Authentication Error unlocking folders

[notbobross]

Hi

I've just tried to unlock one of my folders and got Authentication Error. I tried a few times, restarted, nothing helped, So I thought "Ok I'll decrypt the folder and enter the password manually". On attempting to do so by selecting "Decrypt folder" I am left with a sparsebundle file and nothing on the clipboard and a text file purporting to contain the password which is completely empty.

I've tried putting the the sparsebundle back and renaming plus doing the thing with the backup databases but I seem to be getting nowhere. The sparsebundle itself was last modified on the 18th at 18:08 but the database backup file that seems to correspond to it (database3 2012-09-18 180908) gives me 'internal error decrypting database'

My guess is something went very wrong at 18:08 yesterday

any suggestions, or is all hope lost?

[zsolt]

Hello,
From your description, I'm not sure now if you have the problematic folder still present in the Espionage3 folder list.
If you do, then it will be shorter, if not then it will be longer to get it back...
In any case, please download this custom build http://www.taoeffect.com/other/Espionag ... 9-fix1.zip
If the folder in on the list, just quit espionage, rename the original application to Espionage-orig or similar, and put into Application folder the one you got from link above, launch it and try to unlock the folder...

If it is not on the list then we have to get the password for the disk image and then reimport it and this will be done by manipulating the databases which you seems already be aware of, so I hope it will be easy(er) to follow the steps below...


#############

- first go to your home folder/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.espionage3 folder, considering Library folder is hidden, hold down the option key, and select the "Go" from Finder's menu, and then Library from the list of places, then navigate to further folders using Finder, the other folders are not hidden...

- now quit Espionage

- in the folder mentioned above you will see a file called database3, rename it to database3-orig or something like that.
- you will see a folder named Backup, inside you will find database3 file backups, take one recent, which is dated before the incident, and copy it into parent folder, i.e into home folder/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.espionage3 and rename it into database3
- what we did, we switched Espionage to use an older copy of the database, which should still have the missing folder present
- now start version of Espionage you downloaded from the link I sent you
- if all fine, then you should see the folder again in the list. If you do not, then try an older version of database3 backup
- once you have the folder in the list, click on small i near the folder name, and then on copy password button
- open a text doc and paste it, if it is not empty password then we are on a good way

- from here there are two ways to go
I start with shorter, but in case it does not work, I will provide you with longer too
- put the disk image from your desktop into a folder where you want to keep it (by default all the images are in home folder/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.espionage3/Data, and if you add a new folder to Espionage in the future, it will be placed there)
- now drag the disk image onto Espionage window, I suppose it will offer you to import it, asking for password and mount point
- copy the password from the text doc, and paste it as password,
- and for the mount point select one folder which is different then the original (as the original entry in the database will use the original folder as mountpoint so will not allow to use it for a "new" disk image too), just create one empty folder in a place you want to access the protected folder. Then select in Espionage this folder as mount point.
- click OK, and this should be it

#############

In case this does not work, then we go the other way:
- once you copied the password, quit espionage
- delete the database3 file and rename the database3-orig back to database3
- start Espionage, the folder should be missing again
- now drag the disk image onto Espionage
- enter the password and select the mountpoint (you can now use the original one as no other Espionage folder is using it)
- click OK, and you should be done...

I know it is a long read, but it is not that complicated. If you find it to challenging, let me know and we can make a remote session where we do it together.

Let me know how it went.

Rgds
Zsolt

[notbobross]

Hi

Thanks for your response. Bizarrely, having left it in god-knows-what-state last night I retried it this morning after a reboot and was amazed to find that it unlocked with no problems. Thanks for your advice though, I will bare it in mind should I encounter the problem again.

[zsolt]

Yes, it happens sometimes.
I would just advise you that you copy out the passwords for each protected folder, by going clicking onto "i" and then on copy password button.
Store the passwords in some safe place like 1Password or other password manager.
In case things go wrong, you have an easy(er) way out.

Rgds
Zsolt

[notbobross]

Thank you, sounds like good advice.