snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources but ignores /etc/apt/preferences
Metadata
Current evaluation
Snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources but ignores /etc/apt/preferences, causing wrong package selection in complex setups. 9.8 years old, zero comments, no labels, no maintainer interaction. Current codebase uses craft-archives with AptPreferencesManager, a completely different architecture.
Suggested action: close stale
Reason: This issue is from 2015 (3588 days old) with zero comments, no labels, and no maintainer interaction. The current codebase has completely replaced the old apt source copying mechanism with craft-archives and AptPreferencesManager (visible in tests/unit/parts/test_parts.py and the package-repositories spec work from 2023-2024). The original problem is no longer applicable to the current architecture.
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
18.0
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
10
Issue body
This means that if you have a somewhat complex setup, you will end up with snapcraft getting the wrong packages since the preferences file will be ignored
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
18.0
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources but ignores /etc/apt/preferences, causing wrong package selection in complex setups. 9.8 years old, zero comments, no labels, no maintainer interaction. Current codebase uses craft-archives with AptPreferencesManager, a completely different architecture. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources.list but ignores /etc/apt/preferences, causing incorrect package resolution in complex setups. Unaddressed for nearly 10 years with no maintainer interaction. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
5
|
close stale | Snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources but ignores /etc/apt/preferences, causing incorrect package resolution. Unaddressed for nearly a decade with no maintainer interaction or labels. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Reports that snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources.list but ignores /etc/apt/preferences, potentially causing incorrect package resolution. Unaddressed for nearly 10 years with zero comments or maintainer engagement. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | snapcraft copies /etc/apt/sources but ignores /etc/apt/preferences, leading to incorrect package resolution. The report remains open, unassigned, unlabelled, and inactive with zero comments. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1583236 snapcraft APT sources checking too strict | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | snapcraft fails builds when APT exits nonzero for non-critical warnings (e.g., outdated hash functions, unsupported PPAs). Unlabelled, zero comments, no maintainer interaction; references obsolete 2015-era sources. | |
| #1992213 Snapcraft crashes when the APT unprivileged user owns the host's source list file instead of root | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft crashes when APT source list files have restrictive permissions (owned by _apt user with 0600). Issue is 4 years old with no maintainer response. | |
| #1841618 snapcraft should run apt-get update | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Feature request (2019) for snapcraft to refresh stale apt-get caches in process containers to avoid build failures. Open ~7 years with zero comments, no labels, no maintainer response; no general cache-refresh logic found in the build path. | |
| #1865834 Snapcraft doesn't always copy the host's version into the VM | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft VM builds intermittently refresh snapcraft to stable channel instead of copying the host version, causing schema validation failures. 6.5 years old, 0 comments, no labels, no maintainer interaction. Related PRs #1364 and #1412 have been merged addressing host version injection and container refresh. | |
| #1548225 Snapcraft/snappy should detect incompatible version mismatches | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Abandoned. The report detailed Snapcraft failing to detect version mismatches, causing large snaps to install incorrectly. With zero comments and over a decade of dormancy, it received no resolution and was closed. |