snapcraft can't tell when multipass is installed but disabled
Metadata
Current evaluation
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.
Suggested action: needs triage
Reason: The report provides a concrete `snap disable multipass` reproduction and `snap info` evidence, but has no labels, comments, or maintainer response. The legacy prompt no longer exists; current code delegates detection to `MultipassProvider.is_provider_installed()` and defaults Linux builds to LXD, so the current-version failure must first be confirmed.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
38
Quick Win:
14
Complexity:
44
Confidence:
80
Actionability:
66
Issue body
I sometimes `snap disable multipass` because I want to quickly shut it all down so I can use virtualbox instead. (the two conflict). If I forget to `snap enable multipass` and run snapcraft, it thinks multipass isn't installed and asks to install it. Maybe the wording needs tweaking, or it could detect a disabled multipass?
$ snapcraft
You need multipass installed to build snaps which use the base keyword.
Would you like to install it now? [y/N]: y
Waiting for multipass...
Sorry, an error occurred in Snapcraft.
We would appreciate it if you anonymously reported this issue.
No other data than the traceback ('/tmp/tmpnnhkury7/trace.txt') and the version of snapcraft in use will be sent.
Would you like to send this error data? (Yes/No/Always) [no]: ^C
$ 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, disabled, inactive
multipass.multipassd: simple, disabled, inactive
snap-id: mA11087v6dR3IEcQLgICQVjuvhUUBUKM
tracking: beta
channels:
stable: –
candidate: –
beta: 2018.12.1 (572) 111MB classic
edge: 2018.12.1-22-g09335ce (578) 111MB classic
installed: 2018.12.1 (572) 111MB disabled,classic
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
38
Quick Win:
14
Complexity:
44
Confidence:
80
Actionability:
66
|
needs triage | 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. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
38
Quick Win:
17
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
88
Actionability:
82
|
needs triage | Snapcraft mistakes a disabled Multipass snap for an absent provider, offers installation, and then crashes; the old report remains unlabelled, uncommented, and untriaged. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
35
Quick Win:
14
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
78
Actionability:
65
|
needs triage | Untriaged 2018 report: Snapcraft treats an installed but disabled Multipass snap as missing, offers installation, then fails; the old legacy flow has since changed. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
12
Complexity:
45
Confidence:
86
Actionability:
72
|
needs triage | Snapcraft misclassifies an installed but disabled Multipass snap as absent, offers installation, and then fails; the old report has no labels, comments, or maintainer triage. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
30
Quick Win:
18
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
62
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | 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. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Snapcraft fails to detect when Multipass is installed but disabled, prompting to reinstall and failing. Untriaged, inactive for ~7.5 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Snapcraft fails to detect when multipass is installed but disabled, prompting to reinstall and failing. Unaddressed for over 7 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | snapcraft prompts to install multipass and crashes when the snap is installed but disabled. The report is over 7 years old with no maintainer engagement or updates. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#1813979
(confidence 80%)
Reports the same installed-but-Snapcraft-prompts-to-install symptom; its tracker summary says the failure was specific to Debian-packaged Snapcraft 2.43.1 and did not occur with 3.0.1.
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. | |
| #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 | |
| #1794955 snapcraft erroneously errors when deleting non-existent multipass container | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | 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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #1947914 concurrent snapcraft builds with multipass provider | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Snapcraft 5/Core 18 Multipass builds reportedly shared 10.30.202.6 and terminated silently; the old report has no maintainer assessment and needs triage against current versions. | |
| #1943242 snapcraft can't build while I'm also running virtual box | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Report: snapcraft builds fail when Multipass conflicts with a running VirtualBox ("Another virtual machine manager is currently running"); reporter calls it a fundamental Multipass limitation. No maintainer response in ~5 years. |