Comment 32 for bug 1616650

On Mon, Apr 06, 2020 at 06:04:27PM -0000, Steve Langasek wrote:
> On Mon, Apr 06, 2020 at 04:11:03PM -0000, Olivier Tilloy wrote:
> > > Why is the chromium snap using per-version state directories? I think
> > > fixing that would be much more important in terms of usability.
>
> > That's because the file format for the profile directory can change with
> > new versions, and is not guaranteed to be backward-compatible. Reverting
> > to an old revision shouldn't leave users with an unusable profile
> > directory.
>
> As a user, that is far less important to me than the fact that *every single
> time* there is a snap refresh, Google Meet stops working, I have to restart
> Chromium, it reports that Chromium did not shut down cleanly, and part of my
> session state has been lost with no chance to preserve it.
>
> I think the state should all be moved to the common dir until you have a way
> to handle the rollback case without making the *upgrade* case terrible.

+1 to having the state moved into a common directory.

Does the file format for the profile directory change between minor
releases? Even if so, it isn't any different to users using the .deb
and reverting or downgrading. Google Chrome users download in either
.deb or .rpm.

Thinking more about it, experimental.refresh-app-awareness, if
configurable, will likely just force users to disable automatatic
refreshes completely. Which means no updates for other snaps
installed.