KDE snapcraft remote-build job priority extremely low resulting in many timeouts

[Scarlett Gately Moore]

KDE snapcraft remote-build job priority extremely low resulting in many timeouts making building KDE snaps slow and painful. What do we need to do to bump our priority on launchpad builders?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

Could we have more details, please? It would be helpful to know at least some of the following:

 * Is this being run from some kind of CI system? Can we have pointers to web views for the jobs in question?
 * Do you have timestamps for some of the failures?
 * Are you literally using `snapcraft remote-build`, and if so have you considered alternatives such as proper snap recipes?

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

Hi,
We build the snaps on the KDE infrastructure here:
https://invent.kde.org/packaging/snapcraft-kde-applications/-/jobs
which calls remote-build to send to launchpad.
Some days are better than others, and today is a good day, I will post here on a bad day with failure timestamps.
Using launchpad as our snap builder is not an option with close to 200 snaps. I am trying to get developers to help with updating their snap packaging and telling them to head over to another platform would'nt work out well.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

It's possible you've misunderstood a couple of things. Let me try to clarify:

 * `snapcraft remote-build` also uses Launchpad as the snap builder - it's just a matter of how the recipe is set up.
 * It's entirely possible for a CI system to use persistent snap recipes rather than `snapcraft remote-build`, without that meaning that developers have to head over to another platform; it can all be set up using Launchpad's API. This is essentially what the "build" facility on snapcraft.io does.

It isn't really possible for us to apply any priority changes to `snapcraft remote-build`, because it creates ephemeral recipes that only last for the lifetime of the remote-build process: there's no opportunity for us to intervene and change the priority. If you were using persistent recipes instead, then we would be able to help you if needed.

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

Thank you for clarifying. I will look into persistent recipes.

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

Ah well, that won't work as we use sub-directories for each projects snapcraft file eg:
https://invent.kde.org/packaging/snapcraft-kde-applications/-/tree/akregator/akregator
so the snap recipe can't find the snapcraft file.
So I guess we are stuck until I can convince them to allow snap/snapcraft.yaml in per project repositories which has failed in the past or launchpad snap recipes allows you to define subdirectories or pre commands like cd projectfolder ( source projects has this ability )

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

I almost have KDE convinced to allow per application repository snapcraft.yaml files. I have to provide an example of the setup working. However, I can't even get a snap to build, it is using xenial series which is much to old! It doesn't even have Core22 jammy listed. I have core22 set as base in snapcraft.yaml but that seems to have no affect. Also is there a way to define snapcraft version? The version in xenial is the problem as it doesn't support many snapcraft features I am using. Where is the documentation that tells me how to use proper snap recipes with core22 and the latest snapcraft. Thanks for your time.

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

It sounds like you've accidentally ended up in some kind of legacy compatibility mode. Can you give us a pointer to a snap recipe that's behaving the way you describe?

[Colin Watson (cjwatson)]

On snapcraft.yaml in subdirectories: I personally think this would be a good idea, but in the past I was told no by the designers of the overall snap system. It might be best to raise that part of it on forum.snapcraft.io if it's still an issue.

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

https://launchpad.net/~scarlettmoore/kde-blinken-snap/+snap/blinken-test

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

Ok, I made progress. I imported the tarball into a bazaar branch and it now correctly uses jammy and edge snapcraft. But I now have a new fun error, maybe you have a clue.

https://launchpadlibrarian.net/683182225/buildlog_snap_ubuntu_jammy_arm64_kde-blinken-snap_BUILDING.txt.gz

https://launchpad.net/~scarlettmoore/kde-snaps/+snap/kde-blinken-snap

[Scarlett Gately Moore (scarlettmoore)]

I got it working with git. This bug can be closed. Thank you for your assistance.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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