Save as draft fails because of encryption problem
After upgrading to ver 78, many people posted about inability to save a message as a draft. The error message provided little hint as to what was wrong, and the replies to those posts were no help. I've had that problem too. After recent updates, the problem persists, but the error message has changed and it now identifies the cause: TB is trying to encrypt the message, and the key it wants is not available.
I have 4 email accounts configured in TB, and this problem exists for 3 of them. For the account without the problem, the End-To-End Encryption settings has this 'OpenPGP': "Thunderbird doesn't have a personal OpenPGP key for <thisAccount>" and nothing else. For the others it has the same, but it also has "Your current configuration uses key ID 0x..." That ID refers to obsolete key that no longer exists. I never added this to my configuration, but somehow it got put there around the time of the upgrade to ver 78. For all accounts, there is an option to "Add Key..." but there seems to be no way to remove a key.
I don't need my draft messages to be encrypted, so I would like to change the configurations of the 3 errant accounts so as to remove the non-existent key. How can I do that? I can delete the key in the OpenPGP Key Manager, but that does not remove it from the account configuration.
This problem is not just annoying, it's downright devastating. I sometimes spend hours composing a message, so if something goes wrong it's important to be able to recover the saved draft in order to avoid starting over.
All Replies (3)
If you neither need nor want to use encryption you can select 'None' in your OpenPGP End-to-End Encryption settings for each account.
I never added this to my configuration, but somehow it got put there around the time of the upgrade to ver 78.
End-to-End Encryption settings don't happen magically without manual intervention. Perhaps you've been using Enigmail in the past, and you ended up with a failed migration from Enigmail to Thunderbird OpenPGP. I'm just guessing here.
"If you neither need nor want to use encryption you can select 'None' in your OpenPGP End-to-End Encryption settings for each account. "
Christ1, There is no such option in the End-to-End Encryption settings. The only things available in 'Account Settings' are an "Add Key" button and a button to open the key manager. I have already selected "Do not enable encryption by default.
The problem happens in connection with saving a draft message. I can find no documentation saying that encryption is ever used for drafts, and certainly no way to turn it off. I did not say that I never want to use encryption, just that I don't need it for draft messages.
"End-to-End Encryption settings don't happen magically without manual intervention. Perhaps you've been using Enigmail in the past, and you ended up with a failed migration from Enigmail to Thunderbird OpenPGP."
I was using Enigmail, but I never attempted a migration. The problem started happening by itself in connection with the upgrade to version 78. I didn't make any changes, but suddenly saving messages began failing and it continues to fail for 3 of my 4 accounts, as explained in my original post.
--Larry
There is a known problem where previously an OpenPGP key was available, but now the key is no longer usable, Thunderbird will still remember that the key was configured (and try to use it), and will not provide an option to disable the OpenPGP configuration (no "None" selection).
The good news is, this will be fixed in the next TB release 78.11.0, to be released on June 1. You'll then see a "None" selection, so that end-2end encryption can be turned off for the affected account. That will then also stop the errors when saving a draft.
Modified by christ1