misleading warning when building base: core18 snap with 16.04 snapcore/snapcraft docker
Metadata
Current evaluation
Closed as stale without a code fix; a maintainer noted Snapcraft's Dockerfiles had changed substantially and later moved to Rocks, making the reported 16.04 warning obsolete.
Resolution: closed stale
Reason: Maintainer ~mr-cal closed the report as stale, citing major changes to Snapcraft's Dockerfiles and their later move to Rocks. No resolving PR or commit was identified.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
Following https://bugs.launchpad.net/snapcraft/+bug/1830388
Snapcraft gives a very misleading warning about core18 being missing but needed when building in a 16.04 Docker. It goes on to say that the environment should, vaguely, be "properly set up" and in the very next breath says you can dismiss the warning if, again vaguely, "appropriate measures have been taken."
Shouldn't this just error out with "The specified base and Docker image do not match. Use an Ubuntu 18.04-based Docker image to match 'base: core18' in your snap/snapcraft.yaml"?
~/example❯ cat snap/snapcraft.yaml
name: my-snap-name # you probably want to 'snapcraft register <name>'
base: core18 # the base snap is the execution environment for this snap
version: '0.1' # just for humans, typically '1.2+git' or '1.3.2'
summary: Single-line elevator pitch for your amazing snap # 79 char long summary
description: |
This is my-snap's description. You have a paragraph or two to tell the
most important story about your snap. Keep it under 100 words though,
we live in tweetspace and your description wants to look good in the snap
store.
grade: devel # must be 'stable' to release into candidate/stable channels
confinement: devmode # use 'strict' once you have the right plugs and slots
parts:
my-part:
# See 'snapcraft plugins'
plugin: nil
~/example❯ docker run -v $(pwd):$(pwd) -w $(pwd) snapcore/snapcraft:beta snapcraft
Locale not set! Snapcraft will temporarily use C.UTF-8
Using 'snap/snapcraft.yaml': Project assets will be searched for from the 'snap' directory.
The following snaps are required but not installed as snapcraft is running inside docker: core18.
Please ensure the environment is properly setup before continuing.
Ignore this message if the appropriate measures have already been taken
Pulling my-part
Building my-part
Staging my-part
Priming my-part
Snapping 'my-snap-name' ...
Snapped my-snap-name_0.1_amd64.snap
~/example❯ docker run -v $(pwd):$(pwd) -w $(pwd) snapcore/snapcraft:beta cat /etc/lsb-release
DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=16.04
DISTRIB_CODENAME=xenial
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 16.04.6 LTS"
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed stale | Closed as stale without a code fix; a maintainer noted Snapcraft's Dockerfiles had changed substantially and later moved to Rocks, making the reported 16.04 warning obsolete. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed stale | Closed as stale, not fixed: @~mr-cal said Snapcraft's Dockerfiles had since changed and moved to Rocks, making the old 16.04 warning context obsolete. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed as stale. Snapcraft Dockerfiles have changed and migrated to rocks, rendering the original warning context obsolete. No code changes were made. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
20
|
close stale | Misleading warning when building a core18 snap in a 16.04 Docker container. Author requests a clear error for base/image mismatches. Unaddressed for over 7 years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Request to replace a vague warning about missing core18 in a 16.04 Docker container with a clear error message. Unaddressed for over 7 years with no maintainer interaction. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
15
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
10
|
close stale | Report of a misleading Snapcraft warning when building a core18 snap in a 16.04 Docker container, suggesting a clearer error instead. Unaddressed for over 7 years. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Related To:
launchpad#1830388
(confidence 100%)
The report explicitly follows Launchpad issue #1830388.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1826611 Running snapcraft 3 w/ core18 base in docker incorrectly reports missing lib deps | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed as stale after 2,716 days; Snapcraft's legacy Dockerfiles had been updated, then OCI builds moved to Rocks. No resolving fix was identified. | |
| #1846195 provide snapcraft docker image for core18 | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Request (2019) for an official snapcraft Docker image able to build base: core18 snaps; unmaintained since 2020, in-repo Dockerfiles were removed in 24e70d6db in favor of canonical/snapcraft-rocks, and core18 now needs EOL Snapcraft 7.5.x. | |
| #4290 docker: add core22 base | snapcraft | closed | Rejected as incompatible with legacy behavior; the Dockerfile was later removed and snapcraft-rocks documented as the official replacement in #5063 (24e70d6db). | |
| #1989030 snapcore/snapcraft image is outdated (again) | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | The snapcore/snapcraft Docker image was deprecated and closed as stale. Users should now use canonical/snapcraft-rocks instead. | |
| #1830388 The base field created by snapcraft init should match the docker equivalent image or raise an error | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed as stale after prolonged inactivity; the maintainer noted that Snapcraft's Dockerfiles had changed substantially and later moved to rocks. | |
| #4246 Reported error message building base: core18 with newer snapcrafts is wrong | snapcraft | closed | Closed without implementation after a maintainer confirmed the unsupported-base error also affected core17 and suggested clearer wording; no resolving PR or commit was linked. | |
| #1862256 snapcraft should complain loudly when building base: core20 snap on i386 | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed as superseded: improved architecture parsing rejects unsupported core20/i386 builds, making a dedicated check unnecessary; snapcraft#4392 improved this handling. | |
| #1814017 Add docker image for core18 building | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Request for a core18-capable snapcraft Docker image for CI; in-repo Dockerfiles gained core18 support (b982555e1) then were removed in favor of Canonical's snapcraft-rocks images, and core18 now needs EOL 7.x snapcraft. |