Key is wrong or the file is damaged

[myth0s]

Hi,

This morning I tried to unlock KeePassX and I got this lovely error :
"Hash test failed.
The key is wrong or the file is damaged."

Searching on these forums, I saw that I first should try to revert my .kdp file. So I tried. Note that my .kdp file is in my Dropbox folder, so I can easily revert to older version.

However, that did not help.

So I then thought that I may got the wrong password (I don't open KeePassX that often, only for websites that I don't remember the password). After trying every passwords I use and some typo variations, I came to this conclusion : my .key file must be corrupted.

My .key file is on my USB key. I guess it could have been corrupted. But I do not have a backup for this file.

Anything I can do about this? Can I re-generate the key file if I know the database name and associated password??

[myth0s]

"Fixed"

After a few hours, I thought I may retry to open my most recent kdb file. So I used dropbox again to fetch my latest kdb file (the one that didn't want to open this morning).

Now it works. I'm not sure what was wrong in the first place.

Maybe it's a dropbox issue, or KeePass / KeePassX issue. I have not idea, but this freaked me out. I'm still debating wheter or not I should use this kind of software anymore. It showed me that, if for any reason (logical or not) it stops to work, you may very well be screwed :S

[Davepar]

Had a near panic in the same situation. I think something got messed up when I had my KeePass file open in Ubuntu (via KeePassX) and regular KeePass on Windows. I had to go back a few versions, so lost some recently added passwords.

Warning to others. Keep a backup if you're using Dropbox to synchronize.

[rasmusscholer]

Holy shit,

I have also had the same issue just now. This was really quite freaky -- tought I had gone senile or something, couldn't remember a password which I use essentially every day. Fortunately I could just go back a few versions in dropbox and recover a working kdb-file. Now I just wonder exactly how many logins I have lost...

Like others above I am also using dropbox to synchronize; using regular keepass on my windows box and keepassx on my office ubuntu desktop.

Something probably goes wrong when dropbox tries to synchronize changes -- does anyone knows if dropbox tries to do some kind of merging of two files that were both changed since last sync? I hope not -- If that was the case, then it could obvious screw up a lot of things, but then this would be an issue for a very great deal of files/applications with some kind of encryption.

I wonder if this also can happen if you are only using regular keepass? Or if it only happens if you are using the windows-keepass + linux-keepassx combo?


Up until now I really did appreciate this combo which was the best way I have yet come across to have my passwords when I need them.

[blobdot]

Be very careful when using such combos. The problem is that if you open the database on two different computers and the database is not locked it might get corrupted. Also, I've heard that dropbox is poor at two-way syncing so your database might get corrupted again. My personal advise would be... Keep your database on your computer and whenever you decide to use another one (trip, or something), just move it to Dropbox folder or use save database as... in KeePass and save it in your Dropbox folder. This is the only secure way. I think I will never keep my database constantly synced because of so many complaints. The problem is, I might forget to sync it, but hey - it's better than nothing.

[haidivolume]

My computer show this words too,"Hash test failed.The key is wrong or the file is damaged."I feel puzzle.