Brave popup - how to delete?

[rikona]

On Tue, 8 Nov 2022 09:46:43 -0600
Keith <keith at caramail.com> wrote:

> On 11/7/22 10:51 PM, rikona wrote:
> > On Mon, 7 Nov 2022 12:02:11 -0600
> > Keith <keith at caramail.com> wrote:
> >   
> >> On 11/7/22 2:15 AM, rikona wrote:  
> >>> On Sun, 6 Nov 2022 08:50:00 -0600
> >>> Keith <keith at caramail.com> wrote:
> >>>      
> >>>> On 11/5/22 5:54 PM, rikona wrote:  
> >>>>> Running Brave browser in Kubuntu. Runs OK but update installed a
> >>>>> popup window that in on top in every desktop. Closing it gives
> >>>>> another one in a few minutes - essentially always there covering
> >>>>> something desirable in EVERY desktop/every app. One net solution
> >>>>> was to run snap update but doesn't work in all cases, and not in
> >>>>> mine. This is a PITA and so bad I may stop using Brave. But, is
> >>>>> there SOME way to get rid of this popup, or at least have it
> >>>>> STAY closed?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And if it does stay closed or not come up constantly on your
> >>>>> box, can I find out why that is?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Thanks,
> >>>>> Rik
> >>>>>         
> >>>>
> >>>> Doesn't Kubuntu have a way to configure notification settings? In
> >>>> Ubuntu, you'd navigate to Settings->Notifications->Snap User
> >>>> Session Agent. There you can turn off pop-up banner notifications
> >>>> whenever there are snap updates. I assume that Kubuntu has a
> >>>> similar feature to control notification settings since one of the
> >>>> advantages of KDE touted by its users is how configurable it is.
> >>>>  
> >>>
> >>> Settings->Notifications-> has NOTHING about Snap at all
> >>> AND
> >>> Brave ignores EVERY setting in Notifications!
> >>>      
> >>>> Plus, Brave may have a settings option for notifications within
> >>>> the application itself. You might check into that.  
> >>>
> >>> Nothing in Brave settings and NOTHING on Brave website either!
> >>>
> >>> Many complaints online but no fix I could find that worked. I was
> >>> hoping someone here might have an idea to prevent that popup
> >>> window at a code level, or perhaps auto-close it if it does pop
> >>> up.
> >>>
> >>>      
> >>
> >> Hmm. Surprising that Snapd User Session Agent isn't listed under
> >> the Configure Applications dialog from the Notifications section
> >> under System-Settings. Its .desktop file
> >> (io.snapcraft.SessionAgent) is found in /usr/share/applications,
> >> so I would have expected it to be listed like it is in Ubuntu:  
> > 
> > I do have io.snapcraft.SessionAgent in that dir but nothing 'snap'
> > in the Notifications section.
> > 
> > I do have "local system message service" as a Notifications item but
> > don't know what that does.  
> 
> Yeah, I don't either. I'm just not familiar with KDE and Plasma and
> all that. From my brief googlin', found that Plasma holds some
> information about notifications specs of non-KDE applications in 
> ~/.config/plasmanotifyrc. Parse that and see if there's any mention
> of the snap user session agent or even just snapd. If there is, then 
> editing that file might work.

Almost nothing in there - no snap stuff, but couple of lines re snap
apps.


> Can you issue the following commands?
> 
> $ gsettings --version
2.64.6
> $ ls -l ~/.config/dconf/user
just gives file
> 
> Maybe there's another angle to try if none of the above work.
> 
> >>
> >> https://snapcraft.io/docs/refresh-awareness#heading--notification
> >>
> >> Anyways
> >>
> >> One thing you might try after refreshing Brave from the
> >> command-line is to stop snap-store and then restart it. Sometimes
> >> the snap-store has cached information about pending updates that
> >> doesn't automatically get updated after a command-line manual
> >> refresh. So it might still show a snap has an update available
> >> when it really doesn't. Stopping the snap-store and then
> >> restarting it will usually force it to refresh its cache.  
> > 
> > Will this cause other/all snaps to stop/start and possibly lose
> > data? 
> >>  
> No, this is just the snap package store app. No other snap
> applications or services will be affected. By adding the "--quit"
> option you're shutting the application down gracefully.
> 
> Actually, I found that Plasma has its own package management
> application called Discover. So if "Ubuntu Software" (snap-store)
> isn't installed, then closing and restarting Plasma Discover may be
> do the trick. Snap-store, gnome-software, and Plasma Discover all use
> packagekit under the hood to perform their actual package management.
> Packagekit uses a backend process to handle snaps. Apparently (and
> I'm guessing from observation here and not any actual debugging)
> bypassing the gui store and, hence, packagekit, and refreshing snaps
> manually doesn't signal to packagekit to update its status about
> pending snap updates.
> 
> >> (no sudo)
> >> $ snap-store --quit

not installed

> >>
> >> (no sudo)
> >> ALT-F2 for Run command: snap-store
> >>
> >> If that doesn't help then I suppose that you can mask the
> >> snapd.session-agent.service user service to disable it and prevent
> >> any notifications from snapd from appearing on the desktop.
> >>
> >> (Since the service is run with user privileges, sudo is not
> >> necessary) $ systemctl --user stop snapd.session-agent.service (if
> >> its running)  
> > 
> > How can I see if it is running?  
> 
> $ systemctl --user status snapd.session-agent.service

gave:  [but bad wraps!]
 snapd.session-agent.service - snapd user session agent
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/user/snapd.session-agent.service;
static; vendor preset: > Active: inactive (dead) since Tue 2022-11-08
22:05:43 PST; 27min ago TriggeredBy: ● snapd.session-agent.socket
    Process: 3182301 ExecStart=/usr/bin/snap userd --agent
(code=exited, status=0/SUCCESS) Main PID: 3182301 (code=exited,
status=0/SUCCESS)

Nov 08 20:20:05 kchew systemd[1949]: Starting snapd user session
agent... Nov 08 20:20:05 kchew systemd[1949]: Started snapd user
session agent. Nov 08 22:05:43 kchew snap[3182301]: fdo.go:203: Cannot
remove D-Bus signal matcher: read unix > Nov 08 22:05:43 kchew
snap[3182301]: session_agent.go:318: context canceled Nov 08 22:05:43
kchew snap[3182301]: session_agent.go:329: read unix
@->/run/user/1000/bus: use> Nov 08 22:05:43 kchew systemd[1949]:
snapd.session-agent.service: Succeeded.

apparently was started from 'dead' - interestingly, that was very
roughly the last time I closed the Brave popup window - hmmmmm

> 
> On my system, it is usually not running. When you issue the "stop" 
> command, there'll be a warning that it can be activated by 
> snapd.session-agent.socket. That's normal. If you want, you can issue 
> the "status" command first and skip the "stop" command if its not
> running.
> >   
> >> $ systemctl --user mask snapd.session-agent.service  

Gave:
symlink -> dev/null

[some stuff does not seem to be copying from the CLI - typed in]

I'll have to wait a while - with luck, no more popup!

> > 
> > What else will this stop besides the popup?  
> 
> This will disable all notifications from the snapd daemon. If you 
> examine its service file in /usr/lib/systemd/user, you'll see the
> line, "Type=notify" which means that it's only a notification service.
> 
> $ systemctl --user list-dependencies --reverse
> snapd.session-agent.service
> 
> shows that there are no reverse dependencies on the service, i.e. no 
> other services depends on snapd.session-agent.service to function so 
> disabling it won't affect any other processes.
> 
> It also won't affect the notification ability of other snap 
> applications. I've got Telegram, Thunderbird, Element, Spotify and
> other snaps installed and none are affected by disabling the
> session-agent service. Their notifications all still work.
> 
> > 
> > Thanks much for these extra ideas! Would be nice to just get it to
> > stop. :-)  
> 
> No probs. It should be noted that there is a solution to this
> annoying behavior currently being tested. So hopefully, if all goes
> well, it can be pushed to the stable channel - thus all snap users -
> soon.

That would be GREAT! MANY complaints - it's about time...

Any many thanks again - I don't work at this level and don't understand
it well, so really like and need the help.

Rik