[snap] failure to connect password-manager-service during package upgrade

[Simon Quigley]

I have the chromium-browser snap installed, and when upgrading to the new snap-based Chromium deb, it fails when the snap is already installed:

Preparing to unpack .../chromium-browser_76.0.3809.87-0ubuntu1~snap1_amd64.deb ...
=> Installing the chromium snap
==> Checking connectivity with the snap store
==> Installing the chromium snap
snap "chromium" is already installed, see 'snap help refresh'
=> Snap installation complete
=> Connecting the password-manager-service interface (LP: #1836616)
error: cannot resolve connection, slot snap name is empty
dpkg: error processing archive /var/cache/apt/archives/chromium-browser_76.0.3809.87-0ubuntu1~snap1_amd64.deb (--unpack):
 new chromium-browser package pre-installation script subprocess returned error exit status 1
Preparing to unpack .../libidn2-0_2.2.0-1_amd64.deb ...
Unpacking libidn2-0:amd64 (2.2.0-1) over (2.0.5-1) ...
Errors were encountered while processing:
 /var/cache/apt/archives/chromium-browser_76.0.3809.87-0ubuntu1~snap1_amd64.deb
E: Sub-process /usr/bin/dpkg returned an error code (1)

This is a blocker to SRUing the deb2snap transition to stable releases.

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

I cannot reproduce this error when testing the upgrade scenario in a clean eoan VM where the snap was already installed (tested both with the password-manager-service interface previously connected, and not).

That snapd error looks suspicious, it's as if the core snap wasn't available on your system. See https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/blob/master/interfaces/repo.go#L487.

Can you reliably reproduce the error?

What's the output of `snap connections core | grep password` ?

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Although I'm still unable to reproduce the problem, this bug was reported independently (duplicate bug #1839720).

Failing to connect the password-manager-service shouldn't make the package installation fail, as the application should still work (if the core snap itself isn't broken, but that would be another problem entirely).

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Fix: https://bazaar.launchpad.net/~chromium-team/chromium-browser/eoan-stable/revision/1514

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package chromium-browser - 76.0.3809.100-0ubuntu1~snap1

---------------
chromium-browser (76.0.3809.100-0ubuntu1~snap1) eoan; urgency=medium

  * debian/chromium-browser.preinst: handle gracefully a failure to connect the
    password-manager-service (LP: #1838821)

 -- Olivier Tilloy <email address hidden> Tue, 13 Aug 2019 12:32:48 +0200

[praveenp (praveenp)]

I am affected by this bug. But able to connect password manager successfully by snap connect chromium:password-manager-service command.
Chromium Version 86.0.4240.111 (Official Build) snap (64-bit), Linux Mint 20 Cinnamon, Linux Kernal - 5.8.0-23-generic.