VLC Snap Incompatible With Thunderbird

[Andrew Piziali]

When I changed my default video player from Totem to VLC, Thunderbird was no longer able to play an email message video attachment. By default, Ubuntu Software installs the VLC snap package, whose permission scheme prohibits it from accessing the directory where Thunderbird saves the video file to be played (/tmp/mozilla_andy0). VLC reports:

Your input can't be opened:
VLC is unable to open the MRL 'file:///tmp/mozilla_andy0/[VIDEO FILENAME]'. Check the log for details.

To reproduce the bug:
1. Open a Thunderbird message.

2. Single left click on an attached video file handled by VLC.

3. VLC starts and then opens an error dialog with the above "Your input can't be opened" message.

ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 18.04
Package: thunderbird 1:68.10.0+build1-0ubuntu0.18.04.1
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 4.15.0-1097.107-oem 4.15.18
Uname: Linux 4.15.0-1097-oem x86_64
AddonCompatCheckDisabled: False
ApportVersion: 2.20.9-0ubuntu7.17
Architecture: amd64
AudioDevicesInUse:
 USER PID ACCESS COMMAND
 /dev/snd/controlC2: andy 3256 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC1: andy 3256 F.... pulseaudio
 /dev/snd/controlC0: andy 3256 F.... pulseaudio
BuildID: 20200629235513
Channel: Unavailable
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Sun Sep 27 07:25:42 2020
DistributionChannelDescriptor:
 # This is the distribution channel descriptor for the OEM CDs
 # For more information see http://wiki.ubuntu.com/DistributionChannelDescriptor
 canonical-oem-somerville-bionic-amd64-20180608-47+beaver-turtlebay+X59
ForcedLayersAccel: False
IfupdownConfig:
 # interfaces(5) file used by ifup(8) and ifdown(8)
 auto lo
 iface lo inet loopback
IncompatibleExtensions:
 English (GB) Language Pack - <email address hidden>
 Thunderbird (default) - {972ce4c6-7e08-4474-a285-3208198ce6fd}
InstallationDate: Installed on 2019-10-28 (334 days ago)
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 18.04 "Bionic" - Build amd64 LIVE Binary 20180608-09:38
IpRoute:
 default via 10.3.2.1 dev eno1 proto dhcp metric 100
 10.3.2.0/24 dev eno1 proto kernel scope link src 10.3.2.3 metric 100
 169.254.0.0/16 dev eno1 scope link metric 1000
MostRecentCrashID: bp-9a0bd632-9768-4302-9c91-9f4f60200616
PrefErrors: Unexpected character ',' before close parenthesis @ /usr/lib/thunderbird/omni.ja:greprefs.js:1141
PrefSources: prefs.js
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=(custom, no user)
 XDG_RUNTIME_DIR=<set>
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
Profiles: Profile0 (Default) - LastVersion=68.10.0/20200629235513 (In use)
RunningIncompatibleAddons: True
SourcePackage: thunderbird
SubmittedCrashIDs:
 bp-9a0bd632-9768-4302-9c91-9f4f60200616
 bp-914925c7-43d8-44c0-a57a-4af430200101
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
dmi.bios.date: 02/05/2020
dmi.bios.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.bios.version: 2.5.0
dmi.board.name: 0Y2K8N
dmi.board.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.board.version: A01
dmi.chassis.type: 3
dmi.chassis.vendor: Dell Inc.
dmi.modalias: dmi:bvnDellInc.:bvr2.5.0:bd02/05/2020:svnDellInc.:pnPrecision3630Tower:pvr:rvnDellInc.:rn0Y2K8N:rvrA01:cvnDellInc.:ct3:cvr:
dmi.product.family: Precision
dmi.product.name: Precision 3630 Tower
dmi.sys.vendor: Dell Inc.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Thank you for your bug report, that's a snapd issue, the vlc snap has its own private /tmp which means the system one is not available there

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

It has been discussed on the snap forums on https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/cannot-open-pdf-attachment-with-thunderbird/11845

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

(sorry, the previous comment is a different problem when thunderbird is a snap itself)

[Andrew Piziali (bj7u6139zdy-andy)]

Sebastien, this is not so much a snapd issue as it is an Ubuntu 18.04 issue. The Ubuntu Software application should not offer to install a video player application that does not play with the its Thunderbird application. Hence, I changed the bug target package to "software-center."

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

Andrew, I suggest deciding what you want this bug report to be about.

If it’s about the VLC snap, then in this case Sebastien suggests it’s a bug in snapd.

If it’s about Ubuntu Software, then you should change the steps to reproduce to focus on Ubuntu Software.

Either way, it should not be filed on software-center, which is a separate app altogether.

[Andrew Piziali (bj7u6139zdy-andy)]

Matthew, thank you for properly identifying the responsible component of Ubuntu 18.04 that prevents Thunderbird and VLC from interoperating. "gnome-software" is more precise.

This is not a Thunderbird, VLC or snapd problem. This is an Ubuntu 18.04 application packaging issue. The problem is that Thunderbird saves a temporary attachment file in /tmp before invoking a helper application to open it. If the helper application associated with the file is VLC, VLC does not have permission to open the file. (In fact, the system /tmp directory is not even in the VLC snap's filesystem name space.)

The solution is to build and configuration VLC for this Ubuntu release so that it shares its /tmp directory with the system /tmp directory, i.e. they are one and the same.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

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

[Andrew Piziali (bj7u6139zdy-andy)]

This bug report documents an incompatibility between the version of Thunderbird distributed with Ubuntu 18.04 and the version of VLC. One or the other must be changed so that a video attachment opened by Thunderbird is accessible to the user's default video player, VLC.