Recovery of sparse bundles

[iloving]

Hi!

I am trying to recover data from some sparse bundles but I don't know the passwords.  They are not attached to Espionage, but I am really hope that the necessary information is still in the database.

Can you advise me on how to proceed?

[greg]

Hi iloving,

I was looking through the forums and saw that this post was not answered. As Zsolt is away today I cannot ask him whether he answered your question elsewhere. If we fumbled and missed this thread, I sincerely apologize for the oversight, and we'll do our best to help you.

I am trying to recover data from some sparse bundles but I don't know the passwords.  They are not attached to Espionage, but I am really hope that the necessary information is still in the database.

Were they ever encrypted with Espionage? I'm guessing they were since otherwise it wouldn't make sense to ask here.

Espionage keeps backups of its database here:

/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/Backups

You can go to this location by:

• Opening the Finder
• Choosing Go to Folder... from the Go menu.
• Pasting this in and clicking Go: ~/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/Backups

Find the database backup that has a date on it from a time when the folder was encrypted by Espionage. If you don't see one that far back you can use Time Machine (if you use it) to go back in time to find the right database backup.

Once you've found the database file, make a copy of the current database file, which is located in the parent folder here:

/Users/[your username]/Library/Application Support/com.taoeffect.Espionage3/database3

Once you've done that:

• Quit Espionage
• Replace the database3 file with the chosen backup one (rename the backup so that it's called simply database3 and is in com.taoeffect.Espionage3 folder
• Open Espionage and unlock it with your master password (that one that will show the list of folders corresponding to the sparsebundle you'd like to unlock).
• Optional: [If Espionage complains about a "missing sparsebundle" for that folder, click the little 'i' icon, and then click popup next to the words Disk Image:. The top menu item should allow you to "re-attach" the folder to wherever you have the sparsebundle currently

Now try unlocking the folder using the toggle switch. If it gives an error in unlocking the folder (saying there was an error unlocking it), it might mean that the sparsebundle is corrupt.

If that's the case the only option left is to go into your backups (which you hopefully have via Time Machine), and recover an old version of the sparsebundle (re-attaching the folder to it if necessary as per above).

Hope that helps, let us know if you have any questions!

[Chappelle]

I am having the same issue, but for some reason, the backup files only go back one day (from today) and I've been using the trial version for one week.

Everything had been working fine and randomly, all my folders are missing inside Espionage. I can see my sparsebundles, but cannot access. Any ideas?

[zsolt]

Hello,

first of all, seeing the sparsebundles does not necessarily mean that you see the sparsebundles containing your data.
With later versions of Espionage, we introduced fake sparsebundle images for increased security, the number and size was chosen during initial setup, so no matter we see 2 or 10, these can still all be fake images.

Second, each sparsebundle disk images is given a random, Espionage generated, very strong password, and this one is stored in the encrypted database3 file, which you can unlock with your master password.

So without a database3 file, showing your folders, we cannot do anything, as we are missing the passwords to open the disk images directly.

As Greg said, what you can do is replace the current database3 file with an older one and relaunch Espionage, if the folders are there then we can move on.

If there are no database3 files showing your folders inside the backup folder then the only way to grab them is from your own personal backup if you have any.

So far we did not get any report saying that the folders go missing, so I'm not sure what went wrong in your case. Did you try to restore, or force remove the folders?

If the decryption failed, or you did force removal, then there should be a password text file on your desktop.

Take a look in your trash, once we encrypt the folder, we do not delete the original, instead we put it into the trash. If you did not empty the trash, then the folder might still be there.

Rgds
Zsolt

[cashezmoney8]

I believe I am having a similar issue. I have a folder on an external drive (formatted: EXFAT) that I use to be able to unlock on Espionage. However, now it is giving me an error "Failed to unlock 'folder name': Disk image for 'folder name' is not reachable. The file lotsofnumbersandletters.sparsebundle couldn't be opened because there is no such file. It should be here: /Users/homefolder/subfolder/subfolder2/lotsofnumberandletters.sparsebundle. I looked there and the subfolder2 has a Temp folder, but it's empty. Not sure what that means for me.

I've read this post looking for answers, but I'm not sure if this is the same problem and I don't want to screw things up further.

Should I find the database backup that has a date on it from a time when the folder was encrypted by Espionage and do the copy thing. Also, I'm not sure what the date is when I encrypted this folder. Is there any exact way to find that out.

Please help

[zsolt]

Hello, each encrypted folder has 3 pieces of information needed to work. The disk image, the disk image password and the mountpoint folder.
The mountpoint folder is least critical as it can be recreated easily.
The sparse bundle disk image and the password are however critical.
The password, name and location are all stored inside Encrypted Espionage database. The fact that the database shows the folder in the folder list, should mean that the database is OK. However, as Espionage tells you, the required disk image cannot be found in the recorded location.

So the first task will be to locate it, either on your current disks or in some backup if you have any.

To know what to look for, please click onto small "i" near the folder name, and in the folder option window the disk image drop down menu will tell you which disk image name is connected to that folder. Take a note about this name and this is what you have to find.

Once you found it, let me know.

I hope you find it,

Zsolt

[cashezmoney8]

Fortunately, I found the sparsebundle file. All is good.

Thanks for your help

[zsolt]

Perfect, I like happy endings :-)

Zsolt