Menu

Can't decrypt incoming emails

2019-11-20
2019-12-05
  • Jochen Herrmann

    Jochen Herrmann - 2019-11-20

    Hi,

    today i tried to install enigmail on the PC of my wife. The installation runs without any errors. She is using Thunderbird 60.9.1, Gpg4win 3.1.10 and Enigmail 2.0.12.

    On my PC i use the same Versions of Thunderbird and Enigmail but this PC was installed a few months ago and run well. I'm not sure about the Gpg4win version.

    My wife can decrypt only her own messages but not mine. She got the message "Fehler - keon passender privater/geheimer Schlüssel zur Entschlüsselung gefunden". In the Enigmail "Schlüssel verwalten" i can see that my key was imported. When i start "Kleopatra" the same, both keys are there.

    What can i do to solve the problem?

    Kind regards Jochen

     
  • Patrick Brunschwig

    First of all, if you send an encrypted mail to your wife, you have to have her key. She doesn't need your key to decrypt a message.

    You can check on your Wife's PC with which keys the message is encrypted. You can do this via the button Details in the Enigmail header bar, and then click on Enigmail Security Info. This will tell you the key IDs used to encrypt the message. You have to make sure that the key ID of your wife is part of the list (the email address is not sufficient).

     
  • Jochen Herrmann

    Jochen Herrmann - 2019-11-21

    Thank you for your reply.

    Yes in my enigmail "Schlüssel verwalten" i can see her key as well as some keys of other people.
    When i open the Enigmail Security Info on her PC, my key is displayed.

    When i write a mail to other recipients enigmail set the encryption automatically but not when i write the mail to my wife. So my enigmail don't find the key from my wife matching to her e-mail address, right? So where can i handle this assignment?

     
  • Jochen Herrmann

    Jochen Herrmann - 2019-11-21

    One step forward:

    Now i understand why my wife can't decrypt the message. To solve the problem i added a rule to enigmail. But when i trie to send a mail to her i get the message: "Empfänger nicht gültig, nicht vertrauenswürdig oder nicht gefunden".

    As next step i singned her key but this didn't solve the problem. Annotation: the keys of the other recipients in the "Schlüsselverwaltung" are not signed but it works fine here.

     
  • Patrick Brunschwig

    Is the key (or one of the subkeys) expired?

     
  • Jochen Herrmann

    Jochen Herrmann - 2019-11-21

    No, the key is brand new, the other keys are older but not expired or withdraw.

     
  • Olav Seyfarth

    Olav Seyfarth - 2019-11-21

    @pbrunschwig, I'll take care (remote), Jochen will update findings here after that.

     
  • Jochen Herrmann

    Jochen Herrmann - 2019-11-26

    First a big thank you to Olav. He did a remote session and find the problem very fast.

    If someone have the same promlem please check this:

    • Go to your thunderbird profile folder. (usualy %appdata%\thunderbird\profile\xxxxxx.default)
    • find the file "pgprules.xml"
    • use a editor to open the file

    In my case there were 4 "autocrypt" entries in this file. But none of them was shown in the enigmail frontend. Olav deleted this 4 entries the only thing in this file is now <pgpRuleList></pgpRuleList>

    After that enigmail was able to find the key of the recipient and run well.

    Thank you again
    Kind regards Jochen

     
  • Benjamin

    Benjamin - 2019-12-04

    Hi Olav,

    I'm having the same problem as Jochen,

    I have updated Gnupg from an old version to a new version using Gpg4win (version 3.1.10) and after that i couldn t decrypt old messages nor new messages.

    "no matching secret key found to decrypt message"

    For all incoming emails, The Enigmail Security Info displays my the subkey id (usage Encrypt).

    I still have my private key in key management, it didn t change, it is not expiring and i'm able to send encrypted emails and my correspondents can decrypt them.

    I have follow Jochen instructions and deleted the autoencrypt rules in the thunderbird profile but that did not fix it.

    During the installation, Kleopatra was installed.

    Thunderbird version 68.3.0 (64-bit)
    Enigmail version 2.1.3

    I really need your help.

    Thank you in advance

     
  • Olav Seyfarth

    Olav Seyfarth - 2019-12-04

    You still can send encrypted messages and others can decrypt then, so your private key is fine. Jochen could not send out messages, so it seems to be a different issue.

    Did you have autocrypt entries?
    Is PEP/AutoCrypt disabled in settings?

     
  • Benjamin

    Benjamin - 2019-12-05

    Olva, thank you for your reply. Yes i had 4 entries in autocrypt, i have deleted them.

    Now i only have

    <pgpRuleList></pgpRuleList>
    

    Where should i check if PEP/AutoCrypt is disabled or not ?

    Thank you

     
  • Olav Seyfarth

    Olav Seyfarth - 2019-12-05

    Autocrypt is in Account Settings → OpenPGP → AutoCrypt. PEP is either on or off. If you have your own keys, it's most probably off. Did you get my PM?

     
  • Benjamin

    Benjamin - 2019-12-05

    Olav,

    I have the "Autocrypt Enable " checked.

    I don t see where is the PEP setting.

    I didn't receive your PM.

     

    Last edit: Benjamin 2019-12-05
  • Olav Seyfarth

    Olav Seyfarth - 2019-12-05

    I sent it through sf, please check junk folder or head to your sf profile and read it there.
    I recommend to disable Autocrypt until your issues are solved to eliminate it as possible cause.

     
  • Benjamin

    Benjamin - 2019-12-05

    It seems i don't have access to the private messages in my Sourceforge profile. Is it an option that needs to be activated ?

     
  • Benjamin

    Benjamin - 2019-12-05

    I can t access private messages, i don t understand why. I have sent you an email.

     

Log in to post a comment.

Want the latest updates on software, tech news, and AI?
Get latest updates about software, tech news, and AI from SourceForge directly in your inbox once a month.