snapcraft can't build while I'm also running virtual box
Metadata
Current evaluation
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.
Suggested action: close not a bug
Reason: The error text ("start failed: Another virtual machine manager is currently running. Please shut it down before starting a Multipass instance.") is emitted by Multipass, not snapcraft, and the reporter concedes "I guess this is a fundamental multipass issue". Repo inspection confirms snapcraft has no VirtualBox-related code at all — no matches for "VirtualBox/VBox" anywhere — and snapcraft/providers.py simply returns a craft-providers MultipassProvider that delegates instance startup upstream, so there is no snapcraft-side code path to fix. The workaround (shut down VirtualBox or select another provider/backend, per docs/how-to/select-a-build-provider.rst) is a host-environment usage matter. Confidence is capped because there are zero comments/labels and no maintainer triage, so nobody has confirmed this classification on the bug itself.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Issue body
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
22
Quick Win:
5
Complexity:
25
Confidence:
68
Actionability:
30
|
close not a bug | 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. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Impact:
20
Quick Win:
6
Complexity:
30
Confidence:
65
Actionability:
40
|
needs triage | User reports snapcraft fails when Multipass build provider conflicts with VirtualBox running; error originates from Multipass itself, not snapcraft. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b |
Impact:
25
Quick Win:
16
Staleness:
92
Complexity:
35
Confidence:
78
Support Request:
75
|
close not a bug | snapcraft build fails with a Multipass 'Another virtual machine manager is currently running' error when VirtualBox is active. Reporter self-identifies it as a fundamental multipass/hypervisor conflict. 5 years old, zero comments, no labels, no maintainer interaction. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
98
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
95
Support Request:
85
|
close stale | User reports snapcraft build fails when VirtualBox is running due to a Multipass conflict. Issue has been inactive for nearly five years with zero maintainer interaction. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
20
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
65
|
close stale | User reports snapcraft fails to build when VirtualBox is running due to a Multipass hypervisor conflict. The report is unlabelled, has no comments, and is nearly five years old. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
10
Confidence:
90
Support Request:
85
|
close stale | Snapcraft fails to start Multipass when VirtualBox is running due to a known hypervisor conflict. Issue is inactive for over four years with no maintainer response. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
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 | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. | |
| #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. |