snap-store Does Not Run with XAUTHORITY error

[aPlatypus]

* This system is an upgrade from 19.10 to 20.04.
* The 19.10 install was to a new, empty disk.

* Under 19.10 NO applications installed with snap work when you execute them (reported for several apps) and no response or follow-up. For example gnome-calculator snap failed.
    x As an aside I was happy to see gnome-calculator working again with 20.04
    x I thought the snap bug was fixed. As it happens I discovered gnome-calculator is No loner a snap in 20.04 ~sigh~.

* As it happens I need to revert the installed libreoffice due to a business stopper regression:
    x LibreOffice bug: https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=134455

* I clicked on snap store icon, Nothing Happens

* I worked out how to invoke it from the command line and received this message for my reward.

      $ /snap/bin/snap-store --help
    2020/07/03 09:41:32.148183 cmd_run.go:563: WARNING: XAUTHORITY environment value is
    not a clean path: "/Moort/home/william/.Xauthority"
    cannot create user data directory: /home/william/snap/snap-store/467: Not a directory

     $ /snap/bin/snap-store --version
    2020/07/03 09:52:21.034248 cmd_run.go:563: WARNING: XAUTHORITY environment value is
    not a clean path: "/Moort/home/william/.Xauthority"
    cannot create user data directory: /home/william/snap/snap-store/467: Not a directory

    x The message: "/home/william/snap/snap-store/467: Not a directory"

      ... is very familiar. A message looking like that came up when I tried to run/load a
      snap installed appp under 19.10 previously.

* Everything appears OK for XAUTHORITY

     $ echo $XAUTHORITY; ll $XAUTHORITY
    /home/william/.Xauthority
    -rw------- 1 william william 54 Jun 28 11:13 /home/william/.Xauthority

* I don't understand the bug -- That directory definitely exists, witnessed as follows:

      $ ll /home/william/snap/snap-store/ /home/william/snap/snap-store/467
    /home/william/snap/snap-store/:
    total 16
    drwxr-xr-x 4 william william 4096 Jul 3 01:13 ./
    drwxr-xr-x 13 william william 4096 Jul 3 01:13 ../
    drwxr-xr-x 2 william william 4096 Jul 3 01:13 467/
    drwxr-xr-x 2 william william 4096 Jul 3 01:13 common/
    lrwxrwxrwx 1 william william 3 Jul 3 01:13 current -> 467/

    /home/william/snap/snap-store/467:
    total 8
    drwxr-xr-x 2 william william 4096 Jul 3 01:13 ./
    drwxr-xr-x 4 william william 4096 Jul 3 01:13 ../

-----

Anyway the key thing here is that I will not be the only set-up that snap-s fail on. It just appears that something very basic is off-track.

[Claudio Matsuoka (cmatsuoka)]

Thanks for reporting and sorry for not getting back to you earlier. It seems that we have a mismatch between the contents of the XAUTHORITY environment variable (under /home/william) and the actual location of the file on the filesystem (under /Moort/home/william) after resolving symlinks and cleaning the pathname. Are you symlinking an alternate home directory location to /home?

Using an alternate location for home directories can be related to the other problems you've been experiencing. If you're using an alternate location, could you try to bind-mount this alternate location on /home?

Reference: https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/how-can-i-use-snap-when-i-dont-use-home-user/3352/11

[aPlatypus (william-full-moon)]

If I understand things, the path

   /home/$USER

is not valid if /home is a symlink or when home directories are not on root. For example most corporate set-ups uses something like:

   /export/home/$USER

Sounds like that will foil the 'dumb smart software too.

I refute the proposition that ...

    "symlinking an alternate home directory location"

This is not an alternate. The semantics are straightforward: "/home/$USER/", it is a regular Unix path name.

The flaw here lies in the over-reach to resolve perfectly legitimate human use file paths into machnine talk. When in truth use of the given (legitimate) path of "/home/$USER" will or should work in all cases.

For comparison; I do not expect a compile error when the expression "i +=2;" isn't written as "i = i+2;" And that is more or less what has happened here. A correct file path is rejected because of some internal scruples that have not bearing on usability or function.

I'm not sure which part of the stack is dissatisfied with the "/home/$USER" pattern. If you know please post the module(s) if you'd like. It looks like snap-s can not be used at with this limitation.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for snapd (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for snapd because there has been no activity for 60 days.]