Problem with .snap files

Describe the bug For some reason, I cannot install .snap files built with electron-builder:

yarn electron:build
sudo snap install --dangerous dist_electron/app-name_1.0.0_amd64.snap

I get the following error:

error: cannot install snap file: snap is unusable due to bad permissions; contact developer

I’ve never built / installed .snap files before, so I’m not sure if I’m doing it right or not. I manually changed permissions of the snap file to read & write and selected Allow executing file as program and then tried to install it again, but I got the same error.

Then I ran journalctl -u snapd and here’s the last line from it, not sure if that’s what causes the problem:

loka 12 14:59:25 name-VirtualBox snapd[546]: container.go:199: in snap "app-name": "meta/gui/icon.png" should be world-readable, and isn'

Someone opened a similar issue in the electron-builder’s repo: https://github.com/electron-userland/electron-builder/issues/5067 But my problem is I get the error trying to install the .snap, so even though it gets built successfully, clearly there’s something wrong with the build config and I’m not sure if it’s a problem with vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder or electron-builder or if it’s something I’m doing wrong.

vue.config.js

...
builderOptions: {
  icon: 'build/icon.png',
  snap: {
    confinement: 'devmode',
    grade: 'devel'
  },
  linux: {
    target: 'snap',
    icon: 'build/icon.png',
    category: 'system',
    maintainer: 'name'
  }
  ...
}
...

Build log

 INFO  Building app with electron-builder:
  • electron-builder  version=21.2.0 os=5.4.0-48-generic
  • writing effective config  file=dist_electron/builder-effective-config.yaml
  • rebuilding native dependencies  dependencies=diskusage@1.1.3, xxhash-addon@1.3.0 platform=linux arch=x64
  • rebuilding native dependency  name=diskusage version=1.1.3
  • rebuilding native dependency  name=xxhash-addon version=1.3.0
  • packaging       platform=linux arch=x64 electron=10.1.3 appOutDir=dist_electron/linux-unpacked
  • building        target=snap arch=x64 file=dist_electron/app-name_1.0.0_amd64.snap
 DONE  Build complete!

Environment:

• OS: Ubuntu 20.04 x64
• electron: 10.1.3
• vue-cli-plugin-electron-builder: 1.4.6 (the issue occurs in the latest 2.0.0-rc.4 as well)

Relevant docs:

Snapcraft: https://snapcraft.io/docs/electron-apps Electron-builder: https://www.electron.build/configuration/snap

[nklayman]

Okay, thanks for testing that. I’ve been pretty busy lately but when I get the chance I’ll test the snap target myself and see if I can figure out what is going wrong.

[aleksey-hoffman]

@nklayman thanks for testing it, mate. I tried that. Turns out, in my case, the cause of the problem had nothing to do with the config properties themselves. For some unimaginable reason, the icon that I specified build/icon.png in the config had some read permissions denied (only on Ubuntu as well).

I just changed all the file’s permissions to read & write, and it got installed successfully after that.