snapcraft unusable on systems not using apt
Metadata
Current evaluation
Snapcraft 7.1.1 fixed startup failures on non-APT systems; the 7.0.8 regression was linked to snapcore/snapcraft#3804.
Resolution: closed resolved
Reason: Maintainer sergiusens confirmed that Snapcraft 7.1.1 on stable fixes the issue. Earlier investigation attributed the regression at least partly to snapcore/snapcraft#3804, merged for 7.0.8.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
No scores available.
Issue body
I cannot build any snap with snapcraft on Arch, to the point that even snapcraft --help errors out. I think this used to work before, but does not work anymore and snapcraft would spin up a multipass instance or an lxd container (if used with --use-lxd). Here's the backtrace:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/snap/snapcraft/7848/bin/snapcraft", line 5, in <module>
from snapcraft.cli import run
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/cli.py", line 33, in <module>
from . import commands
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/commands/__init__.py", line 25, in <module>
from .extensions import (
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/commands/extensions.py", line 30, in <module>
from snapcraft.parts.lifecycle import get_snap_project, process_yaml
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/parts/__init__.py", line 19, in <module>
from .parts import PartsLifecycle
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/snapcraft/parts/parts.py", line 26, in <module>
from craft_parts.packages import Repository, deb
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/craft_parts/packages/deb.py", line 44, in <module>
from .apt_cache import AptCache
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/craft_parts/packages/apt_cache.py", line 29, in <module>
import apt
File "/var/lib/snapd/snap/snapcraft/7848/lib/python3.8/site-packages/apt/__init__.py", line 36, in <module>
apt_pkg.init_system()
apt_pkg.Error: E:Unable to determine a suitable packaging system type
$ snap list snapcraft
Name Version Rev Tracking Publisher Notes
snapcraft 7.0.8.post15+giteddd1888 7848 latest/edge canonical✓ classic
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Snapcraft 7.1.1 fixed startup failures on non-APT systems; the 7.0.8 regression was linked to snapcore/snapcraft#3804. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed resolved | Non-APT startup was fixed by making python-apt optional in craft-parts #455; maintainers confirmed the fix shipped in Snapcraft 7.1.1 on stable after the #3804 regression. | |
| qwen/qwen3.8-27b | — | closed resolved | Fixed in snapcraft 7.1.1 (stable). The apt import failure on non-apt systems like Arch, introduced by PR #3804 in 7.0.8, was resolved; maintainer confirmed 7.1.1 fixes it. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha | — | closed stale | Snapcraft's 7.0.8+ non-Debian apt_pkg startup failure was closed without a documented fix; matching reports #1981979 and #1981130 were also closed. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. Likely abandoned or superseded as snapcraft shifted to containerized builds by default, eliminating host apt dependencies. No fix was implemented. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution. Snapcraft retained hard apt dependencies, causing crashes on non-Debian systems like Arch Linux. The issue appears abandoned with no fix provided. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b | — | — | Closed without resolution, likely abandoned or superseded. The report details a crash on non-apt systems due to direct apt imports. With zero comments and inactivity after 34 days, no fix was implemented. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 | — | — | Closed without resolution. Snapcraft crashed on non-apt systems due to a hard dependency on the apt module. The issue was abandoned with no fix provided. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Caused By:
snapcore/snapcraft#3804
(confidence 98%)
A maintainer identified this merged 7.0.8 change as a likely cause of the non-APT startup failure.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #1981979 snapcraft 7.0.8+ stopped working on non debian systems | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Fixed in snapcore/snapcraft#3843 (commit ed49405fb, merged as 57ecab3bc) by deferring the Debian package import so Snapcraft starts on non-Debian hosts. | |
| #1981551 snapcraft 7 fails on fedora 36, referencing apt | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Snapcraft 7.0.11 failed on Fedora 36 when apt_pkg could not identify a packaging system; the maintainer confirmed it was fixed in Snapcraft 7.1.1. | |
| #2099923 Snapcraft builds are failing: install of snap "snapcraft" failed | snapcraft (launchpad) | open | Reported Launchpad Bionic non-i386 builds cannot install Snapcraft 7.x/stable because core20 needs snapd 2.61; the issue remains open, untriaged, and unanswered. | |
| #4677 snapcraft 7.x fails to replace new variables | snapcraft | closed | Closed as unsupported/works-as-designed: CRAFT_ARCH_TRIPLET_BUILD_FOR needs craft-parts 1.24.0 but Snapcraft 7.5.x pins 1.19.7. Maintainers (tigarmo, mr-cal) said no backport is planned; use CRAFT_ARCH_TRIPLET instead. The variable works from Snapcraft 8. | |
| #4214 snapcraft 7.4.3 doesn't adequately complain about non-existent architectures | snapcraft | closed | Fixed in Snapcraft 8: invalid build-on architectures now produce a clear validation error listing all supported architectures. | |
| #5420 Snapcraft 7 fails to launch a LXD container based on host apt sources entries | snapcraft | closed | Closed as a duplicate of canonical/snapcraft#4408; no separate fix was made for this report. | |
| #2013112 Installing snapcraft under a different name causes version mixup | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Fixed in Snapcraft 7.4.0: PRs #4084 and #4090 added parallel-install support and ensured builds use the active Snapcraft instance. |