snapcraft fails to locate multipass (inside a multipass session)
Metadata
Current evaluation
snapcraft 3.0.1 fails to detect an installed multipass when run inside a multipass VM, prompting to install and dropping the user into a shell. No maintainer activity for ~7 years; affected version is long obsolete.
Suggested action: close stale
Reason: The issue has 0 comments and no maintainer interaction for ~7.3 years (last activity 2677 days ago), and targets snapcraft 3.0.1 from Oct 2018, a version long superseded by the craft-providers-based 8.x architecture where multipass detection/launch handling was rewritten. The related design question LP#1803708 (detecting nested multipass and erroring) was explicitly rejected by maintainers, and the analogous LP#1813979 was closed as superseded by newer versions, so the original problem is no longer applicable to current snapcraft.
Impact:
15
Quick Win:
9.75
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
72
Support Request:
15
Issue body
snapcraft failed to find my multipass and proceeded to dropping me in a multipass shell...
$ snapcraft --version
snapcraft, version 3.0.1
$ snapcraft --debug
Launching a VM.
snapcraft 3.0.1 from Canonical✓ installed
You need multipass installed to build snaps which use the base keyword.
Would you like to install it now? [y/N]:
multipass is required to continue.
root@snapcraft-multipass:~# exit
# ^^^ dropped in multipass shell ^^^
$ snap info multipass
name: multipass
summary: Ubuntu at your fingertips
publisher: Canonical✓
license: unset
description: |
Multipass gives you Ubuntu VMs in seconds. Just run `multipass launch` and it'll do all the setup
for you. Check out `multipass find` for a list of available images. More details you can find
under `multipass help`.
commands:
- multipass
- multipass.virsh
services:
multipass.libvirt-bin: simple, enabled, inactive
multipass.multipassd: simple, enabled, inactive
snap-id: mA11087v6dR3IEcQLgICQVjuvhUUBUKM
tracking: edge
refresh-date: 3 days ago, at 12:36 CET
channels:
stable: –
candidate: –
beta: 2018.10.1 (461) 104MB classic
edge: 2018.10.1-114-g0d6831a (509) 109MB classic
installed: 2018.10.1-114-g0d6831a (509) 109MB classic
$ which multipass
/snap/bin/multipass
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
15
Quick Win:
9.75
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
72
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | snapcraft 3.0.1 fails to detect an installed multipass when run inside a multipass VM, prompting to install and dropping the user into a shell. No maintainer activity for ~7 years; affected version is long obsolete. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Report that snapcraft 3.0.1 fails to detect installed multipass inside a VM, dropping user into a shell instead. Issue is extremely stale with no maintainer interaction or updates for over seven years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | snapcraft v3.0.1 fails to detect multipass when running inside a multipass VM. Unaddressed for over 7 years with no maintainer interaction. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | snapcraft 3.0.1 fails to detect installed multipass when run inside a multipass VM, dropping into a shell instead. Inactive for over 7 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
95
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | snapcraft 3.0.1 fails to detect the multipass binary when run inside a multipass VM, incorrectly spawning a new shell. The report remains open with zero comments and over 150 days of inactivity, requiring triage and assignment. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#1803708
(confidence 70%)
Rejected design issue: maintainers disagreed with erroring when snapcraft runs inside multipass, noting it's a legitimate use case — directly relevant to this nested-VM scenario.
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#1813979
(confidence 55%)
Same-era report of snapcraft failing to detect an already-installed multipass; closed without resolution, likely superseded by newer versions.
-
Related To:
snapcraft#2694
(confidence 50%)
Merged PR fixing multipass setup exception when the binary isn't found in PATH, with clearer error guidance — same multipass-detection area but a different failure mode.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1810915 snapcraft can't tell when multipass is installed but disabled | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft fails to detect a disabled multipass snap, prompting to install it and then erroring out. Reported against multipass 2018.12.1 / ~2019 snapcraft; untriaged, 0 comments, no labels, inactive for ~7.6 years. | |
| #5145 snapcraft fails to launch multipass instance when multipass isn't pre-installed | snapcraft | open | Snapcraft fails to launch a multipass VM with 'Remote snapcraft is unknown or unreachable' when multipass is installed on-demand. Maintainer triaged it as an image-server availability issue and linked craft-providers#211 for better error messaging; still open. | |
| #1813979 snapcraft cleanbuild wants to install multipass but it's already installed | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed without resolution. Likely abandoned or superseded by newer snapcraft and multipass versions that resolved the detection and launch failures. | |
| #1794955 snapcraft erroneously errors when deleting non-existent multipass container | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | snapcraft clean fails with 'instance does not exist' when the multipass container is already gone; reporter suggests treating it as a no-op. Open since 2018, unlabeled, no maintainer activity for ~7.9 years. | |
| #1859427 'multipass' does not exist or is not available on the desired channel 'latest/beta' | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Abandoned after 135 days of inactivity. The report describes a snapcraft channel resolution error when installing multipass, though manual installation works. No fix or discussion was provided. | |
| #1856594 Snapcraft tutorial errors out on OSX with multipass error, "returned exit code 2" | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Dec 2019 report: snapcraft 3.9 on macOS fails via multipass (apt 404s, mount exit code 2) and crashes with AttributeError on os.sched_getaffinity. No maintainer activity; that code path no longer exists in current snapcraft, and macOS support was dropped. | |
| #1904774 Snapcraft runs multipass setup but fails | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Abandoned. Snapcraft failed during multipass VM cleanup after reporting a missing instance. Closed without comments or fixes. | |
| #1984223 Snapcraft on riscv64 tries to install non-existent multipass snap | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft on riscv64 prompts for multipass setup instead of using lxd as default provider. Issue is 4+ years old with no maintainer interaction. | |
| #1806057 Multipass & libvirt services not restarted after snapcraft 3.0 installation | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 3.0 install reportedly stops multipass/libvirt services, breaking 'multipass list' until manual restart. 7.75 years old, zero comments, no labels, author account deactivated, no maintainer interaction. | |
| #1803708 Snapcraft should detect being run inside multipass and error | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Rejected. Maintainers disagreed, noting users may legitimately run snapcraft inside multipass VMs. The issue was closed without implementation. |