Windows
3.5.12
I have about 15 notes that were encrypted using Secure Notes, this was done about 3 months ago. Today I went to these notes, and when I attempted to decrypt a note, an info message says that the note is not encrypted. The only option I have is to encrypt the notes.
Any idea what is going on? Fortunately I have printed copies of the notes, but would prefer to not have to reenter the contents.
I am using Secure Notes 1.2.4.
Cheers, RR
You should be able to add the secure-note tag to each of the notes, to allow them to be decrypted
The notes do have the secure-notes tag.
As a test, today I created a new note, added the secure-notes tag, and have the same problem. I cannot decrypt, as Secure Note is telling me the note is not encrypted.
Here is the note as I now see it in Joplin (contents are short and not secret) -
{
"info": "This is an encrypted note, use Secure Notes plugin to decrypt.",
"version": "1.0.0",
"encryption": {
"KeySize": 256,
"AesMode": "AES-GCM"
},
"data": "qC7yIzUHcFlqMInX3hAs7s8PALAer9K8A1jWjNh7vTcyN73FkhdcE4qpoS4chUZMRUuMiHcOHG7M0H0bYpdhxg=="
}
Cheers, Randy
The tag is secure-note not secure-notes
Thank you for this.
I changed a tag to secure-note on one of my existing notes, same thing, says note is not encrypted.
I then created a new simple note, added the simple-note tag, encrypted the note, and again, cannot decrypt as Secure Note says the note is not encrypted.
I turned off all other extensions, restarted Joplin, same behavior.
Very strange............................
Cheers, Randy
Cheers, Randy
@RandyR54 Since the note contents are intact and you know your password, your data is safe. No, worries.
Without logs I can't say exactly why this is happening.
@mrjo118 Most probable guess would be isLocked variable is corrupted due to some kind of caching. We didn't work on it as v2.x is uses better approach.
@RandyR54 Export all your notes to .jex file and import it in some new computer with Joplin and secure notes plugin. I just checked your notes in my PC, it is working. The TAG is secure-notes in case if it is missing.
See:
Thanks for this.
If I have the encrypted notes (which I do), and I have the password used (which I do), how can I decrypt the notes? I saw a previous post about using ChatGPT, but I don't use AI stuff so wouldn't know how to start.
Is there a tool and a flow I could use?
Cheers, Randy
Just uninstall the plugin and install it again, that should clear any corrupt states or cache, And ensure the tag: secure-notes is present. If that doesn't work you may have to rest the Joplin.
Export all your notes [File > Export all > JEX], this will give you a single JEX file.
And delete C:\users\<username>\.config\joplin-desktop to Rest Joplin (Like Fresh install).
Then you can import back your exported JEX file [File > Import > JEX]. And by some chance if the tag is missing for you encrypted notes, please do add the tag: secure-notes.
Hopefully, this should get things back to normal. And from v2.x you won't face such problems.
I think resetting Joplin is an extreme recommendation, as they may have a lot of notes which takes a long time to resync. As a test, they could just create a new profile in Joplin and import a jex export of their notes there, just to try to recover the decrypted contents. If it works then they can extract the decrypted notes and put them back into their original profile
I’m having the exact same problem. None of my encrypted notes can be decrypted because the plugin reports “Note is not encrypted”, regardless of whether the secure-note tag is present. Some older encrypted notes from mid‑February still have the tag; newer ones from today do not. Manually adding the tag does not help. I’ve tried uninstalling and reinstalling the Secure Notes plugin with no change. Looking at the creation dates, I did not see this issue before 25 Feb, same as the OP. Do you have any suggestions what might be causing this?
@cipherswami Maybe you could release v2.2.4 as is? It should be “good enough” to release and would should fix these issues for people unable to decrypt their notes probably
Sure.
For now I actually found a hack for WYSIWYG bug as well. So, I'll release v2.x, @Bruno-INSS @RandyR54 and anyone facing this problem, please follow this steps:
secure-notes tag if missing.I will give it a try once v2.x is available.
Cheers, Randy
Secure Notes v2.2.6 is now out. Now, try to decrypt it using the new version.
If it still doesn't work please do raise an issue on github, I'll provide an alternate method do decrypt them.
And please do let us know what happened.
Hi cipherswami. Thank you so much for responding to the thread and for releasing Secure Notes v2.2.6 to help us out. This is much appreciated!
I’ve installed v2.2.6 now and if I encrypt notes with v2.2.6 then I can decrypt those without problems. However, v2.2.6 doesn’t allow me to decrypt notes that were previously encrypted with v1.0.0. It seems that it still doesn’t recognize them as encrypted notes. When I click Tools → Secure Notes → Toggle Note Lock, it offers to encrypt the note instead of decrypting it. Here’s a short video to illustrate the behaviour: Dropbox
I have created a GitHub issue and also have added the solution.
Please refer:
This is the ultimate solution beyond this even I'm help less. And once again do let us know if this worked.