Snapcraft runs multipass setup but fails
Metadata
Current evaluation
Fixed in merged PR #3381 via commit 51e75b4de: Multipass cleanup now checks whether the VM instance exists before deleting it.
Resolution: closed resolved
Reason: Snapcraft PR #3381 was merged as commit 51e75b4de. It prevents cleanup errors when the expected Multipass instance is already absent.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
I was setting up snapcraft on a new laptop, but running snapcraft required multipass, so snapcraft installed it correctly but then it failed as follows
```
snapcraft
Support for 'multipass' needs to be set up. Would you like to do it now? [y/N]: y
multipass 1.5.0 from Canonical✓ installed
Waiting for multipass...
Launching a VM.
Build environment is in unknown state, cleaning first.
delete failed: The following errors occurred:
instance "snapcraft-folding-at-home-fcole90" does not exist
An error occurred with the instance when trying to delete with 'multipass': returned exit code 2.
Ensure that 'multipass' is setup correctly and try again.
```
The name of my snap is folding-at-home-fcole90
Snap available here: https://github.com/fcole90/fah-snap
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed in merged PR #3381 via commit 51e75b4de: Multipass cleanup now checks whether the VM instance exists before deleting it. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed by merged PR canonical/snapcraft#3381 (commit 51e75b4de), which checks whether a Multipass instance exists before deleting it. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Fixed in canonical/snapcraft#3381 (51e75b4de): Snapcraft now checks whether a Multipass instance exists before deletion, preventing the reported missing-VM error. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. The issue reported a multipass VM cleanup failure during snapcraft setup and was abandoned due to inactivity. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Abandoned. Snapcraft failed during multipass VM cleanup after reporting a missing instance. Closed without comments or fixes. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution or comments, likely abandoned due to inactivity. The reported snapcraft and multipass VM instance cleanup error remains unfixed. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 | — | — | Closed without resolution, likely abandoned. The report detailed a snapcraft failure during multipass VM setup caused by a non-existent instance cleanup error. No comments or fixes were provided. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Likely Fixed By:
canonical/snapcraft#3381
(confidence 99%)
Merged fix checks for an existing Multipass instance before deletion.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1794497 Snapcraft can't re-use build VM if anything went wrong with the initial setup | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Fixed by the Multipass provider check merged in PR #3381 as commit 51e75b4de. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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 | |
| #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. |