Corrupt Espionage Database Error

This situation is extremely rare, but it can happen, so I'm placing instructions here on how to recover from it if you get an error message that says: "Espionage cannot read its database file, it may have been corrupted."

There are two ways we can fix this, either by getting a working copy of the database as the error message suggests, or by resetting Espionage.

Method 1: Getting a copy of the database from backups

  1. Open the Terminal application (use Spotlight to locate it or find it in /Applications/Utilities/Terminal)
  2. Copy and paste the following line into it, and then press enter:
    launchctl remove com.taoeffect.EspionageHelper & kill -9 `ps ax | grep EspionageHelper | grep -v grep | awk '{print $1}'`
  3. The helper should quit, do not open any encrypted apps at this point.
  4. Open this folder:
    /Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/Espionage/Backups
  5. Locate the most recent copy of the file beginning with "database". Its filename will tell you when it was backed up, and how many folders were in it at the time. Pick the one that sounds right.
  6. Trash this file:
    /Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/Espionage/database
  7. Move the most recently copied backup of the database file that you found in step #2 into the Espionage folder (where the database file you just trashed was)
  8. Rename it to just "database" (no quotes)

Now run Espionage, it should relaunch the helper and you should not get the database error.

Method 2: Reset Espionage

If method #1 doesn't work for whatever reason, try resetting Espionage using these instructions:

http://www.taoeffect.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=99#p229


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