snap use. FWIW,

$ snap list
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
bare 1.0 5 latest/stable canonical✓ base
core20 20230801 2015 latest/stable canonical✓ base
lxd 4.0.9-a29c6f1 24061 4.0/stable/… canonical✓ -
snapd 2.60.4 20290 latest/stable canonical✓ snapd


I am a little confused with the LXD version installed. On a nearly identical system, it has

lxd 5.19-31ff7b6 26093 latest/stable canonical✓ -
Something smells bad.