thunderbird / thunderbird/thunderbird-android

Thunderbird app doesn't find OpenKeychain, even though it's installed and working

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#9,224 8 comments 0 reactions 0 assignees View on GitHub

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status: answered unconfirmed
Dominant language
Kotlin
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Description

Checklist
  • I have used the search function to see if someone else has already submitted the same bug report.
  • I will describe the problem with as much detail as possible.
App

Thunderbird for Android

App version

11.0b2

Where did you get the app from?

F-Droid

Android version

13

Device model

Samsung Galaxy A51

Steps to reproduce
  1. Go to Settings in Thunderbird App (just as in K9-Mail, btw.).
  2. Activate the encryption for the specific mail account that you have a private key for.
  3. Thunderbird tells you that you need OpenKeychain and asks you to install it - even though it is installed and set up with all the keys needed.
  4. When following Thunderbird's advice, F-Droid openes and tells me that I have the most recent version of OpenKeychain installed.

Same issue as was reported a couple of weeks earlier and then closed without being solved just due to a lack of traffic on that topic.
Since the problem persists for me (I found that other bug report when looking for a solution), I opened this new bug report as the original author was told to do in case it persisted.

Expected behavior

Thunderbird should find + use the installed OpenKeychain app.

Actual behavior

see above.

Logs

No crash logs, since it doesn't crash.

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reproducing the Settings encryption flow on Android 13 with OpenKeychain installed, using the Thunderbird 11.0b2 details and Samsung Galaxy A51 report. Compare the behavior with issue #8995 and trace the OpenKeychain detection path from the account encryption setting. Done means Thunderbird recognizes and can use the installed OpenKeychain app instead of directing the user to install it.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
android, kotlin
Domain
mobile-dev, security
Issue type
Bug
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Quiet
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
42/100

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