DB encryption fails

[henry]

Binary package hint: almanah

on Karmic Koala with latest patches, I get this error msg on the console and diary.db.encrypted stays empty:

$ almanah

** (almanah:15682): WARNING **: Error encrypting database: Bad passphrase

** (almanah:15682): WARNING **: Error encrypting database: The encrypted database is empty. The plain database file has been left undeleted as backup.

Where can I enter the password? I generated a new gpg key, as selecting an existing key didn't work either.

Thanks,
henry

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi Henry, have you installed seahorse?

Thanks for your report!

[henry (hzmisc)]

Angel,

Yes, it is installed. No dependency issues here during installation:

$ dpkg -l seahorse almanah
Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Inst/Cfg-files/Unpacked/Failed-cfg/Half-inst/trig-aWait/Trig-pend
|/ Err?=(none)/Reinst-required (Status,Err: uppercase=bad)
||/ Name Version Description
+++-==============-==============-============================================
ii almanah 0.6.1-1 application to ease management of a personal
ii seahorse 2.28.1-0ubuntu GNOME front end for GnuPG

regards,
henry

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi Henry, Can you paste here the output of this command in terminal?

$ ps auxww | grep -i seahorse-agent | grep -v grep

Regards,

[henry (hzmisc)]

Angel,

turns out there is no seahorse-agent running. The daemon is, though:

hze@srv95:~/.local/share$ ps auxww | grep -i seahorse | grep -v grep
hze 2430 0.0 0.3 22932 6664 ? Ss Jan19 0:01 seahorse-daemon

and if I start seahorse, I get the GUI, no problem.

Still when I restart almanah and exit from it, I get:

** (almanah:9013): WARNING **: Error encrypting database: Bad passphrase

** (almanah:9013): WARNING **: Error encrypting database: The encrypted database is empty. The plain database file has been left undeleted as backup.

Only it never asks me for a password.
I created a new gpg key pair and selected in in preferences.

In case it's relevant: The "Definitions" window is empty and I can't get any Definitions (it's greyed out). And I couldn't even figure out what those definitions are...

All the best,
henry

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi Henry, sincerely I don't know what cause this problem, I think the problem is you haven't running the seahorse-agent. Can you activate it in gnome preferences? The seahorse-agent is asking password responsible. See my command output:

angel@goa:~$ ps auxww | grep -i seahorse-agent | grep -v grep
angel 2829 0.0 0.0 6416 456 ? Ss 15:04 0:00 /usr/bin/ssh-agent /usr/bin/gpg-agent --daemon --sh --write-env-file=/home/angel/.gnupg/gpg-agent-info-goa /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/seahorse-agent --execute gnome-session
angel 2830 0.0 0.1 4652 888 ? Ss 15:04 0:00 /usr/bin/gpg-agent --daemon --sh --write-env-file=/home/angel/.gnupg/gpg-agent-info-goa /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/seahorse-agent --execute gnome-session
angel 2833 0.0 0.1 4408 780 ? S 15:04 0:00 /usr/bin/dbus-launch --exit-with-session /usr/bin/seahorse-agent --execute gnome-session
angel 2844 0.0 0.8 28012 6484 ? Ss 15:04 0:00 /usr/bin/seahorse-agent --execute gnome-session

Could you try to activate it?

Sorry for my English, and thanks four your reports and interest.

Regards.

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi Henry, so I think the bug is not related to packaging, I report your bug to upstream software developer, you can see it at:

https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=607964

Thanks, Regards

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi Henry, please read the upstream author bug comments at:

- https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=607964

Regards,

[henry (hzmisc)]

Finally found the missing part to encrypt DB in Almanah:

we need the seahorse-plugins package as well as seahorse
after installing it, logout and login again to start the seahorse-agent in the login shell env

This should be added as a dependency in the Ubuntu repo.

Also, the multiple choice pull down list for the gpg key selection should be made wider or resizeable:
I have 10 different gpg keys in my key-ring (gathered over many years) and can barely see
which one is which in the selection window, as they all start with my name, hence look the same.

And "Definitions" seems to be a work in progress? At least it's greyed out here.

Otherwise it's a simple and light app that does one thing, and it does that quite well!

Congrats,
henry

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi Henry, I tried in Debian Sid without seahorse-plugins and almanah works fine for me. I think the problem is seahorse-agent and not seahorse-plugins. Tomorrow I will probe in Ubuntu Karmic.

Thanks for your interest.

[henry (hzmisc)]

Well, the Ubuntu pkg list says:

on Ubuntu 8.04.3 LTS:
hze@srv15:~$ dpkg -L seahorse | grep agent
/usr/share/seahorse/glade/seahorse-agent-cache.glade
/usr/share/man/man1/seahorse-agent.1.gz
/usr/bin/seahorse-agent

whereas on Ubuntu 9.10 it's not there anymore, but in :

hze@srv95:~$ dpkg -L seahorse-plugins | grep agent
/usr/share/seahorse-plugins/glade/seahorse-agent-cache.glade
/usr/share/man/man1/seahorse-agent.1.gz
/usr/bin/seahorse-agent

regards,
henry

[Angel Abad (angelabad)]

Hi henry, I tried in Debian Sid and in Ubuntu Karmic and Lucid without seahorse plugins and almanah work well for me, with encryption and without it. I tried it in my firends computers and it works. So I think it was an error in your computer. Sorry, but I can' t reproduce the errors so I will keep the bug as fixed.

If you think the bug affect more people and is important, please report it to http://bugs.debian.org. So I maintaint alamanh in Debian and it is imported to Ubuntu.

Thanks for your report and your interest!

[henry (hzmisc)]

Thanks for all your help!

Someone mentioned how to use definitions, as I had no idea what that button was for and it was always greyed out!

Makes more sense now. A minimal "Help" box under "Help" would help... no pun intended.

Thanks,
henry