Key backup fails silently #24592
Labels
A-E2EE
A-E2EE-Key-Backup
O-Occasional
Affects or can be seen by some users regularly or most users rarely
S-Major
Severely degrades major functionality or product features, with no satisfactory workaround
T-Defect
X-Needs-Design
X-Needs-Product
More input needed from the Product team
Steps to reproduce
Expectation/thoughts are in the headers, the raw facts are in the numbered lists.
The story, part 1: Upon logout attempt, I get warned on losing message access and attempt to turn on backup.
Part 2: I assume that backup now worked/that backup already was there, since 0 keys needed to be restored, and expect to not see any warning anymore upon logout. But, I again receive the same warning
Part 3: I suspect the backup did not work and look for other settings to turn it on/export the relevant info.
Clicked on my profile and "All settings" > sidebar: "Security and Privacy" > section: Encryption
Read
and saw a button directly below: "Connect this session to Key Backup".
In the advanced section, it says:
Clicked that button.
Saw again the pop-message from step 5, and again interpret it as in title for "part 2".
Part 4: 3rd logout attempt with same warning, but this time I suspect the bug is in the warning, i.e. that it's always shown upon logout. Reasoning: In the settings, it said that if I connect the session to the key backup, I avoid losing the keys, and I did that (twice). Also, the advanced section suggests (10.) that the backup works fine. (or so I thought....)
(now: logged out)
Part 5: I discover that the key backup did, in fact, not work.
Therefore, the backup never worked, but that was never displayed in the pop-up message.
In conclusion, a silent failure.
Outcome
What did you expect?
If I click a button to connect the session to the key backup, and if the key backup is then unsuccessful, I expect that the resulting pop-up window tells me that the backup failed.
What happened instead?
With the two mentioned if-conditions being true, I instead received two signals that the backup works:
Moreover, the pop-up said "Successfully restored 0 keys" which may be understood as: It backed the keys up, and also attempted to restore them, which is unnecessary since they're in current use. So, of course, 0 keys are restored (no matter whether successfully so ;) ).
Operating system
macOS
Browser information
Firefox 109.0 (64-bit)
URL for webapp
app.element.io
Application version
Element version: 1.11.23 Olm version: 3.2.12
Homeserver
Synapse 1.77.0
Will you send logs?
No
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