Public bug reported:
With some help from Claude:
The AppStream metainfo for Nautilus (org.gnome.Nautilus) includes a
release entry with type="snapshot". This value is valid per the
AppStream spec, but when Canonical's DEP-11 generator converts this into
the archive's YAML catalog, downstream consumers that only handle stable
and development release types fail to parse it.
Specifically, this breaks Ubuntu's App Center (the Flutter-based Ubuntu
Software replacement), which uses the appstream Dart package to parse
the DEP-11 YAML catalogs fetched from the archive. The parser throws an
unhandled exception on this entry, which crashes the entire catalog-
loading isolate — meaning App Center's "Manage" view (installed apps and
available updates lists) never loads and gets stuck on a spinner
indefinitely, for every user who has the Nautilus entry in their local
archive cache.
Steps to reproduce:
On Ubuntu 26.04 ("Resolute"), run apt update to fetch the latest DEP-11
metadata.
Open App Center → Manage.
Both the "Installed" and "Updates available" lists spin forever and never
populate.
Where the bad entry lives:
/var/lib/app-info/yaml/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_resolute-updates_main_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz,
under the org.gnome.Nautilus / nautilus component.
Confirmed via:
zcat /var/lib/app-info/yaml/us.archive.ubuntu.com_ubuntu_dists_resolute-
updates_main_dep11_Components-amd64.yml.gz | awk 'BEGIN{RS="---\n"}
/type: snapshot/{print}'
Crash trace (from App Center, launched via snap run snap-store):
[ERROR:flutter/runtime/dart_isolate.cc(1402)] Unhandled exception:
FormatException: Unknown release type 'snapshot'
#0 _parseReleaseType (package:appstream/src/collection.dart:944)
#1 new AppstreamCollection.fromYaml
(package:appstream/src/collection.dart:641)
#2 AppstreamPool._loadYamlCollectionInIsolate
(package:appstream/src/pool.dart:94)
Expected behavior: Either (a) Nautilus's upstream metainfo shouldn't
publish a snapshot-type release into the stable archive's DEP-11 feed,
or (b) App Center's appstream parser should skip/ignore unrecognized
release types rather than throwing and crashing the whole catalog load.
Ideally both — the metadata shouldn't be malformed for this feed, and
the parser shouldn't be this fragile against one bad entry among
thousands.
Affected versions: Ubuntu 26.04 (Resolute), resolute-updates main
archive, as of August 2026.
** Affects: nautilus (Ubuntu)
Importance: Undecided
Status: New
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https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/2163008
Title:
Nautilus AppStream metainfo includes a <release type="snapshot">
entry, which breaks DEP-11 consumers that only expect
stable/development
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