snapcraft erroneously errors when deleting non-existent multipass container
Metadata
Current evaluation
snapcraft clean treats an absent Multipass instance as a deletion error after Multipass was reinstalled; the report is concrete but untriaged and may need validation against the current clean path.
Suggested action: needs triage
Reason: The report provides the exact command and error showing that clean fails solely because instance "snapcraft-krita" does not exist, and current craft-providers code still converts any multipass delete failure into an error. It has no labels, assignee, or maintainer response, while its age and subsequent command refactoring require confirming that the affected path still exists before implementation.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
32
Quick Win:
15
Complexity:
42
Confidence:
78
Actionability:
80
Issue body
$ snapcraft clean
delete failed: The following errors occurred:
instance "snapcraft-krita" does not exist
An error occurred when trying to delete the instance with 'multipass': returned exit code 2.
Ensure that 'multipass' is setup correctly and try again.
The container didn't exist because I just had to remove multipass and reinstall it to fix another issue. Snapcraft error #2 when it tries to delete a multipass container that doesn't exist. Perhaps it should just continue anyway, given there was nothing to delete, that's not an error in my book.
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
32
Quick Win:
15
Complexity:
42
Confidence:
78
Actionability:
80
|
needs triage | snapcraft clean treats an absent Multipass instance as a deletion error after Multipass was reinstalled; the report is concrete but untriaged and may need validation against the current clean path. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
40
Quick Win:
19
Complexity:
42
Confidence:
84
Actionability:
80
|
needs triage | snapcraft clean fails when its Multipass VM is already absent; deletion should be idempotent. The old issue remains open and untriaged. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
38
Quick Win:
31
Complexity:
14
Confidence:
99
Actionability:
96
|
close resolved | Snapcraft clean failed when its Multipass container was already missing. Merged PR #3381 added an existence check before deletion, so the reported behavior is resolved. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
25
Quick Win:
19
Staleness:
92
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
55
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | 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. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Snapcraft fails during clean when deleting a non-existent Multipass container. Unlabeled, inactive for ~7.8 years, no maintainer response. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
5
|
needs triage | Snapcraft fails with an error when cleaning up a non-existent Multipass container instead of continuing silently. Unlabelled, no maintainer interaction, inactive for over 7 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
5
|
close stale | Reports snapcraft failing when cleaning a non-existent multipass container. Suggests it should succeed instead of erroring. Unlabeled, no maintainer response, inactive for ~7.8 years. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#1810915
(confidence 72%)
Both concern Multipass availability or discovery, but this issue specifically concerns idempotent deletion.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1806083 snapcraft fails to locate multipass (inside a multipass session) | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 3.0.1 falsely reported Multipass missing inside a Multipass guest; Darwin-only detection in e9ae8d29f addressed the old path, but the Launchpad record remains open. | |
| #1813979 snapcraft cleanbuild wants to install multipass but it's already installed | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Deb-packaged Snapcraft 2.43.1 failed while Multipass worked in 3.0.1. Legacy cleanbuild was later removed because builds are clean by default. | |
| #1807125 After snapcraft refresh, old multipass containers no longer work | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 3.0.1 could reuse incompatible Multipass VMs after a 3.0.0 refresh, causing a misleading missing-project error until snapcraft clean; the report is untriaged. | |
| #1810915 snapcraft can't tell when multipass is installed but disabled | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft misclassified an installed but disabled Multipass snap as missing, prompting installation before failing. The 2018 report remains untriaged, and its behavior needs validation against the current provider architecture. | |
| #1869542 snapcraft unable to find snap/snapcraft.yaml file | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 3.11 on Multipass intermittently lost the project dir in the VM ('Could not find snap/snapcraft.yaml'), only fixable by `snapcraft clean`. Reproducer never supplied; reporter redirected it to the Multipass tracker and never followed up. | |
| #5145 snapcraft fails to launch multipass instance when multipass isn't pre-installed | snapcraft | open | Snapcraft emits cryptic 'Remote "snapcraft" is unknown or unreachable / exit code 2' when Multipass can't launch the build instance; maintainer traced it to image-server unavailability or non-amd64 hosts, fix tracked in craft-providers#211 | |
| #1813942 `snapcraft clean <part>` doesn't ensure the project is mounted | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 3.1 clean <part> fails in Multipass after manually unmounting the project; the report remains unlabelled and untriaged with no activity since submission. | |
| #1803708 Snapcraft should detect being run inside multipass and error | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Rejected: maintainers chose to allow running Snapcraft inside Multipass, so no environment-detection error was added. | |
| #4106 Error 2 on snapcraft on linux with multipass: | snapcraft | closed | Multipass's Snapcraft image remote recovered; CI and the reporter succeeded again, and the reporter closed the report as solved without a Snapcraft code change. | |
| #1904774 Snapcraft runs multipass setup but fails | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Fixed in merged PR #3381 via commit 51e75b4de: Multipass cleanup now checks whether the VM instance exists before deleting it. |