Snap updates, a rarely discussed shortcoming

[Thwompin]

Kubuntu 22.04 has a pretty major issue in my opinion, it's that Discover cannot update snaps. Which means Discover can't update the default Firefox browser.
This can be quite a trap for new users, as they will install the system, update and be told by Discover they are fully up to date when they aren't. They will likely use Firefox for a period of time before realizing it's outdated or getting that "pending Firefox update" notification and having to look up how to update because it doesn't explain anything. This is not only a hit on user experience on what's supposed to be a user-friendly distro, but a potential security hazard, as they will browse the internet without the critical fixes for libwebp and libvpx which have recently discovered 0-day vulnerabilities.

Ubuntu's GNOME Software updates snaps just fine so it works there, why is this broken on Kubuntu 22.04? Is this broken on every later version too? It's difficult to recommend Kubuntu to new users as I'd have to explain the caveat of using the terminal to update the browser or looking up a tutorial on how to replace the browser with a different version, I may as well recommend a different distro without this issue.

[claydoh]

Discover definitely updates Snaps, and they are getting updated for me.
Just booted my 22.04 system to check, with only a few updates today. I have the current FF. 118.0.1, same as the deb on my main KDE neon system.
Can't say if it was updated in the background (quite common this happens before Discover checks for updates and never "sees" it.) , or via a set of updated seen in Discover, I can't recall.
I have a 23.04 system that hasn't been booted in a while, will be interesting to check.

But yes, 22.04 may see that "pending Firefox update" notification. I haven't seen this myself.

[Thwompin]

I am quite positive Discover doesn't update snaps. I have done full system updates with Discover on fresh installs and FF was always outdated afterwards, so I use the terminal to update snaps now. Whenever FF has a new version, Discover has never given me an update notification either.
Snap does periodically run updates by itself, documentation says it's 4 times a day by default so up to 6 hours of outdated FF browsing before the user gets an update or a notification if the browser is still open when it checks.

[claydoh]

If Discover's snap backend isn't showing updates to snaps, that does not mean that the snaps are not being updated. Discover is just a GUI front-end, It doesn't do any work itself. Neither does Gnome Software.
Perhaps a bug in KDE's Discover, or the snap backend. Kubuntu has no control over that. But bug reports might be worthwhile. I don't see any from a very fast peek either on KDE's or Ubuntu's bugzillas.

The actual issue will be if the snap is getting updated to begin with or not.

[Thwompin]

When I used Ubuntu, snap updates showed up in GNOME Software together with Debian package updates. In Discover that's not the case despite it having a snap back end, which is strange, I don't know if it's a bug or if it wasn't implemented deliberately.

Snapd takes many hours to automatically update Firefox in the background and updating will fail entirely if the browser is open when the check occurs. This is all manageable if you know how it works, the issue is that it can cause confusion for new users and can lead them to use a severely outdated browser for a long time.

[Dutchmaster]

K(U)buntu may be lacking in maintaining Snaps but they update when given the opportunity. I sure hope Canonical gets more serious about fixing all the broken and outdated Snaps, much less about the lack of choices that other package managers like flatpak provide. Because they can be done well when given attention. My web browsers and the Steam snaps are terrific, for example.

[Thwompin]

Here a pop-up tells me there is an update for Firefox and please shut it down so the update can proceed.

If an automatic snap refresh occurs when Firefox is open, it gives you that pop-up. But it doesn't update when you close Firefox as one would expect, definitely didn't happen with me so I had to look up manual terminal updating. It's only going to attempt an update again in the next auto refresh as far as I know, which is in 6 hours by default and can fail again if Firefox is open.

[Thwompin]

What I don't like is that I do get a warning a snap update is pending including the advise to shut down the application but there never is a notification the update is done.
For those not using Snap, this is what the notification to update looks like:

Apparently snapd 2.59.2 introduced a notification that informs the user that the updated snap is ready to be used. This should be in the soon to be released 23.10.
https://snapcraft.io/docs/refresh-awareness

Also it says they introduced a feature to 2.59 that makes apps with a "pending update" notification automatically update when they're closed, so that's good to know.
https://github.com/snapcore/snapd/releases/tag/2.59.1

[Guest]

Isn't that the reason Snaps are unique in that they update themselves independent of a traditional package manager? Kubuntu only has about 10 or so installed Snaps versus almost 2,000 Debian/Ubuntu packages so you won't see many Snaps getting updated by Discover. I have Kubuntu 22.04 LTS and Kubuntu 23.04 and have not had issues with Snap updates. The only Snap that is used regularly is Firefox. I don't know if Discover has anything to do with it. The Snap back-end I thought was for finding packages with Discover and installing those packages using Discover. Interesting discussion.

[Thwompin]

I inquired over at KDE's forum and it seems they don't have the resources to implement the update functionality into the snap back-end, which is a real shame.
Is there anything Kubuntu developers can do to mitigate the issue? Maybe having the installer run snap refresh as a post-install script, or developing an in-house graphical utility that notifies and updates snaps?

[motang]

I know snap application gets updated in the background, but it would be really nice especially for new and not so advanced users if Discover also handled them.