[Enigmail] FAQ / Enigmail Gpg2 and "Missing passphrase" "No secret key" error

[Guillaume MULLER]

Hi,

If your FAQ, on the webpage:
https://www.enigmail.net/index.php/en/faq?view=category&id=11#faqLink_2

In the section "Resolving issues with GnuPG 2.x and gpg-agent"

You forgot to talk about an error I just encountered, following the switch from gpg1x to gpg2x: my drafts were automatically encrypted, but each time I tried to re-edit them, I faced a violet banner with the error:
Missing passphrase
gpg: decryption failed: No secret key

Thanks to a comment on the following webpage:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/91355/gnupg-decryption-failed-secret-key-not-available-error-from-gpg-on-windows#7974613
and some testing on a locally encrypted file, I finally managed to solve the problem: you have to do the export/import of the *secret* keys manually with:
gpg --export-secret-keys > seckeysfile
gpg2 --import seckeysfile
shred -n 100 seckeysfile

I'm not sure if I made a mistake when switching from gpg to gpg2, or if it is a bug in gpg2, or if there was a tool in enigmail to switch to gpg2, which forgot to export/import the secret keys, but I think it would save a lot of time to other people like me if you would mention the problem/solution in your FAQ!

Cheers,

[Ludwig Hügelschäfer]

On 01.09.16 14:42, Guillaume MULLER wrote:

(...)

Post by Guillaume MULLER
I'm not sure if I made a mistake when switching from gpg to gpg2, or
if it is a bug in gpg2, or if there was a tool in enigmail to switch
to gpg2, which forgot to export/import the secret keys, but I think
it would save a lot of time to other people like me if you would
mention the problem/solution in your FAQ!

gpg1.x and gpg2.x should be able to operate on the _same_ keyrings.
Which versions of gpg1.x and gpg2.x are you using exactly?

Ludwig

[Juan Miguel Navarro Martínez]

Post by Guillaume MULLER
I'm not sure if I made a mistake when switching from gpg to gpg2, or if it is a bug in gpg2, or if there was a tool in enigmail to switch to gpg2, which forgot to export/import the secret keys, but I think it would save a lot of time to other people like me if you would mention the problem/solution in your FAQ!

Versions of GnuPG modern branch (2.1.0 and later) use a different way to
store private keys, so not all cases where you use `gpg2` will have that
problem, if you have stable branch (2.0.x).

Although it would be a QoL thing for Enigmail to add that, it was
explained way back when 2.1.0 was released.

Hopefully more and more distros reprecate the 'gpg' and 'gpg2' package
mix, or follow Debian's way of having GnuPG 1.x as an optional package
called 'gnupg1' while having GnuPG >=2.1 as 'gpg'.