chromium-browser doesn't start

[Albert Cardona]

Upon launching chromium-browser from the terminal with the command:

$ chromium-browser --user-data-dir=/home/albert/.config/google-chrome 2>&1 >> /dev/null

I get this error:

Gtk-Message: 15:31:01.011: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
[5823:6010:0713/153101.029812:ERROR:disk_cache.cc(184)] Unable to create cache
[5823:6010:0713/153101.029862:ERROR:shader_disk_cache.cc(606)] Shader Cache Creation failed: -2
[5823:5823:0713/153101.030904:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(280)] Failed to create /home/albert/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: Permission denied (13)
[5823:5823:0713/153101.030977:ERROR:chrome_browser_main.cc(1258)] Failed to create a ProcessSingleton for your profile directory. This means that running multiple instances would start multiple browser processes rather than opening a new window in the existing process. Aborting now to avoid profile corruption.

... and chromium remains closed.

The chromium-browser and the command above worked fine until before the snap-ization of chromium-browser in Ubuntu 20.04, which came about yesterday when I run the updater.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 20.04
Package: chromium-browser 83.0.4103.97-0ubuntu0.20.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.4.0-40.44-generic 5.4.44
Uname: Linux 5.4.0-40-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.11-0ubuntu27.3
Architecture: amd64
CasperMD5CheckResult: skip
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Mon Jul 13 15:33:56 2020
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationDate: Installed on 2016-06-24 (1479 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 16.04 LTS "Xenial Xerus" - Release amd64 (20160420.1)
ProcEnviron:
 TERM=xterm-256color
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Snap.Changes:
 ID Status Spawn Ready Summary
 113 Done 2020-07-12T23:38:16+01:00 2020-07-12T23:38:37+01:00 Install "chromium" snap
 114 Done 2020-07-12T23:38:38+01:00 2020-07-12T23:38:39+01:00 Connect chromium:password-manager-service to core:password-manager-service
Snap.ChromeDriverVersion: ChromeDriver 83.0.4103.116 (8f0c18b4dca9b6699eb629be0f51810c24fb6428-refs/branch-heads/4103@{#716})
Snap.ChromiumVersion: Chromium 83.0.4103.116 snap
SourcePackage: chromium-browser
UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to focal on 2020-05-20 (54 days ago)

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Thans for the report Albert.
The fact that chromium is now a strictly confined snap means that you cannot use /home/albert/.config/google-chrome as your profile directory.

The profile directory has to be under /home/albert/snap/chromium/{common,current}/.
The default value is $HOME/snap/chromium/common/chromium/.

Note that you can import an existing profile by copying it over to the default profile directory, or wherever you want under a path that is readable and writeable by the snap, and pointing chromium to it using --user-data-dir as usual.

[Albert Cardona (albertcardona)]

Thank you, this was helpful. It's up and running.

[Till Halbach (untill)]

I had the same issue but due to multiple profiles. I guess the process for the transition to snap would not be able to tell whether there are other profiles or not, so I am not reopening. The solution: copy all existing profiles, like so:

cp -r ~/.google/someProfile1/ ~/snap/chromium/common/
cp -r ~/.google/someProfile2/ ~/snap/chromium/common/

Then you should be able to run them again:
chromium-browser --user-data-dir=$HOME/snap/chromium/common/someProfile1

[Albert Cardona (albertcardona)]

As of July 2nd, again I can't start chromium after having rebooted Ubuntu without having quitted chromium first. This time, the error indicates a lack of removal of temporary symlinks named SingletonLock and related Singleton*. E.g.:

```
Gtk-Message: 00:39:49.309: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 00:39:49.311: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
[11356:11356:0723/003949.329173:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(265)] Failed to unlink /home/albert/snap/chromium/1213/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: Permission denied (13)
[11356:11356:0723/003949.329289:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(280)] Failed to create /home/albert/snap/chromium/1213/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: File exists (17)
[11356:11356:0723/003949.329363:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(265)] Failed to unlink /home/albert/snap/chromium/1213/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: Permission denied (13)
[11356:11356:0723/003949.329412:ERROR:chrome_browser_main.cc(1246)] Failed to create a ProcessSingleton for your profile directory. This means that running multiple instances would start multiple browser processes rather than opening a new window in the existing process. Aborting now to avoid profile corruption.
[11356:11547:0723/003949.337100:ERROR:browser_gpu_channel_host_factory.cc(153)] Failed to launch GPU process.
[11564:11564:0723/003949.384057:ERROR:broker_posix.cc(43)] Invalid node channel message

```

Upon removing of the 3 symlinks within the profile folder, still an error:

```
Gtk-Message: 01:00:08.609: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
Gtk-Message: 01:00:08.610: Failed to load module "canberra-gtk-module"
[13997:13997:0723/010008.630073:ERROR:process_singleton_posix.cc(280)] Failed to create /home/albert/snap/chromium/1213/.config/google-chrome/SingletonLock: Permission denied (13)
[13997:13997:0723/010008.630170:ERROR:chrome_browser_main.cc(1246)] Failed to create a ProcessSingleton for your profile directory. This means that running multiple instances would start multiple browser processes rather than opening a new window in the existing process. Aborting now to avoid profile corruption.
[13997:14191:0723/010008.637081:ERROR:browser_gpu_channel_host_factory.cc(153)] Failed to launch GPU process.

```

Any ideas? Thank you!

[Olivier Tilloy (osomon)]

Indeed, the code to import an existing profile isn't multi-profile aware, it will only import a profile in the default location. Contributions to improve this are welcome (the code is there: https://git.launchpad.net/~chromium-team/chromium-browser/+git/snap-from-source/tree/launcher/chromium.launcher?h=stable).

Albert, it looks like you copied your profiles over to a versioned directory (/home/albert/snap/chromium/1213). The chromium snap was recently updated to not version the profile data, so it is now stored under ~/snap/chromium/common/. Can you move your profile directories over there, and see if that fixes your problem?

[Albert Cardona (albertcardona)]

Hi Olivier,
Thank you, haven't tried that. At this point I gave up on the chromium snap altogether, using instead Firefox and WebKit-based browsers other than chromium. Too many issues with snap packages in general make it not worth the trouble.

[HASAN CIFTCI (greatest1962)]

how to unlock google chrome profile/ubuntu

scroll to /

in the search type lock

you will see an option for,' SingletonLock ' , right oposite to that you will see the detail for the folder
it's location & size' ( config/google-chrome ),' delete the folder,' singleton lock '.
close the page. it should work..

home/singleton lock