My computer lost power while I had a vault unlocked. After restoring power I again unlocked the vault, but the contents were damaged. I tried to open a file, and the messages said, “Could not open …” pointing to the file. Yet, the file opened. However, while trying to edit and then save it, the effort failed. This was the same with several files. Creating new files also failed by not being able to save it to the vault.
Has this issue been addressed? At this point I cannot trust my data knowing that this failure is possible.
I also wonder what happens if a user tries to log out while a vault is open.
To be fair I should add this after some time I had to try to recover the data. I created another vault. With both vaults open I copied the damaged files from the whacked vault into the new one. At that point the files seemed to be all right. While the scheme worked for a simple file structure, It is unknown whether it will work for a complex one. Without testing we cannot tell.
I again tried another experiment. This time with a vault unlocked I gave the computer (Windows 10) the command to shut down. It did. After I restarted I tried the vault that was left unlocked. All the contents were damaged as when the power was lost. I copied them to a good open vault expecting them to be resurrected. Alas, none worked. So, giving the command to shut down the computer is apparently worse than losing power.
I realize that this is not a valid test in the software engineering sense. It is an anecdotal demonstration of a fault. I would like to know whether Cryptomator was tested by the developers in similar circumstances.
My experience:
I never close my vault before shutting down my pc.
The vault opens automatically on startup in the background and stays open.
My vault is nearly 50 GB with thousands of files of various types.
I use cryptomator since nearly a year now and never experienced a behavior you described. Not one single file was corrupted or damaged.
I tested it just now with a „hard“ shut down (pressing the power button until the PC is of) during open vault. No damaged files.
So I’m quite unsure what might cause the failure you describe.
Technically it is possible that files are damaged, if the shutdown occurs during write access to those individual files. Files already inside the vault will not be harmed, though.
I am using the free version on Windows 10. Are You? I have not found a way to leave a vault open before shutdown and let it open upon restart. By the way, having a vault open “automatically” is a bad idea if you want to protect your encrypted data. A PC is very easy to get into by hacking its password upon login. Then your data, no matter how good your Cryptomator password is, is made available to the hacker. But that was not the point of my query. I needed some help from people who might know why my vault was corrupted upon shutdown and logouot.
What you expect is fair directly under Windows OS. Alas, in this case all files were damaged.
I totally believe you that for whatever reason you’re not able to work on the original vault any longer. I can’t tell why it happens and what os hiccups or third party configurations might be involved. However:
This proves the files themselves are not damaged. Otherwise you would not have been able to read them any longer after dragging them out of the vault.
The encryption scheme is designed in a way that prevents access to one file to affect other files. Any access happens on a per-file basis; this is not a container format.