Firefox doesn't work after 23.10 upgrade

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

What does ls -l /snap/bin/firefox tell you?

Submitter says snapped firefox is installed but snapped firefox binary isn't found, probably needs more triaging

apt-get install firefox --reinstall

should run debian/firefox.preinst which is responsible for installing the snap.

The preinstall script depends on /run/snapd.socket existing. So when the snapd service is stopped the snap will not be installed.

Would it be preferable to let debian/firefox.preinst return an error if the socket does not exist?

hum, what's the output of

$ snap info firefox

and why would snapd be stopped?

It looks like my issue is related to this bug
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/ubuntu-release-upgrader/+bug/2036765

I followed the steps in this post to fix my firefox
https://discourse.ubuntu.com/t/ubuntu-23-10-beta-testing/38861/9
snap refresh --channel=latest/stable/ubuntu-23.10 firefox

Firefox however semi broke again yesterday (clicking the icon didn't open it)
$ firefox
Content snap command-chain for /snap/firefox/3166/gnome-platform/command-chain/desktop-launch not found: ensure slot is connected

$ snap refresh
fixed firefox this time for me

I tested an upgrade from Lunar to Mantic today using ubuntu-release-upgrader version 23.10.7 which changed the snap update process from `snap refresh` to `snap switch` and still encountered this issue.

bdmurray@clean-lunar-amd64:~$ /usr/bin/firefox -h

Command '/usr/bin/firefox' requires the firefox snap to be installed.
Please install it with:

snap install firefox

bdmurray@clean-lunar-amd64:~$ snap info firefox
name: firefox
summary: Mozilla Firefox web browser
publisher: Mozilla\u2713
store-url: https://snapcraft.io/firefox
license: unset
description: |
  Firefox is a powerful, extensible web browser with support for modern web application
  technologies.
commands:
  - firefox
  - firefox.geckodriver
snap-id: 3wdHCAVyZEmYsCMFDE9qt92UV8rC8Wdk
tracking: latest/stable/ubuntu-23.10
refresh-date: today at 09:16 PDT
channels:
  latest/stable: 118.0.1-1 2023-09-28 (3206) 252MB -
  latest/candidate: 118.0.1-1 2023-09-29 (3215) 252MB -
  latest/beta: 119.0b3-1 2023-09-29 (3214) 254MB -
  latest/edge: 120.0a1 2023-09-29 (3213) 274MB -
  esr/stable: 115.3.1esr-1 2023-09-28 (3207) 253MB -
  esr/candidate: 115.3.1esr-1 2023-09-28 (3207) 253MB -
  esr/beta: \u2191
  esr/edge: \u2191
installed: 111.0.1-2 (2517) 253MB -

I then ran snap refresh firefox:

bdmurray@clean-lunar-amd64:~$ snap refresh firefox
firefox (stable/ubuntu-23.10) 118.0-1 from Mozilla\u2713 refreshed

and /usr/bin/firefox worked again.

Revisiting my upgrade test in comment #7 I booted the Lunar virtual machine I used for upgrade testing and discovered that the firefox snap on it was quite out of date. I performed the upgrade test again, but this time I refreshed the firefox snap before the distribution upgrade and all was well.

I also was unable to verify this bug after an upgrade from 23.04 to 23.10 today.

I had previously verified this bug in my VM. Maybe it was fixed by other changes in the upgrader or maybe the Firefox snap had time to update itself before I performed the upgrade.

the upgrader shouldn't make a difference there, the snap even if it's an old revision or not the expected channel should work on mantic...