Some Items Cannot Be Decrypted

Support
1

Operating system

Linux

Joplin version

3.4.12

Desktop version info

Joplin 3.4.12 (prod, linux)

Device: linux, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3230M CPU @ 2.60GHz
Client ID: 5fd7fabd2fe240d0857a1ad942e87bc2
Sync Version: 3
Profile Version: 48
Keychain Supported: No
Alternative instance ID: -

Revision: e9a9f68

Backup: 1.4.3
Freehand Drawing: 3.1.0

Sync target

Dropbox

What issue do you have?

I'm getting the "Some items cannot be decrypted" error for three items. Looking at the sync status page, these items seem to be attachments rather than notes - they are not found in local storage, and that suggests that they are the three items "Not downloaded" in the attachments section.

Additional information: It's not clear to me whether this is related, but I also have messages about three keys that need upgrading. I am unable to upgrade them - in two cases I get the error "Could not upgrade amster key: ccm: tag does not match", in one case the password is not accepted. I think that last error is legit, and comes from my getting in a muddle setting up an android client.

There is nothing that I can't replace in the attachments, so I'd be happy to nuke them to clear the error - but how can I do this?

Screenshots

Screenshot at 2025-09-14 07-22-31.png
Screenshot at 2025-09-14 07-22-31.png486×366 24.2 KB

2

A few more pieces of info: -

  • On Windows the log shows: -
    ”2025-09-01 17:12:36: Synchronizer: Sync: createLocal: remote exists but local does not: (Remote 9dda57213ca64ff5af78d9f524e4171c.md)
    2025-09-01 17:12:36: [warn] DecryptionWorker: error for: 043e06c4a50b466d918c9be9e98894ad (notes) OperationError: The operation failed for an operation-specific reason
    OperationError: The operation failed for an operation-specific reason
    at AESCipherJob.onDone (node:internal/crypto/util:437:19)”

  • Although there are no files matching these errors in the resource folders for the Windows and Linux desktop apps, on Android it seems that they are downloaded and a more explicit error message is shown: “Invalid Property Format”.

Screenshot_20250915-062625.Joplin
Screenshot_20250915-062625.Joplin1080×2388 262 KB

This has soaked up quite a bit of time - I’ve spent a lot of time digging, and have done the decrypt and re-sync exercise, all to no avail.

Would I be better off decrypting and exporting this profile and staring again with a new profile?

3

Just to close the loop on this, in the end I exported my data to .jex, and imported it into a new profile.

The new profile is configured to sync using WebDAV, and not only have I left those pesky (and distracting!) error messages behind, but the sync process is now much faster.

With 20/20 hindsight, doing this took next to no time, and unless I was actually missing data I would do this rather than try to troubleshoot next time around.

I hope that helps anyone else who finds themselves in this situation.

4

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