Can only see messages on one device

Mutual Help
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21

Okay, this is really puzzling. Your ability to decrypt a message should not depend on whether the device was turned on when it was sent! Your device should not even know when a mail was sent until it downloads it from the server and reads the metadata (and it could totally download it a month after it was sent, that is normal).

It would be odd if this was a server problem, because you’d think someone else would have noticed it. You could add a profile with another server to check, but it’s a longshot.

Asking if the system clocks on both devices are correctly set is a bit of a longshot.

The most rational reason for the non-reception is that both devices are deleting mails from the server when they download them, even though you told them not to do that in the GUI. This explaination does not explain the undecrypted messages. Could they be overwriting the downloafed messages with corrupted versions? But that would imply a very odd design. Are all the messages that are undecrypted on one device decryped on the other?

Do you have a third device you could install to? This would let us see what is on the server.

22

Ouch. On a closer look. The account on test run, in “Delete messages from the server” only has two options: Automatic and “at once after Download”.

It is on Automatic. I see no other option!

Are all the messages that are undecrypted on one device decryped on the other?

I am now looking backwards …

With the testrun account:

Some I saw on computer that they existed, unencrypted. I didn’t even see they existed on mobile.

Some I saw decrypted in mobile, encrypted and unable to read on computer. Some the other way round.

Some times, the message I sent using my computer, I couldn’t see using my mobile.

With my old email address – using deltachat and in the same encrypted group, I have a much smaller ‘sample’ as I only logged in with it much later, to see if things improved… they seemed to. I see the same messages, all decrypted

Do you have a third device you could install to? This would let us see what is on the server.

Not right now. I may have in 4 weeks time

I am having similar problems with a one-to-one chat , both of us are using nine.testrun addresses as we are trying to introduce people to deltachat and it’s easier to just sign up with the mobile… I guess what you said explains it: if I only have one device on, the other doesn’t get the messages as the first one will delete them from the server. And ‘leave on server’ is not an option on computer, not an option on mobile.

This last chat I am talking about ,one-to-one with another testrun address: I have my phone on silence, mostly. Deltachat is downloading messages to my mobile phone. Whithout looking at it, I go to my computer, check deltachat there and there is nothing. Iu have to check mobile phone to see that there are still messages waiting for me to read.

Then I manage to have both on and still, some messages I find that they arrive randomly, either to computer or to phone, but not to both, which should be happening since both are online at the same time

I find this completely unworkable. I need messages in both. I can kind of work around this checking both mobile and computer at the same time, but it wouldn’t be if I had lots of chats. Really frustrating.

23

This here:

It seems in the case of nine.testrun it means ‘immediate’

24

“Automatic” means “leave mails on the server until the server automatically deletes them”. It isn’t very clear. Testrun does not delete immediately; I think their policy says 30days.

You will see messages sent from one client on the other only if you send them to yourself, but I think that is the default; I’m not even sure you can turn it off, if you’ve added a second device.

I think it is possible that you did not use the “Add second device” route, but maybe installed Deltachat on both devices without them knowing about each other, and added your external account to both clients, but created two different chatmail accounts with the same profile name, one on each device. Can you check the actual e-mail address used by each testrun.org account? The group has a list of contacts: could you check which/how many of your accounts are listed?

25

“Automatic” means “leave mails on the server until the server automatically deletes them”. It isn’t very clear. Testrun does not delete immediately; I think their policy says 30days.

I was offering this as a possible explanation because we have no other.

You will see messages sent from one client on the other only if you send them to yourself, but I think that is the default; I’m not even sure you can turn it off, if you’ve added a second device.

This would be useful to check if it was only the messages I send to a group that I don’t see on my other device.

I think it is possible that you did not use the “Add second device” route,

I did use the add second device route

Can you check the actual e-mail address used by each testrun.org account?

Same email address on nine.testrun.org

The group has a list of contacts: could you check which/how many of your accounts are listed?

Just the only one

26

Well, that comprehensively shoots down that theory. :slight_smile:

Would it upset you to lose your chat history, or older chat history?

27

I think their policy used to be 30 days (or maybe longer) but at some point this was silently changed to 20 days. I’m not sure why the change was made but @r10s gave the cryptic answer:

But because I’m not a law expert, I don’t understand why 20 days is any different to 30 days regarding GDPR and I’d love to get some clarification for this.

This is very puzzling. Do both your devices show that you have the same fingerprint?

Not if your device is aware of a possible second device!

Maybe if you make a backup and then redo the addition of the second device, this could solve the issue? But then we might never know what caused the problem.

28

I did that when I couldn’t decrypt a single message, it solved that but the problems explained in my first message here remained

29

Yes, same fingerprint

30

Did you add any contacts before re-adding the second device?

Would you be willing to make another account, maybe on a different Chatmail server (not Testrun), and see how it acts? Add it to the group as well, I mean, and see what messages it receives and decrypts.

I’m sorry if I’m being exasperating, I’m just perplexed, not trying to be critical of you or anything silly. :thinking:

31

Messages from Protonmail and Tuta should be decrypted correctly if encrypted to your key and use MIME PGP. If they use inline PGP, you will see PGP payload as a text message, but not the decryption failure error.

32

Sorry, I see that what the FAQ says is in fact that one cannot send encrypted messages to these webmail providers using Deltachat. I misremembered.