snapcraft unable to find snap/snapcraft.yaml file
Metadata
Current evaluation
snapcraft 3.11 (2019) loses snap/snapcraft.yaml after a few builds and drops to the VM shell; workaround is snapcraft clean. 6+ years old, no labels, no maintainer comments, tied to a long-superseded build environment.
Suggested action: close stale
Reason: Filed against snapcraft 3.11+git9 and multipass 1.1.0 (both 2019-era), with zero comments, no labels, and no maintainer interaction over ~6.3 years. The multipass build-environment lifecycle has been substantially reworked since, and the closely related VM-reuse bug (launchpad #1794497) was closed as superseded by updated build environment handling, so the reported failure mode is no longer applicable to current snapcraft.
Impact:
35
Quick Win:
15.75
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
55
Confidence:
60
Support Request:
10
Issue body
snapcraft --debug failed to find snapcraft.yaml files after one or two builds,
and drops to VM's shell afterward.
the only solution for this seems to be `snapcraft clean` which causing deletion of VM and creation of new one. This is annoying and seems like a bug.
snapcraft --version
snapcraft, version 3.11+git9.ga8ad6574
multipass --version
multipass 1.1.0
multipassd 1.1.0
`snapcraft --debug
Launching a VM.
snapd 2.43.3 from Canonical✓ refreshed
Could not find snap/snapcraft.yaml. Are you sure you are in the right directory?
To start a new project, use `snapcraft init` `
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
35
Quick Win:
15.75
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
55
Confidence:
60
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | snapcraft 3.11 (2019) loses snap/snapcraft.yaml after a few builds and drops to the VM shell; workaround is snapcraft clean. 6+ years old, no labels, no maintainer comments, tied to a long-superseded build environment. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | Reports a bug where snapcraft fails to locate snapcraft.yaml after a few builds, requiring a clean that recreates the VM. Unaddressed for over six years on an outdated version. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
65
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Reports snapcraft failing to locate snap/snapcraft.yaml after a few builds, requiring VM recreation. Unaddressed for over 6 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Reports snapcraft failing to locate snapcraft.yaml after initial builds, dropping to VM shell, and requiring a clean. Issue is over 6 years old with no maintainer response or updates. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Snapcraft fails to locate snap/snapcraft.yaml after a few builds, dropping to VM shell. Requires snapcraft clean to workaround. Untriaged, inactive for over 6 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | snapcraft failing to locate snapcraft.yaml after multiple builds, requiring VM recreation. Unaddressed for over six years with no maintainer interaction. |
Update history
No update history recorded yet.
Related work
-
Related To:
snapcraft#1794497
(confidence 55%)
Launchpad bug 'Snapcraft can't re-use build VM if anything went wrong with the initial setup', closed as superseded by updated build environment handling; supports that the old VM-lifecycle failure mode was reworked.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1795780 Snapcraft complains about "snapcraft.yaml~" in snap/ dir | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft warns about editor backup files like snapcraft.yaml~ in the snap/ directory, creating noise that can mask real problems. The issue has been open and unaddressed for 2890 days with no maintainer response. | |
| #1604326 snapcraft init doesn't fail if there is a .snapcraft.yaml file | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed without resolution. The snapcraft init command remains unchanged and still creates snapcraft.yaml when .snapcraft.yaml exists, indicating the bug was abandoned or superseded by newer project changes. | |
| #1829564 snapcraft clean crashes on snapcraft.yaml with bad indent | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | snapcraft 2.43.1 (Ubuntu 19.04) crashes with a raw PyYAML traceback when snapcraft.yaml has inconsistent indentation. 7+ years old, no labels, no comments, and the affected 2.x version is long out of support. | |
| #1829413 snapcraft requested file bug report | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 2.43.1 crashed with FileNotFoundError on the snapcraftctl function_call fifo after a keepalived compile failure on Xenial. No maintainer activity in ~7 years; the snapcraftctl code path no longer exists in the current codebase and the affected version is EOL. | |
| #1596596 in order to clean, the snapcraft.yaml has to be valid and the parts cache up-to-date | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Abandoned without resolution. The reported limitation where snapcraft clean fails on invalid YAML or outdated cache remains unaddressed, as no fix or pull request was provided. | |
| #2099923 Snapcraft builds are failing: install of snap "snapcraft" failed | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft builds failing due to outdated snapd (2.61) on build infrastructure unable to install core20 base. Issue is 556 days old with no maintainer response. | |
| #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. | |
| #1867052 Snapcraft crashes while creating snap for ssh-audit | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Snapcraft v2.43.1 crashes with FileNotFoundError during snap packaging due to a missing executable path in snapcraft.yaml. Issue is completely inactive for over 6 years. | |
| #1448 snapcraft build using manifest.yaml | snapcraft | closed | Closed without discussion or comments. The issue appears abandoned or superseded by newer snapcraft build workflows. No resolution or merge details were recorded. | |
| #2044389 snapcraft clean failed but exit 0 | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | snapcraft clean returns exit code 0 despite reporting an error about missing instance. Reported for version 7.5.3, no maintainer response in 2.7 years. |