[Solved] “unable to install “VLC”: snap “VLC” has “install-snap” change in progress”

During the installation process of the VLC app in Ubuntu, you may encounter an error message stating “Unable to Install VLC: Snap ‘VLC’ has ‘install-snap’ Change in Progress.” This error occurs when there is an ongoing change or update related to VLC’s snap package. Fortunately, there is a simple solution to fix this issue.

In this article, we will guide you through the process of resolving the error by using the “sudo snap abort” command.

As shown in the following screenshot this error occurred while trying to install the VFC media player through the SnapThe installation process is stuck showing the following error “: “unable to install “VLC”: snap “VLC” has “install-snap” change in progress” message popup.

vlc snap changes in progress
Error: “unable to install “VLC”: snap “VLC” has “install-snap”

Since this error is related to the Ubuntu snap we will first know about the snap. A snap is a bundle of an app and its dependencies that works without modification across many different Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Kubuntu etc. 

This problem can occur with another app and its error message format will be like this: “unable to install “<package_name>“: snap “<package_name> has “install-snap” change in progress”.

Why does this “Unable to install “VLC…” error occur?

While trying to install the VLC media player the Snap process is sometimes stuck in the memory. And it becomes non-responding. No matter how many times we try to install VLC media played we will get “unable to install “VLC”: snap “VLC” has “install-snap” change in progress” error after some time.

How to fix “unable to install “VLC”: snap “VLC” has “install-snap” change in progress” error?

Since the cause of the problem is a stuck process in memory. We have to just abort that process and initiate the installation process again.

Follow these steps,

Step-1: Open the terminal: and run the following command

snap changes 

It will list processes related to the snap and their status, as shown in the following screenshot

linux command snap changes
Ubuntu Terminal Window

remember process ID, here in the above example is “8” where status is “Doing”

Step-2: run the following command: in terminal

sudo snap abort 8 

place your ID in the above command instead of “8”

enter user password

Now go to Snap and try to reinstall.

✅Done.

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