[snap] Snap packaging breaks chromedriver (as used for Selenium)

[Shaheed Haque]

I develop using Selenium-over-chromedriver on a current 19.10.Here are the chrome versions I have (dpkg side):

ii chromium-browser 79.0.3945.79-0ubuntu0.19.10.2 amd64 Transitional package - chromium-browser -> chromium snap
ii chromium-chromedriver 79.0.3945.79-0ubuntu0.19.10.2 amd64 Transitional package - chromium-chromedriver -> chromium snap

I know a recent upgrade introduced snap-based packages for chromium 79, and now I find that all my tests fail to run. Under the cover, this seems to be the problem:

    $ /usr/bin/chromedriver
    cannot perform operation: mount --rbind /home /tmp/snap.rootfs_ZmHWri//home: Permission denied

I'm not familiar with snap, but I see possibly related issues:

- (Different error message, but headline is similar) upstream at https://github.com/SeleniumHQ/selenium/issues/7788

- Some references in Google that snap might not be happy with $HOME not being under /home, and note that I have a historic installation of ZFS, with /home as a (soft)link to /main, not a "normal" top level directory, and with my home set as follows:

    $ echo $HOME
    /main/srhaque

I'm happy to help diagnose further, but am not sure what might be relevant. Any clues welcome as I am rather stuck.

[Shaheed Haque (srhaque-i)]

Is there any chance that the 78.0.3904.108-0ubuntu0.19.04.1 apt packages can be restored till this issue is resolved? That would at least allow me to downgrade to a usable version...

[Shaheed Haque (srhaque-i)]

For the record, I was able to find disco builds here:

https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/disco/amd64/chromium-chromedriver

(mutatis mutandis for chromium-browser and chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra). After removing the snap and the 79 apt packages, an install with "dpkg -i" restored a working system.