I have a fresh installation of Ubuntu MATE 24.04.1 and I am trying to install thunderbird but I get the following error message: 'Mount snap "thunderbird" (609) (installation not allowed by "dot-thunderbird" plug rule of interface "personal-files" for "thunderbird" snap)'
I have tried "apt install thunderbird", "snap install thunderbird", and using the "App Center"
Hi, @medialaxis and welcome to the Ubuntu MATE Community!
Hi, could you please paste the output of:
snap version
and
snap changes and look for the line mentioning thunderbird, and note the number in the first column then run snap change (num)
Paste all of the output here. Thanks!
2025-01-22T09:14:53-07:00 ERROR installation not allowed by "dot-thunderbird" plug rule of interface "personal-files" for "thunderbird" snap
snap version
snap 2.67
snapd 2.67
series 16
ubuntu 24.04
kernel 6.8.0-51-generic
snap version:
snap 2.67
snapd 2.67
series 16
ubuntu 24.04
kernel 6.8.0-51-generic
snap change 3:
Status Spawn Ready Summary
Done today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Ensure prerequisites for "thunderbird" are available
Undone today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Download snap "thunderbird" (609) from channel "stable"
Done today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Fetch and check assertions for snap "thunderbird" (609)
Error today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Mount snap "thunderbird" (609)
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Copy snap "thunderbird" data
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Setup snap "thunderbird" (609) security profiles
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Make snap "thunderbird" (609) available to the system
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Automatically connect eligible plugs and slots of snap "thunderbird"
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Set automatic aliases for snap "thunderbird"
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Setup snap "thunderbird" aliases
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Run install hook of "thunderbird" snap if present
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Run default-configure hook of "thunderbird" snap if present
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Start snap "thunderbird" (609) services
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Run configure hook of "thunderbird" snap if present
Hold today at 14:46 CET today at 14:47 CET Run health check of "thunderbird" snap......................................................................
Mount snap "thunderbird" (609)2025-01-22T13:47:11Z ERROR installation not allowed by "dot-thunderbird" plug rule of interface "personal-files" for "thunderbird" snap
What happens if you try to install a different version, such as the previous one.
snap remove thunderbird (just in case, but I expect this to fail, as it's not properly installed.
snap list --all thunderbird (you should see 601 and 609)
snap install thunderbird --revision=601
They say the recipe is
sudo apt purge thunderbird
sudo snap install thunderbird
Or just delete .thunderbird file from your home directory
snap remove thunderbird
snap "thunderbird" is not installed
snap list --all thunderbird
error: no matching snaps installed
snap install thunderbird --revision=601
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Mount snap "thunderbird" (601) (installation not allowed by "dot-thunderbird" plug rule of interface "personal-files" for "thunderbird" snap)
sudo apt purge thunderbird
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree... Done
Reading state information... Done
Package 'thunderbird' is not installed, so not removed
0 upgraded, 0 newly installed, 0 to remove and 7 not upgraded.
rm -rf .thunderbird
sudo snap install thunderbird
error: cannot perform the following tasks:
- Mount snap "thunderbird" (609) (installation not allowed by "dot-thunderbird" plug rule of interface "personal-files" for "thunderbird" snap)
That looks like it's time to report a bug...
What about flatpak?
I resolved the problem for myself with a work around. I installed thunderbird from the official upsteam repo: ppa:mozillateam/ppa
But since this problem may affect other people, I figured I would investigate the issue a bit more and then file a bug report.
I am not sure who I should send the bug report to.
@medialaxis I dont know how you did it since ...
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:mozillateam/ppa -y
sudo apt update
sudo apt install thunderbird
results in the same error
For some reason, the pre-processing insists on checking with snap.
It is a bit more involved than that. See apt - How to install Thunderbird as a traditional deb package without snap in Ubuntu 24.04 and later versions? - Ask Ubuntu
I was going to jump in to say that if you want to preserve the old non-snap versioning of Thunderbird, that there was a special process by which to
But you appear to have found that ! 
But you can install it directly from Mozilla here.
I use Firefox for 95% of my emailing.
But it is nice when Thunderbird opens itself when I click on a link that has an email address. Easier than copying that address and then opening another program to send an email.
Real convenient.
It looks like the bug has been squashed down:
sudo apt install thunderbird works now. Thank you all.
snap list shows:
thunderbird 128.6.0esr-3 631 latest/stable canonical✓ -
This repository is neither official nor upstream. It may be well-known and reliable, though.