rust plugin crashes when trying to rebuild a snap package
Metadata
Current evaluation
Rust plugin rebuilt via `cargo install` without `--force`, so re-running snapcraft failed. Fixed by merged PR snapcore/snapcraft#2620 (commit 601bd2df7), which adds `--force` to cargo args.
Resolution: closed resolved
Reason: A fix proposed by ~chris.macnaughton landed in snapcore/snapcraft#2620 (commit 601bd2df7), adding Cargo's `--force` flag to the rust plugin install step so binaries are overwritten on rebuild. The bug was that the second `snapcraft` run aborted with "binary already exists in destination"; `--force` removes the need for `snapcraft clean`.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
To reproduce:
- create a rust project that will build and install executables (e.g. with `cargo init --bin`)
- add a snapcraft.yaml using the rust plugin
- run `snapcraft` (this works)
- run `snapcraft` again. This fails with:
```
/root/.cargo/bin/cargo +stable install --path /root/parts/scriptkeeper/build --root /root/parts/scriptkeeper/install
Installing scriptkeeper v0.1.0 (/root/parts/scriptkeeper/build)
error: binary `scriptkeeper` already exists in destination as part of `scriptkeeper v0.1.0 (/root/parts/scriptkeeper/build)`
Add --force to overwrite
```
It seems as if the plugin runs `cargo install` on the same virtual machine, but that fails the second time, because `cargo` prevents you from overwriting executables without passing `--force`. `snapcraft clean scriptkeeper` fixes this, but it also means that I have to rebuild the entire project for every little change. Which is annoying when trying to debug the snap file.
Here's the project and commit where I'm seeing this: https://github.com/Originate/scriptkeeper/commit/2160eeeada5a44546e743f11a90798c8c19083e5
Using:
- snapcraft, version 3.4
- multipass 0.6.0
- multipassd 0.6.0
- Ubuntu 18.10
- base: core18
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Rust plugin rebuilt via `cargo install` without `--force`, so re-running snapcraft failed. Fixed by merged PR snapcore/snapcraft#2620 (commit 601bd2df7), which adds `--force` to cargo args. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Rust plugin rebuild failures were fixed by merged PR #2620 (commit 601bd2df7), which adds Cargo's --force option so existing installed binaries are overwritten. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed by merged PR #2620 (601bd2df7), which added --force to Cargo install so Rust projects could rebuild without snapcraft clean. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. The rust plugin crashed on incremental builds because cargo install refused to overwrite binaries without the --force flag. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. Rebuilding fails because cargo install lacks the --force flag to overwrite existing binaries, forcing manual cleanup or snapcraft clean between builds. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. The report detailed a Rust plugin failure during snap rebuilds caused by cargo install refusing to overwrite existing binaries. With zero comments and no patch provided, the issue appears abandoned. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 | — | — | Closed without resolution or comments. The rust plugin fails on repeated builds because cargo install lacks --force. The issue appears abandoned or superseded by later updates. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Likely Fixed By:
canonical/snapcraft#2620
(confidence 96%)
Merged PR titled 'Update Rust plugin to be able to rebuild'; commit 601bd2df7 adds Cargo's --force option.
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#1825858
(confidence 60%)
Forum workaround (override-build rm of existing binary) referenced in a user comment as interim fix for the same rebuild problem.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #2158 rust plugin: fix cargo builds and run tests | snapcraft | closed | PR closed as superseded: the rust-plugin-improvements branch was deleted and the work was reworked and merged as snapcore/snapcraft#2170 (commit 4f80a1051) after cargo test broke cross-compilation. | |
| #2620 Update Rust plugin to be able to rebuild | snapcraft | merged | Merged PR #2620 (commit 601bd2df7) added Cargo's --force option so Rust projects can rebuild without clearing the compiler cache; resolves LP #1825858. |