[Bug]: Unable to recover space taken up by packages that failed to install (in repo/tmp)

[zahlman]

Checklist

• [X] I agree to follow the Code of Conduct that this project adheres to.
• [X] I have searched the issue tracker for a bug that matches the one I want to file, without success.
• [X] If this is an issue with a particular app, I have tried filing it in the appropriate issue tracker for the app (e.g. under https://github.com/flathub/) and determined that it is an issue with Flatpak itself.
• [X] This issue is not a report of a security vulnerability (see here if you need to report a security issue).

Flatpak version

1.12.2

What Linux distribution are you using?

Linux Mint

Linux distribution version

Mint 20.3 (Ubuntu 20.04)

What architecture are you using?

x86_64

How to reproduce

• Attempt to use Software Manager (mintinstall) to install a flatpak with dependencies that aren't already present
• Abort the process without installing anything (decline to give sudo authorization to Software Manager when it asks), e.g. by killing the installer process or (as in my case) losing internet connection, but after one or more packages have downloaded

Expected Behavior

It should at least be possible to recover all the disk space used from the failed download and properly clean up.

Actual Behavior

sudo flatpak repair seems to have negligible if any effect. Downloaded files remain in the /repo/tmp folder and there appears to be no explicit command to either identify what they are, install them properly (maybe flatpak install --no-pull could work, if I knew which packages actually downloaded) or purge them:

$ sudo flatpak repair
[sudo] password for zahlman:           
Working on the system installation at /var/lib/flatpak
Checking remotes...
Pruning objects
Erasing .removed
$ flatpak list
$ du -s /var/lib/flatpak/repo/tmp
913932	/var/lib/flatpak/repo/tmp

Additional Information

If it's safe to just delete the contents of /var/lib/flatpak/repo/tmp, this should at least be properly documented. I'm assuming this could corrupt the OSTree database.

[hfiguiere]

1.12.2 is old and unsupported.

mintinstall isn't part of flatpak at all.

[zahlman]

I understand that mintinstall is separate software, but it's a wrapper that has invoked flatpak behind the scenes. This version of the software is what my not-EOL distro bundles and it isn't offering updates. I don't see any self-update option within flatpak at the command line. The Flatpak website simply tells me on Mint (since 18.3) I don't need to do anything to install Flatpak as support is built-in, and doesn't offer any instructions for getting an updated version.

So I really don't understand how I'm expected to be able to fix this myself.

I also already asked about this on Linux Mint forums and they couldn't tell me anything better than to restore the last Timeshift backup.