Snap not allowing me to remove or refresh anything

Question

I installed my dev tools via snap, big updates came out for most of them recently (Jetbrains), biggest being Android studio. But no matter what I do I can't remove or update any of my applications installed via snap.

When I try to remove the snap, I get the following error message:

error: snap "android-studio" has "auto-refresh" change in progress

I tried disabling "auto-refresh" with a bunch of other recommendations from other questions and threads.

I would like to specify when I want to update. Is there any way to update snaps like regular APT packages?

When I run "snap refresh", I get the following error:

error: change finished in status "Hold" with no error message

score 28 · Answer 1 · edited Aug 10 '21 at 19:17

This was the top search item for the topic as I was trying to remove a snap whilst it was "auto-refreshing". The better answer in that it allows you to stop the refresh and take action is covered in Ask Ubuntu.

In effect:

# Check for snap changes
sudo snap changes
This will list something like
ID         Status   Spawn                  Ready   Summary
<number>   Doing    today at 10:58 CEST    -       Auto-refresh snap <snap_program>
Note the ID for the refresh and abort it
sudo snap abort <number>
You must check changes until it has been actioned
sudo snap changes
This will now list something like
ID         Status   Spawn                  Ready   Summary
<number>   Error    today at 10:58 CEST    -       Auto-refresh snap <snap_program>
The take remedial action, in my case remove
sudo snap remove <snap_program>

Tested with microk8s on Ubuntu 18.04 and chromium on Ubuntu 20.04.

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited Jul 12 '20 at 18:31

4

You can change schedule for automatic updates

Managing updates | Snapcraft documentation

edited Jul 12 '20 at 18:31

answered Aug 23 '19 at 16:17

adasiko

409

score 3 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 04 '21 at 09:41

3

There is currently no way to forcibly remove a snap when a refresh is in process.

Once the refresh is finished, you can speed up the snap removal by skipping the backup using --purge. Normally, when a snap is removed, the data of that snap is backed up. This backup can take some time.

snap remove --purge android-studio

Note that this command will remove all data from that snap.

edited Jun 04 '21 at 09:41

Amir Hallaj

3

answered Aug 13 '20 at 16:03

Merlijn Sebrechts

7,687

score 2 · Answer 4 · answered Oct 09 '23 at 04:36

Check snap changes then note down the ID

sudo snap changes                                          10 ↵  
ID   Status  Spawn                   Ready                   Summary
746  Done    yesterday at 01:28 IST  yesterday at 01:30 IST  Pre-download "android-studio" for auto-refresh
747  Done    yesterday at 12:24 IST  yesterday at 12:26 IST  Pre-download "android-studio" for auto-refresh
748  Done    yesterday at 22:29 IST  today at 07:25 IST      Pre-download "android-studio" for auto-refresh
749  Done    today at 07:41 IST      today at 07:42 IST      Pre-download "android-studio" for auto-refresh
750  Error   today at 09:57 IST      today at 09:59 IST      Auto-refresh snap "android-studio"
751  Doing   today at 10:00 IST      -                       Auto-refresh snap "android-studio"

Then run abort

sudo snap abort 751

Wait for a few min then refresh/remove manually

 sudo snap refresh android-studio

score 1 · Answer 5 · edited Mar 28 '21 at 08:29

1

Downgrading to the previous version (removing changes done by the update) first will solve this problem, after which allow you to also delete the snap package with no errors:

[rodolfo@fedora ~]$ sudo snap revert discord 
discord reverted to 0.0.13
[rodolfo@fedora ~]$ sudo snap remove discord 
discord removed

edited Mar 28 '21 at 08:29

Pizza

1,512

answered Mar 24 '21 at 17:59

Rodolfo

11

score 0 · Answer 6 · answered Jul 08 '24 at 19:27

0

Killing the process doesn't work. You can try hold command.

sudo snap refresh --hold=2h chromium
sudo snap refresh chromium

answered Jul 08 '24 at 19:27

manowar_manowar

160

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jun 30 '25 at 07:58

TL;DR

restart snap service if you are using systemd

sudo systemd restart snapd

Explanation

So, fswing's answer is correct. I followed all the steps to abort auto-refresh but somehow, snap is always stuck and cannot proceed with enabling my nvim installation.

So, here is how I'm fixing it.

First, try to abort auto-refresh

# Check for snap changes
sudo snap changes
This will list something like
ID         Status   Spawn                  Ready   Summary
<number>   Doing    today at 10:58 CEST    -       Auto-refresh snap <snap_program>
Note the ID for the refresh and abort it
sudo snap abort <number>

But somehow, I cannot enable nvim / manually start refresh. I figured out what if I try to restart snapd service instead? So I go with:

systemd status snapd

To check current active snapd service. Running this command will return something like:

● snapd.service - Snap Daemon
     Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/snapd.service; enabled; preset: enabled)
     Active: active (running) since Tue 2020-01-01 23:33:30 ; 1 week 5 days ago
TriggeredBy: ● snapd.socket
   Main PID: 18828317 (snapd)
      Tasks: 22 (limit: 37977)
     Memory: 3.7G (peak: 1.8G swap: 2.1M swap peak: 2.1M)
        CPU: 3min 9.356s
     CGroup: /system.slice/snapd.service
             └─18828317 /usr/lib/snapd/snapd

Then restart with:

sudo systemd restart snapd

score -3 · Answer 8 · answered May 13 '20 at 08:36

-3

You can add the parameter "now" to the end of your command, it will ignore the "auto-refresh".

example:

sudo snap remove android-studio now

answered May 13 '20 at 08:36

Almog Karamani

43

score -4 · Answer 9 · edited Aug 13 '20 at 16:22

-4

The way it worked for me was the parameter force instead of now

sudo snap remove android-studio force

edited Aug 13 '20 at 16:22

Zanna

72,312

answered Jun 04 '20 at 01:45

Miguel Florian

1

Snap not allowing me to remove or refresh anything

9 Answers9

This will list something like

Note the ID for the refresh and abort it

You must check changes until it has been actioned

This will now list something like

The take remedial action, in my case remove

This will list something like

Note the ID for the refresh and abort it

Linked