Theme issue with Firefox Snap update to revision 3068

[Keith]

On 9/4/23 09:28, Little Girl wrote:
> Hey there,
> 
> Keith wrote:
>> Little Girl wrote:
> 
>> No problem with theming here. I'm using the "System theme -auto"
>> theme to follow the OS theme (Yaru). Using other firefox themes
>> didn't present any issues either, though.
> 
> Thank you for testing.
> 
>> $ sudo snap revert --revision=3026 firefox
>> $ sudo snap refresh firefox --hold
>>
>> will prevent snapd from auto-refreshing firefox. It also will not
>> refresh with a manual "snap refresh" command. "snap refresh
>> firefox", though, will override the hold. Use --unhold to remove the
>> hold. Comparatively, its like "pinning" a specific version of a deb
>> package to prevent its updating.
> 
> Good to know, although it didn't help in my case. I reverted to
> revision 3026 with no change to the issue.
> 
>> Rather increasing the number of retained revisions, I would just
>> download a local copy of the one you want to have on hand.
> 
> Perfect.
> 
>> $ snap download firefox --revision=3026
>> $ sudo snap install --dangerous ./firefox_3026.snap
>>
>> Local snaps installed with "--dangerous", will prevent snapd from
>> refreshing them if they've been published in the snap store before.
> 
> Thank you. That would have been perfect, but since the reverting I
> did above didn't solve the issue, this won't be of use for my current
> issue. I am, however, adding it to my personal wiki for future
> reference  By the way, here's the output it gave me when I did that
> command:
> 
> 	Fetching snap "firefox"
> 	Fetching assertions for "firefox"
> 	Install the snap with:
> 	   snap ack firefox_3026.assert
> 	   snap install firefox_3026.snap
> 
> Would I ignore that output and use your installation command instead
> if I were to use a downloaded revision?

Yes, in this case if you want to ensure the snap is not refreshed by 
snapd again after installation. Installing with the steps above would be 
like downloading a deb package from the Ubuntu archives and installing 
it manually. However, when apt detects an update available for that 
version of the locally installed deb, it'll go ahead and update it with 
the "apt upgrade" command. With no assert metadata information listed in 
the  snapd assertion database for a snap, snapd will just assume the 
local snap comes from an unauthenticated 3rd-party source and won't 
attempt to refresh it. It's equivalent to a 3rd-party stand-alone deb 
package downloaded from a website and installed locally.

> 
>> This sounds like it might be case for a parallel install of a snap.
>> I've never done this myself so I'll just point you to the webpage
>> where this is documented:
>> https://snapcraft.io/docs/parallel-installs
> 
> Thanks, but since it's experimental, I'd rather not use it. This did,
> however, inspire me to try replicating the issue in a VM. I can't
> replicate it. The Firefox Snap updates successfully without this
> issue in my VM, so it seems that something simply went wrong during
> the update on my host machine [sigh].
> 
>> Of course, with a local copy on hand you simply re-install that if
>> the updated version from the snap store isn't fixed.
> 
> This is a very solid option.
> 
>> Whatever you decide, I would highly recommend making a back up of
>> your profile directory before do any of the above steps.
> 
> That's done on a regular basis.
> 
>> One thing to try before any of the above: With firefox not running,
>> delete everything under ~/snap/firefox/common/.cache/ and then start
>> firefox. Occasionally, I've run across a software update where a new
>> version of a program had problems with stale cached data created by
>> the previous program version.
> 
> I had high hopes for this, but nothing changed after doing it, so
> the issue is not with the cache.
> 
> Thank you for all of the help and information so far. I've filed this
> bug report which, as expected, hasn't had any activity yet, but I'll
> give it a bit of time:
> 
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/firefox/+bug/2033988
> 
> Just curious, but in the event that I run out of patience, would
> there be any harm in doing this to kick Snap in the pants and start
> fresh?
> 
> 	sudo snap remove firefox
> 	sudo snap install firefox
> 

No harm. To make sure snapd pulls in the firefox snap from the snap 
store and not use any cached copy on disk, you can delete all the files
under /var/lib/snapd/cache/ (not the directory itself, though) before 
installing.

-- 
Keith