Many apps have no icon in Software on Focal

[AsciiWolf]

Many applications have no icon displayed in GNOME Software 3.35.91 on latest Ubuntu Focal. See the attached screenshot.

[Impact]

 * Some apt packages do not include an icon in snap-store

[Test Case]

 * Open snap-store, search for GCompris and confirm there is an appropriate icon

[Regression Potential]

 * Very low. Previous Ubuntu releases including apt-config-icons based on the depends in gnome-software. This just adds an apt config that can be used to fetch icons for apt packages via apt.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

There are two things which could be the cause for this:
 1) The appstream-generator used for Focal is old, and there were quite a few fixes to find more icons and ignore apps without sufficient icon data in more recent releases. @laney will hopefully update the tool ;-)

 2) GNOME Software has a bug which makes it always load stock icons for applications, even if they are actually not available on the system and GS should fall back to the cached icons. We've seen this in Debian but I haven't had the time yet to investigate this further.

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

Also seems to happen in Snap Store.

[Francois Thirioux (fthx)]

Maybe another bug, but I see A LOT of log messages such as this one :

AVC apparmor="DENIED" operation="open" profile="snap.snap-store.snap-store" name="/var/lib/snapd/hostfs/usr/share/mime/generic-icons" pid=2304 comm="snap-store" requested_mask="r" denied_mask="r" fsuid=1000 ouid=0

I do use snap-store snap from ubuntu 20.04 channel, version 345.

[Ubuntu Foundations Team Bug Bot (crichton)]

The attachment "0001-appstream-Don-t-solely-add-a-stock-icon-for-an-app-a.patch" seems to be a patch. If it isn't, please remove the "patch" flag from the attachment, remove the "patch" tag, and if you are a member of the ~ubuntu-reviewers, unsubscribe the team.

[This is an automated message performed by a Launchpad user owned by ~brian-murray, for any issues please contact him.]

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

Actually, I just realized that Ubuntu has its very own, new flavor of this bug due to shipping gnome-software as a Snap. The `appstream` package is seeded with the minimal desktop seed, which is good, but in order for the Snap version of GS to install any icons, the `apt-config-icons` package also has to be installed - GS isn't smart enough to fall back to downloading icons in many cases and expects those to be present. The `gnome-software` package depends on the icon config, but the Snap store doesn't have this on new installations.
So, to fix this issue both the patch I linked in this report and a default dependency on `apt-config-icons` is needed.

The reason the `appstream` package doesn't depend on the icons on its own is that the data may also be used on servers and more minimal systems (e.g. for firmware and driver information) where downloading the icons isn't required. Therefore, all software centers in Debian/Ubuntu depend on the `apt-config-icons*` package(s) they need.

[Ken VanDine (ken-vandine)]

I've pushed the fix from @ximion to snap-store in the beta channel for testing.

This fix will be published to ubuntu-20.04 after thorough testing

Thanks!

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

I update to the beta branch and the icons are there. Thanks! :)
Is there anything in particular to test?

Something I noticed in this branch (a nitpick and, I guess, completely unrelated): the window control icons (minimize, maximize, close) seems to be bolder that before and than any other app using Yaru.

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

@nicocarbone: You'll also want to do something that `apt-config-icons` is installed alongside `appstream` in Ubuntu desktops that use the gnome-software Snap.

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

@ximion: Sorry, I don't follow. I have both apt-config-icons and appstream installed. I do see the icons for apt apps in snap-store now with the beta version.

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

On a fresh Ubuntu installation, apt-config-icons isn't installed by default (at least it wasn't when I installed a fresh Ubuntu yesterday, until I replaced the snap-store with the packaged gnome-software). So new users who aren't upgrading from a previous Ubuntu version will still have much less icons than people who get Focal by upgrading from an older Ubuntu release.

[Nicolás Abel Carbone (nicocarbone)]

Ok, I understand. I updated from 19.10, so that explains why I have them
already.

El vie., 8 de may. de 2020 a la(s) 18:25, Matthias Klumpp (
<email address hidden>) escribió:

> On a fresh Ubuntu installation, apt-config-icons isn't installed by
> default (at least it wasn't when I installed a fresh Ubuntu yesterday,
> until I replaced the snap-store with the packaged gnome-software). So
> new users who aren't upgrading from a previous Ubuntu version will still
> have much less icons than people who get Focal by upgrading from an
> older Ubuntu release.
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (1873281).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1864307
>
> Title:
> Many apps have no icon in Software on Focal
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/gnome-software/+bug/1864307/+subscriptions
>

--

Nicolás Abel Carbone

Doctor en Física - Becario Posdoctoral

CIFICEN-CONICET-UNCPBA

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicolas_Carbone

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[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-meta - 1.451

---------------
ubuntu-meta (1.451) groovy; urgency=medium

  * Refreshed dependencies
  * Added apt-config-icons-hidpi to desktop-minimal-recommends, desktop-
    recommends (LP: #1864307)
  * Added bind9-dnsutils to standard
  * Removed dnsutils from standard

 -- Ken VanDine <email address hidden> Mon, 11 May 2020 09:31:32 -0400

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

Neat :-) That should do the job for all combinations of snap-store and gnome-software, once the GS patch is in there as well.
Thanks Ken for doing the integration work :-)

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[Brian Murray (brian-murray)]

Hello AsciiWolf, or anyone else affected,

Accepted ubuntu-meta into focal-proposed. The package will build now and be available at https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-meta/1.450.1 in a few hours, and then in the -proposed repository.

Please help us by testing this new package. See https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Testing/EnableProposed for documentation on how to enable and use -proposed. Your feedback will aid us getting this update out to other Ubuntu users.

If this package fixes the bug for you, please add a comment to this bug, mentioning the version of the package you tested, what testing has been performed on the package and change the tag from verification-needed-focal to verification-done-focal. If it does not fix the bug for you, please add a comment stating that, and change the tag to verification-failed-focal. In either case, without details of your testing we will not be able to proceed.

Further information regarding the verification process can be found at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/QATeam/PerformingSRUVerification . Thank you in advance for helping!

N.B. The updated package will be released to -updates after the bug(s) fixed by this package have been verified and the package has been in -proposed for a minimum of 7 days.

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

Latest ubuntu-desktop-1.450.1 from focal-proposed and latest stable snap-store. I can confirm that icons of apps in Snap Store are now displayed correctly.

[Chris Halse Rogers (raof)]

The verification of the Stable Release Update for ubuntu-meta has completed successfully and the package is now being released to -updates. Subsequently, the Ubuntu Stable Release Updates Team is being unsubscribed and will not receive messages about this bug report. In the event that you encounter a regression using the package from -updates please report a new bug using ubuntu-bug and tag the bug report regression-update so we can easily find any regressions.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package ubuntu-meta - 1.450.1

---------------
ubuntu-meta (1.450.1) focal; urgency=medium

  * Added apt-config-icons-hidpi to desktop-minimal-recommends, desktop-
    recommends (LP: #1864307)

 -- Ken VanDine <email address hidden> Mon, 11 May 2020 10:37:00 -0400

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

Nice :-) Now only the gnome-software patch is missing to fix this issue completely (at least for the package, according to Launchpad)

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

Fix for non-Snap gnome-software in Ubuntu Focal is a part of this SRU that is currently in focal-proposed repo: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gnome-software/+bug/1881918

[AsciiWolf (asciiwolf)]

(Verification was already done so it will hopefully be soon in focal-updates repo.)