Migrating (rescuing?) failed snap installation on a VPS

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The Basics

  • Nextcloud Server version (e.g., 29.x.x):
    I don’t know how to find this out without running system
  • Operating system and version (e.g., Ubuntu 24.04):
    Ubuntu 20.04
  • Web server and version (e.g, Apache 2.4.25):
    I don’t know how to find this out without running system
  • Reverse proxy and version _(e.g. nginx 1.27.2)
    I don’t know how to find this out without running system
  • PHP version (e.g, 8.3):
    I don’t know how to find this out without running system
  • Is this the first time you’ve seen this error? (Yes / No):
    Yes
  • When did this problem seem to first start?
    After a restoration of a backupf of a VPS at Strato.
  • Installation method (e.g. AlO, NCP, Bare Metal/Archive, etc.)
    snap
  • Are you using CloudfIare, mod_security, or similar? (Yes / No)
    I don’t know

Summary of the issue you are facing:

I tried to upgrade my Ubuntu VPS from Ubuntu 20.04. I could not recconect to it via SSH after the upgrade so I restored a backup. The VPS is hosted at Strato and I used their restore functionality. Afterwards I’m able to connect to the server via SSH. But I cannot use snap anymore:

system does not fully support snapd: cannot mount squashfs image using “squashfs”: mount:

To my research this seems to be due to a change on the host environment and nothing that I can affect (also after a brief call with Strato support).
Now I’m in the situation that I cannot get the snap installation up again.

I am thinking about if it is worth to try to move the snap installation (especially configuration but e.g. also the files on the VPS). I do have the files backed up on my local device as well.

After some research I did not really want to spend more time, I’ve already wasted the better of two days on trying to get snap running again and decided to go with a hosted provider. However there I’m facing some connection closed issues and I can’t get the sync to work properly with my mobile device yet. So I’m down to trying to move the snap installation on my VPS to another kind of installation if this is possible easily.

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Hey @nirolo welcome to the community

Migration requires a working instance in order to pack the Nextcloud snap into a neat package which could allow an easy transfer and restore on the new environment.

So if the snap doesn’t start on the source there’s really no way to migrate. See Backup, restore & migrate.

If the snap does not start up at all there is a good chance of recovering your raw data. By default all the stuff you care about is in the /var/snap/nextcloud directory. So just copy the entire directory to another machine. In the worst case you lose your database, but at least you’ll preserve your raw data. Your raw data can be found in /var/snap/nextcloud/common/nextcloud/data if you haven’t changed your data directory.

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yeah that’s a common issue when upgrading an OS via SSH. During the upgrade procedure the OpenSSH-server needs to be restarted and you lose your connection.

please explain in detail. was that an OS backup? if yes, then that might be the reason for the error message. that sounds like a failed upgrade and your provider should be able to fix that for you

why didn’t they help you… they should be able to complete the upgrade for you. after which the snap will likely start again

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Hi @scubamuc thanks for the welcome! I have the raw data on my local device so that should be good. I’ll reply on your other post concerning the upgrade.
Thanks for the input already!

ETA:

So I’ll reply here also concerning the points you raised.

There is not much that I can add concerning “restored the upgrade”: They have a webui to maintain your things, domains, webmail and the virtual server. That has one entry called BackupControl where you can choose from a backup per day for the last seven days. I chose one where I did not do the upgrade and hit restore. After that I could connect to the server via SSH again, but snap is unusable.

I’ll try to contact them again but maybe I’m just too far down the line with my cheap VPS to get proper support. The response on the phone was along the lines, yeah we can’t get you any support on your OS level.

I also see the server as Ubuntu 18.04 (which was the initial install years ago). I upgraded via cli and logged in via SSH to 20.04 and this also shows in /etc/lsb-release. But this might be a reason for some inconsistencies. I don’t think this is the right place to try to debug the specific setting with Strato. But I appreciate the hint and will contact them again and see if they can fix the upgrade process (which could eventually get snap running again).

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