[1.6.x] Downgrade to 1.5.x

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Hello Community,

With Cryptomator 1.6.x, the Windows version has a new OS requirement, i.e., Windows 10 Version 1803. If you

  • are using Cryptomator on different Windows OSs,
  • at least one of the OSs is not supported, and
  • you already upgraded your vaults with Cryptomator 1.6.x,

you are not able to access your encrypted data on the unsupported systems (using an older Cryptomator version).

This article describes a workaround to gain access also on unsupported systems, but it requires changes on every Desktop system.

Instead of applying this workaround, we encourage you to upgrade your Windows OS to a supported one. The minimum required version for running the app still recieves free security updates.

The Problem

You are running an unsupported Windows OS and want to open a vault, which is already upgraded to Vault Format 8, but Cryptomator 1.5.x refuses to do so.

The Reason

A vault format upgrade can change the vault structure in a way, which older Cryptomator versions won’t be able to understand. Instead of unlocking the vault and throwing afterwards a lot of errors, each Desktop app version can only unlock a vault up to a certain format.

Solution/Workaround

Fortunately, the last format upgrade didn’t change a lot and you are able to undo the upgrade.

:exclamation: Keep in mind, that once you applied the below format downgrade, you also need to downgrade the Desktop app to the last 1.5.x version on all systems you are using the vault. :exclamation:

Open the vault storage location, and perform the following steps:

  1. Remove app version 1.6.x and install the latest 1.5.x version.
  2. Create a copy of the current masterkey.cryptomator file.
  3. Open all masterkey.cryptomator.XXXXXXXX.bkup files with a text editor.
  4. Close those, where the version property is not set to 7.
  5. For all open files left, note down the XXX... number of the bkup file.
  6. Close all remaining files.
  7. Open the app.
  8. Find the correct bkup file by going through the XXX... list. For each number:
    1. Rename the bkup file with that number into masterkey.cryptomator.
    2. Try to unlock the vault in the Cryptomator app.
    3. If the unlock was successful, stop. Otherwise try the next number.
  9. Sync the changes to your cloud storage.

On all other machines, also remove app version 1.6.x and use 1.5.x.

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