Snapcraft is stuck on "launching instance..." indefinitely
Metadata
Current evaluation
Endless LXD startup on failed container DNS now times out via craft-providers; Snapcraft 7.5.4 is recorded as fixing the wait. Multipass arm64 and Docker diagnostics remain separately tracked.
Suggested action: close resolved
Reason: The trace identifies repeated `getent hosts snapcraft.io` calls; canonical/craft-providers#146 was implemented by PRs #274 and #305, and the current wait logic applies bounded command and overall timeouts. canonical/snapcraft#4443 records the endless LXD wait as fixed in Snapcraft 7.5.4; the remaining Multipass and Docker-specific requests are explicitly tracked in snapcraft#2012074 and canonical/craft-providers#172.
Evaluated by: mr-cal-bot
Impact:
58
Quick Win:
30
Complexity:
43
Confidence:
95
Actionability:
92
Issue body
When I run the "snapcraft" command, it gets stuck on "Launching instance..." indefinitely. I waited upwards of an hour before terminating the command.
If relevant (possibly due to the hardware I'm using - M1 Macbook), I am running this on the arm64 architecture. I can reproduce this on:
- Fedora Workstation 37 (arm64)
- Asahi Linux (arm64)
This means I am unable to build or test any snap file.
Evaluation history
| Date | Model | Scores | Action | Summary |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
58
Quick Win:
30
Complexity:
43
Confidence:
95
Actionability:
92
|
close resolved | Endless LXD startup on failed container DNS now times out via craft-providers; Snapcraft 7.5.4 is recorded as fixing the wait. Multipass arm64 and Docker diagnostics remain separately tracked. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
62
Quick Win:
32
Complexity:
44
Confidence:
97
Actionability:
93
|
close resolved | LXD could hang indefinitely on arm64 while waiting for DNS; network setup now times out, although Docker-specific LXD diagnostics remain unfinished. | |
| stealth/space-bunny-alpha |
Impact:
45
Quick Win:
8
Complexity:
65
Confidence:
86
Actionability:
52
|
needs triage | Snapcraft hangs at “Launching instance...” on arm64 Fedora 37 and Asahi Linux, preventing snap builds; the report is unconfirmed and needs maintainer triage. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Impact:
80
Quick Win:
32
Staleness:
90
Complexity:
60
Confidence:
40
Support Request:
20
|
needs triage | Snapcraft hangs indefinitely on 'launching instance...' on arm64 architectures (M1 Mac, Fedora 37 arm64, Asahi Linux). No maintainer response or labels after 1362 days. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
80
Support Request:
10
|
needs triage | Snapcraft hangs indefinitely on 'Launching instance...' on arm64 Linux. Unlabelled, zero maintainer comments, and inactive for over three years. | |
| qwen/qwen3.6-35b-a3b |
Staleness:
95
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
85
Support Request:
15
|
close stale | Snapcraft build hangs indefinitely on launching instance on arm64 systems. No maintainer response or updates in over 3 years. | |
| qwen3.6-35b-a3b-mtp-q6 |
Staleness:
90
Complexity:
40
Confidence:
70
Support Request:
15
|
needs triage | Unlabelled bug report about snapcraft hanging on "Launching instance..." on arm64 systems. No maintainer comments or labels after over three years, awaiting initial assessment. |
Update history
| Date | Change |
|---|---|
| created |
Related work
-
Likely Fixed By:
canonical/craft-providers#146
(confidence 99%)
Added timeouts to instance setup and network warmup, preventing indefinite initialization waits.
-
Related To:
canonical/craft-providers#172
(confidence 98%)
Tracks the still-open Docker or iptables detection and diagnostic improvement discussed by a maintainer.
-
Likely Fixed By:
canonical/snapcraft#4443
(confidence 97%)
The same ARM64 endless LXD network wait is recorded as fixed in Snapcraft 7.5.4.
-
Related To:
snapcraft (launchpad)#2012074
(confidence 94%)
A maintainer explicitly linked the reporter's separate Multipass arm64 image failure to this issue.
Related issues
| Issue | Project | State | Summary | Similarity |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| #4443 snapcraft on ARM 64 - stuck at lxd | snapcraft | closed | The ARM64 hang was traced to missing LXD container networking, not a Snapcraft architecture defect; Snapcraft 7.5.4 added a timeout instead of looping indefinitely. | |
| #719 Snapcraft fails initialization of build container | craft-providers | closed | LXD startup race was fixed by waiting for instance readiness in craft-providers PR #720; the fix shipped via Snapcraft PR #5247 in Snapcraft 8.6.2. | |
| #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. | |
| #1981205 Snapcraft produces too long instance name, instance launch fails | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | LXC's 63-character instance-name limit blocked snapcraft pack; no fix was recorded, and the dormant report was closed as stale. | |
| #4412 Network check runs forever | snapcraft | closed | Infinite getent/LXD network retries were fixed by a timeout shipped in Snapcraft 7.5.4; #4443 documents the related ARM64 hang and craft-providers added troubleshooting. | |
| #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 | |
| #1907721 Snapcraft broken on ARM64 | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Closed as a configuration issue: a system-wide Python package broke apt-installed Snapcraft, while Multipass lacked ARM64 support; maintainers recommended the Snapcraft snap and --use-lxd. | |
| #1984223 Snapcraft on riscv64 tries to install non-existent multipass snap | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Fixed in Snapcraft 9 where lxd became the default provider on riscv64, resolving the multipass installation prompt issue. | |
| #870 snapd "daemon is stopping to wait for socket activation" error during LXD container initialization | craft-providers | closed | Fixed intermittent LXD initialization failures by retrying snap watch; merged in canonical/craft-providers#899 via commit e0f6bc7. | |
| #1985409 snapcraft-managed lxd containers do not respect parallel installs | snapcraft (launchpad) | closed | Reported 2022 that parallel-installed snapcraft instances (e.g. snapcraft_7) launch the unsuffixed host snapcraft inside their managed LXD build container, causing '--build-for' build failures. Closed in 2026 after PR #5085 and 7.5 backport #5087. |