AxCrypt locks USB stick

[David]

If I encrypt or decrypt a file on a USB stick, I cannot eject it, as Windows always says it is in use. AxCrypt appears to keep hold of it after the operation. I’ve found this issue on two machines, a Windows 8 and a Windows 10. I’ve just had to wait a while and pull the stick out, hoping the writing to it is complete.

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello David,

I am not sure that it’s actually AxCrypt as such holding on to the USB drive. There are several mechanisms at work, one of them being Windows caching of data being written to a USB drive.

You can always try and really exit AxCrypt to see if it makes a difference. There are also various utilties and built-in windows functions to see just what program is locking a file or drive. Windows Resource Monitor and wholockme are two.

[David]

If I kill AxCrypt in the task manager, the drive unlocks and I can eject it. When the drive is locked after encrypting a file, Process Explorer (a free download utility) shows F:\ (the USB drive) in use by AxCrypt. The locking doesn’t always happen. A couple of times I decrypted a file and then could eject the drive, but other times I couldn’t. I haven’t figured out how to do one or the other reproducibly. Encrypting a file has always locked it so far. (This was all on the Windows 8 machine.)

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello David,

Do you by any chance use the Secured Folders feature on the USB drive? That will keep the drive locked.

In the meantime we’ve created and assigned an issue for this. You can follow progress here: https://bitbucket.org/axantum/axcrypt-net/issues/417/axcrypt-locks-usb-drive .

Thank you for reporting this!

[David]

No, it’s just a plain USB drive (Toshiba, 4GB). I tried a different plain one (Kingston, 16 GB) after copying an encrypted file to it, with similar results. The first time I could decrypt and eject, but then re-insert and encrypt, the drive was locked, then kill AxCrypt, eject, re-insert and encrypt, and the drive was locked.

 

[David]

Sorry, that last encrypt should be decrypt.

[Author]

Posts