#24 Not all files decrypted, no error shown, some ideas

[Anonymous]

Originally created by: FritzBox...@gmail.com

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. Not completely sure how to reproduce, if I find out, I will let you know. I thin kI can repdroduse with my file + key kombination, but of course I don't want this to be shared.

2. Setting was: Encrypt Files and Filenames , Googledrive, many files

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Automatic decryption of all files or if not then error message

What version of the product are you using? On what operating system?
cryptsync 1.05.168, Windows 8 x64 Pro, Googldedrive 1.7.4018.3496

Please provide any additional information below.

My problem short:
The prgoram did not unencrypt all encrypted files back but didnot show any error.

I think it was caused by a folder with 67 chars, encrypted it gets a looong string with 135 chars. I tryed to exit CryptSync and run again, did syn and exit, did run in background, nothing helped, it always shoed it would be all ok but it did not unencrypt everything. After I deleted this one long encrypted file and folder (html webpage + its folder) it was working again.

Another problem was, if I copy encrypted files in the encrypted folder, the files get not decrypted into the other folder.

So I had some ideas:

1. cryptsyn should get a button / cmd param named "Diagnose":

clicking it would:
- scan both configured directories, how many files each one has and log the differences if
- create two testfiles  (should not overwrite a possible existing file), one in the unencrypted one and let it encrypt to the other folder, check result, then create a testfile in unenrcypted folder and let it unencrypt
- check ntfs / needed permissions and do other checks ...

2. a button "force sync now" to un-/encrypt files in each folder now

3. you could keep some kind of "inventory" of all files (encrypted) and write some kind of file/folderbrowser ontop of this file, so one can browse his encrypted files and maybe extract selected files7folders to somewhere

4. and if you want to improve even further, you could implement the handling like "cloudfogger" (seems to be the same people behind teamviewer ), create a virtual drive as layer between showing all unencrypted filenames without the need to sync all files again and bind your special file extension so you can decrypt on the fly and open the right application like word for docx-files afterwards.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: tortoisesvn

CryptSync relies on the file date (last write time) to determine whether it needs to encrypt/decrypt a file. If the file date hasn't changed, it does nothing.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: FritzBox...@gmail.com

Good to know the basics that it relies on the filedate.

But I have to clarify this I think.

The problem was, that the INITIAL decryption of all encrypted files into a completely empty new folder stopped after some files.

So the situation was like this:

Folder A (Googledrive) contains encrypted files.

Folder B was now created as new folder on my drive

CryptSync: added new folder pair, and let it start "syncing" / decrypting my files into the new folder. This startet and sucessfully decrypted some files but was never finished the remaining files and no errormessage was shown.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: tortoisesvn

Tried to decrypt a folder with 3526 files in it (filenames encrypted as well). Did it three times, all worked just fine.

So it seems I can not reproduce this.

I leave the issue open - if you ever find out how to narrow down the source of the problem please add a comment here.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: tortoisesvn

As for your initial suggestions:

1) that's a good idea. I'll implement something like this.
2) "force sync now" is already done: start CryptSync, doubleclick on the tray icon to bring up the dialog, then click on "sync and exit".
3) Not sure how that would be an improvement, but I'll keep it in mind.
4) a virtual drive requires a file system driver. Since those run in kernel space, not user space, a bug in there will cause a BSOD, not just an app crash. That's why I won't go that way. I like to keep things simple and safe.

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: FritzBox...@gmail.com

3) (Inventory) Not sure how that would be an improvement, but I'll keep it in mind.
Once I needed only some special files and don't wanted to sync all 5GB to access them.
Think about mobile devices, the advantage is that you use a common used program 7zip for it and so you are always able to decrypt your files if you know the password and don't need a special program that may not be ported to for example andorid.
So if you need a single folder / file you don't need to sync all files to your mobile device to be able to find it and use it.

I call this an "improvement" :)

4) a virtual drive requires a file system driver. Since those run in kernel space, not user space, a bug in there will cause a BSOD, not just an app crash. That's why I won't go that way. I like to keep things simple and safe.

I fully understand your point here and agree that the kernel space is a bit out of scope.

But it should be possible to do all this in userspace as "Shell Namespace Extension".

Some usefull links:

"Flicker Drive" as Shell Namespace Extension with full source code
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/flickrdrive.htm

as mentioned here:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8438066/writing-namespace-extensions-with-windows-7-integration

Maybe once you don't know what to do else, you want to play with it :)

[Anonymous]

Originally posted by: tortoisesvn

Most applications don't work with virtual files, so the shell namespace extension would be mostly useless.