Create article on how to fix OpenPGP secret key corruption due to a bug in Thunderbird versions BEFORE 115.1.1 or 102.15.0

[rtanglao]

• If users have not experienced this secret key corruption and they are running 115.1.1 or 102.15.0 or newer than they can ignore this article
• From Kai's mastodon thread
  1. To everyone who has experienced dataloss of OpenPGP secret keys with Thunderbird: We have identified a scenario, in which Thunderbird incorrectly treated the secret key storage as broken storage and attempted an automatic repair, thereby causing the corruption. This affected users who have a primary password set. The issue is described in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1835786 . In the following Mastodon comment, I will provide some guidance for recovering your keys. (1/4)
  2. If your secret OpenPGP keys are suddenly gone, then please identify your Thunderbird profile folder (refer to support articles that explain how to do so, if you cannot find it, please reply to me here). Look at the contents of your folder. Do you see files named "encrypted-openpgp-passphrase.txt.corrupt" and "secring.gpg.corrupt"? (Note the file ending ".corrupt") If yes, then possibly these files aren't corrupt, but contain a backup of your keys. (2/4)
  3. PLEASE IGNORE THIS COMMENT UNLESS YOU HAVE EXPERIENCED DATALOSS!!! Be careful, and apply at your own risk. (3/4) (1) Quit Thunderbird. (2) Create a backup directory. (3) Copy all files named secring. and encrypted-openpgp-passphrase. (with any file extension/ending) to the backup directory (4) Delete files encrypted-openpgp-passphrase.txt and secring.gpg (5) Rename encrypted-openpgp-passphrase.txt.corrupt to encrypted-openpgp-passphrase.txt (6) Rename secring.gpg.corrupt to secring.gpg
  4. Start Thunderbird, and check if your secret keys are available again. If they are, you have successfully recovered your keys. The bug that had caused this false treatment of your secret keys was fixed in Thunderbird versions 102.15.0 and 115.1.1 (4/4)

[kaie]

The text is intended for users who notice their OpenPGP Secret keys are completely gone (all of them).

If this happens, they can check whether they are affected by this specific issue. They are affected by this one, if their profile directory contains the two file with the ".corrupt" file ending, and the "last modified time" of those files looks identical, and that time seems to match the time when the keys disappeared.

If this is true, they can try the above steps to recover the files.

It's not correct to say that users running these newer versions can ignore this article. Users could have experienced the dataloss when they were running an older version, and now they might be already running a newer version, but the corruption might still be there.

These steps shouldn't be used if the user has already created or imported other/new secret keys, because these recovery steps erase the current set of OpenPGP secret keys.

[kaie]

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-thunderbird-openpgp-secret-key-dataloss/revision/270003