Ubuntu Software/Snap Store is extremely slow with no images showing

I recently installed Ubuntu 21.04 "Hirsute Hippo" on my laptop. For the most part, things seem to be running better than expected out of the box!

One thing I am having problems with is the "Ubuntu Software" app, aka snap-store. This is my first time using a distro with Snap. Browsing and searching is very slow - searching and opening category pages can easily take 5-10 seconds or more...and that's if they ever load. No images show at all (except for icons for installed software), although it's apparent there are supposed to be screenshots and icons/logos.

But if you manage to get to the page for the particular software you want to install and click the "Install" button...it downloads and installs quickly with no apparent problems! I assume the command line interface for snap would also work fine, but ideally I'd like to have the GUI available too.

Here are a few things I've tried:

• sudo killall snap-store
• sudo snap refresh snap-store
• sudo snap remove snap-store then sudo snap install snap-store
• Logging into my Ubuntu account in Ubuntu Software (not sure why I thought that would help)
• Changing download server in "Software & Updates" - I assume this is for apt? Is there an option to try other mirrors/servers for snap?
• Checking my internet connection - no problems with other sites/services

Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!

Screenshots:

• screenshot of main page - note no icons (except for GIMP which I installed) or images
• screenshot of app page - note no screenshots

My workaround is:

add xauth pam module into common-session at the end:

sudo nano /etc/pam.d/common-session

session optional pam_xauth.so <-

then reboot the machine

for me things are a bit better ...

find snap-store in the process browser and kill it dead. or end process, whatever your button might be. it has that green icon.

clicking on the orange software center button now works for me. hope it works for you also.

how this is a perennial issue, reported by multitudes of people, that ubuntu ignores, even though it's central, i'll never know.