Lost secret key due to update(?)

Software PureOS
1

None of my applications listing gpg keys have any, ie. Kleopatra and “Passwords and Keys” are empty.

I learned of this when Enigmail on Thunderbird failed suddenly this afternoon when I was unable to encrypt/sign an outgoing e-mail.

I do have my secret keys stored away in a private store, but I am hoping something got “unstitched” rather than the whole thing having been reset or deleted. Does anyone have a suggestion?

I am using PureOS with all updates. “Password and Keys” is 3.30.1.1 and Kleopatra is at 3.1.2.

2

Can I ask you to issue a
gpg -k
command on the command line? I ask this because gpg (and gpg2) use different key databases and they are not synced with “Passwords and Keys”.

3

Sorry, I should have appended that too. I think I have lost everything and will have to restore the key and certs. There is virtually nothing in the .gnupg directory. I was just hoping I missed something obvious.

gpg: enabled debug flags: memstat
gpg: keydb: handles=1 locks=0 parse=0 get=0
gpg:        build=0 update=0 insert=0 delete=0
gpg:        reset=1 found=0 not=1 cache=0 not=0
gpg: kid_not_found_cache: count=0 peak=0 flushes=0
gpg: sig_cache: total=0 cached=0 good=0 bad=0
gpg: random usage: poolsize=600 mixed=0 polls=0/0 added=0/0
          outmix=0 getlvl1=0/0 getlvl2=0/0
gpg: rndjent stat: collector=0x0000000000000000 calls=0 bytes=0
gpg: secmem usage: 0/65536 bytes in 0 blocks

I am not sure what happened, but Thunderbird/Enigmail worked a few days ago or so when I signed some mail containing links. Then, I updated. I do not see anything obvious in the logs, including the updates. But, if you have ideas…

I really appreciate your responding again. I know it is off subject, but I am tired of things breaking, having to debug, and then waiting seemingly forever for fixes and updates. I think I have spent more time in the last year debugging this Librem/PureOS platform than any I ever worked on as a developer. I really wanted to make this work.

1 Like
4

I don’t understand what happened on your system Wayne. I’ve never seen an update remove files from the user directory. Can you describe the update you did? Was it from the command line or from the GNOME Software app?

5

I always use the command line:

sudo apt update
sudo apt full-upgrade

I am not sure what happened either. Occurring after updating may have been a coincidence–hence the question mark in my subject–but things always seem to go awry for me then. As I said, I do not see anything in the logs to even hint at the failure.

It is interesting that some files were wiped from .gnupg. The pubring.kbx that is there now is newly generated when I retrieved a certifcate to experiment.

So far, I do not see anything suspicious running on the system.

Please do not think about this anymore. My backups are not convenient right now, but I’ll restore them when I can. If I do see something, I’ll post again.

Thanks.