1792006 - [snap] Dependency on the hunspell-dictionaries-1-7-2004 content snap breaks building Ubuntu desktop images

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Spelling checker, defect, P1)

Description

[Olivier Tilloy]

Access to the host system's hunspell dictionaries for spellchecking in the firefox snap was implemented in bug 1732755.
The solution involves a dependency on the hunspell-dictionaries-1-7-2004 content snap, and works well when installing/upgrading firefox from the snap store, but it conflicts with the Ubuntu policy for seeding snaps on desktop images. This is made worse by a bug in snapd that actually prevents the installation of the content snap when creating the Ubuntu image in a container:

error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Run hook connect-plug-host-hunspell of snap "firefox" (run hook "connect-plug-host-hunspell": 
-----
error: error running snapctl: cannot start mount unit: systemctl command [start var-snap-firefox-common-host\x2dhunspell.mount] failed with exit status 1: A dependency job for var-snap-firefox-common-host\x2dhunspell.mount failed. See 'journalctl -xe' for details.

A proper fix for the problem involves:

• fixing the bug in snapd that prevents installation of the content snap in a container
• transferring ownership of the hunspell content snap to Canonical
• and ensuring it is built on Launchpad, for reproducibility

But we need to address the problem immediately, because it breaks the creation of Ubuntu desktop images. As a stop-gap measure, we discussed the following approach:

• remove the dependency on the hunspell content snap
• instead, stage the hunspell packages from the corresponding Ubuntu series (core20)

For reference, this is how the hunspell content snap is built.

Comment 1

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Spelling checker' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 2

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

:gerard-majax, since you are the author of the regressor, bug 1732755, could you take a look? Also, could you set the severity field?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 3

[:gerard-majax]

It's not really Olivier who is working on that but.

Comment 4

[Nathan Teodosio :nteodosio]

The fix was merged in https://github.com/canonical/firefox-snap/pull/5 and the corresponding snap is in the candidate channel.

Comment 5

[:gerard-majax]

(In reply to Nathan Teodosio :nteodosio from comment #4)

The fix was merged in https://github.com/canonical/firefox-snap/pull/5 and the corresponding snap is in the candidate channel.

On Mozilla side, as much as I can say all the people with credentials to push the Snap are travelling for the All Hands, so it might be tricky to get someone there push it. Maybe Olivier can do that?

Comment 6

[Ryan VanderMeulen [:RyanVM]]

Done.