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MacGPG2 #148: decryption failed with unknown error

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Richard Lee

07 Jun, 2015 05:21 PM

I set up Facebook to send me encrypted messages. It has been working fine until a few minutes ago, when suddenly it started failing. I've quit and restart my OSX Mail app, still doesn't work. I verified that my private key didn't somehow get deleted from my GPG keychain. It's still there. Unclear what's wrong.

GPG error message:
gpg: problem with the agent: No pinentry
gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID 88DC3C46, created 2013-06-15
"Richard Lee [email blocked]" gpg: public key decryption failed: Operation cancelled
gpg: decryption failed: No secret key

The only thing that is sort of suspicious is the key ID. The name and date are correct, but I think my key fingerprint is DDB5E343 (0AAF E6B1 D90F FDFA D7E2 B4F1 1BDD 3DC4 DDB5 E343). Perhaps Facebook had a catastrophic keychain failure?

1. 1 Posted by Richard Lee on 07 Jun, 2015 05:42 PM

   

   Hmm... previous email that I've received from Facebook and successfully decrypted is now also not readable. I think the problem is something local to GPTTools.

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2. 2 Posted by Richard Lee on 07 Jun, 2015 05:48 PM

   

   FWIW, I'm running OSX 10.10.3 and GPGMail 2.5b6

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3. 3 Posted by Richard Lee on 07 Jun, 2015 05:52 PM

   

   So, I've fixed this by running 'gpg-agent --daemon' on the command line. It seems there's a gpg background process that died and there's nothing configured to notice and start it up again. Shouldn't it be launched by launchd, or something?

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4. Support Staff 4 Posted by Steve on 11 Jun, 2015 10:25 PM

   

   Hi Richard,

   thanks for taking the time to report this problem. It is a known issue and I have connected this discussion with the existing ticket. We have yet to find out, what exactly is causing this, but assume it is related to sleep / wake behavior of the mac. Are you using sleep mode?

   The workaround is, to simply restart your mac and you should be back in working state.

   Are you able to trigger this issue reliably?

   We'll update this discussion as soon as we have news about this issue.

   All the best,
   steve

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5. Support Staff 5 Posted by Steve on 24 Jul, 2015 03:16 PM

   

   Hi Richard,

   Great news: this issue has been fixed.

   Could you please download and install our latest nightly build and see if the problem persists. That page also has sig and SHA1 to verify the download.

   All the best, steve

   Disclaimer: This is a development version which has not been thoroughly tested yet - bugs or crashes are to be expected. Thanks for helping us test.

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6. Steve closed this discussion on 24 Jul, 2015 03:16 PM.

7. Richard Lee re-opened this discussion on 27 Jul, 2015 05:20 PM

8. 6 Posted by Richard Lee on 27 Jul, 2015 05:20 PM

   

   I have only seen this problem very intermittently. I will try installing the nightly and will let you know if I see the problem again. How do I find out when there’s a new official build that I can use to replace the nightly? Will the nightly upgrade to a normal build automatically? I don’t want to stay on nightlies.

   Richard
   Key ID: 3BDED925D4F316B3

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9. Support Staff 7 Posted by Steve on 06 Aug, 2015 12:56 PM

   

   Hey Richard,

   in GPGPreferences set the channel to stable. Once a new stable is out, you will be notified and can upgrade from the nightly to the new stable.

   Kindly,
   steve

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10. Steve closed this discussion on 26 Nov, 2015 11:31 PM.