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"Error - signature verification failed"

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Jeff Wright

27 Nov, 2012 07:48 PM

I would like to know how I can figure out why I encountered a "Error - signature verification failed" error today when sending a signed (but not encrypted) email to my internal company email list. The result was embarrassing (this was the first email I sent to entire company, and it has a bad PGP signature), but at least the message itself got through.

The full output of the failure message is:

gpg command line and output:
gpg
gpg: Signature made Tue Nov 27 13:52:29 2012 EST using RSA key ID 2DXXXXC6
gpg: BAD signature from "Jeffrey Wright (ISC QA Manager) [email blocked]"

I am running a Mac Book Pro with Mountain Lion (OSX 10.8.2). Client is Thunderbird 17.0 with GPGTools 1.0b8 and Enigmail 1.4.6.

Let me know what info I can provide other than what I've already specified here.

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Luke Le on 30 Nov, 2012 07:28 AM

   

   Hi Jeff,

   Two things that might be responsible:
   1.) The email goes through some Microsoft Exchange server
   2.) It's somehow updated/changed by the mail server before being delivered

   Unfortunately we don't have the resources to help you with Enigmail problems.
   I think it's best if you bring it up with them.
   If it should be the case that this is related to our version of MacGPG, what I doubt however, you're welcome to come back to us anytime :)

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2. 2 Posted by karthik.muthukr... on 17 Dec, 2012 01:48 PM

   

   Hi,

   I have a similar but appears to be slightly different problem. I have been using Thunderbird on a mac with OpenPGP encryption for 2 months to exchange email with another engineer. Everything was working fine until yesterday when i got the following error when i tried to open a message from this same engineer:

   penPGP Security Info

   Error - signature verification failed

   gpg command line and output:
   gpg
   gpg: problem with the agent: End of file
   gpg: encrypted with 4096-bit RSA key, ID DFB360CE, created 2012-05-18

     "Sxxxxx Rxxxxxx <[email blocked]>"
   

   gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 0DBFB63B, created 2012-06-16

     "Karthik Muthukrishnan <[email blocked]>"
   

   gpg: public key decryption failed: Operation cancelled
   gpg: decryption failed: No secret key

   I do have the public and private keys loaded up..

   Can someone help ?

   Thanks.

   Karthik

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3. Support Staff 3 Posted by Luke Le on 17 Dec, 2012 04:32 PM

   

   Hi Karthik,

   hmm... I think that the sender might have used a different public key of yours to encrypt the message to, which you no longer have the private key for.

   Could you check that the key id messages?

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4. 4 Posted by karthik.muthukr... on 17 Dec, 2012 04:44 PM

   

   Luke,

   I have a cache of older messages that have been encrypted that now have
   the same problem. So, I don't think the problem is on the sending side...

   Karthik

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Luke Le on 17 Dec, 2012 04:47 PM

   

   Hmm... if you're familiar with the terminal try to run the following command:

   killall gpg-agent
   

   Otherwise it's easiest to reboot the machine. Let me know if that changes anything.

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6. 6 Posted by karthik.muthukr... on 17 Dec, 2012 04:50 PM

   

   yes, that fixed it, thanks a lot !!

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7. Support Staff 7 Posted by Luke Le on 17 Dec, 2012 04:52 PM

   

   Pretty strange you started seeing it in the first place though.
   Could you please check your Console.app log for any errors related to gpg-agent or gpg and send them to team @ gpgtools.org?

   Thanks!

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8. 8 Posted by karthik.muthukr... on 17 Dec, 2012 07:21 PM

   

   Luke, i am on a Macbook Pro. Don't see a console app in the Appstore for
   the Mac..

   I'll be happy to pass on any diagnostic to help you, please let me know
   what else i can do.

   Karthik

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9. Support Staff 9 Posted by Luke Le on 20 Dec, 2012 08:02 AM

   

   Console.app is in /Applications/Utilities or easiest, search for it using Spotlight.
   It contains diagnostic messages which might help find the problem here.

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10. 10 Posted by karthik.muthukr... on 20 Dec, 2012 02:54 PM

    

    Luke,

    I scoured the logs, on the 15th & 16th dn don't see anything other than
    the routine from other apps. Can you tell me what the prefix of the logs
    would be or what a good search string would be ?

    Thanks.

    Karthik

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11. Support Staff 11 Posted by Steve on 20 Jan, 2013 12:34 PM

    

    Karthik, could you search for anything gpg-agent related?

    If you don't find anything useful I'd close this discussion otherwise. Jeff never replied so far and you are now running fine now, right?

    Best, steve

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12. 12 Posted by karthik.muthukr... on 20 Jan, 2013 01:08 PM

    

    Steve, yes, I am fine, all set, thanks for checking with me. please go
    ahead and close the discussion.

    Karthik

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13. Support Staff 13 Posted by Steve on 20 Jan, 2013 01:10 PM

    

    Great. Thanks for the fast reply. Closing.

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14. Steve closed this discussion on 20 Jan, 2013 01:10 PM.