Dead device means no chat access?

Services Librem One
1

My tablet died recently. It was the only computer I ever used for Librem Chat. When I got a new tablet and installed Librem Chat, I see all the rooms I was in, but the messages in the room all look like this:

** Unable to decrypt: The sender's device has not sent us the keys for this message. **
Re-request encryption keys from your other devices.

Is there a way for me to get access to past history? Even some new messages do not appear to be decryptable (although others in 1-to-1 rooms are).

Thanks for any help you can offer!

2

It may help to say whether it was an Android tablet or an iOS tablet.

Did you export the Librem Chat encryption keys from the now dead tablet? (I don’t know how to do this.)

3

If you did not previously exported your Encryption Keys to a backup then this is not possible to recover the previous history.

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4

Thanks for the replies. Can you say how to export/backup the keys? My tablet is running ipadOS. If I had known to back up they keys before, I would have…

5

Answering my own question: To export keys, tap Settings (the gear icon at the top left) and scroll to the bottom of the settings. There will be a link in the “Cryptography” section you can tap marked “Export Keys.” Exporting them allows you to e-mail them or send them to another iOS app (one that can encrypt the text before sending it over any public infrastructure would be advised, since these are private keys).

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6

One follow-up question: in at least one room, new messages do not appear to be decryptable. Is there something I need to do?

7

Possibly this should be better highlighted for new users of the app?

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8

I guess the part that confused me was that when I set up the room, there was a setting titled “Who can read history?” and I set it to “Members only (since the point in time of setting this option).” How can this work without also providing access to the history to existing users who switch devices?