encrypted files showing up un-encrypted in C:\users

[John Little]

I installed Axcrypt a few days ago and encrypted some photos, which I stored on the desktop in a folder. Later I found them at C:\users\J\AppData\Local\AxCrypt\; each photo was in a separate folder, which had a name like “snuvkp2s,” and when I double-clicked the folders (thinking I would open them to see what was in them) the photos opened up. I was signed out of AxCrypt, and tested to be sure I was.

Why are these photos, which I encrypted, showing up unencrypted in a folder labeled AxCrypt?

Thanks

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello,

This is caused by not instructing AxCrypt to clean up these temporary copies. This is indicated by AxCrypt enabling the red broom icon:

When you click that it’ll clean up. In most situations, AxCrypt will clean this automatically but in some cases it can’t determine if it can do so safely, then you decide by clicking that icon.

[John Little]

How does it know where they are?

[John Little]

That icon is greyed out. Clicking it doesn’t do any good.

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello John!

In the main window, there’s a tab named ‘Recent Files’. This is a list of files that you’ve worked with recently. This list is persisted to a file, and that’s also where it’s recorded where and if a file is open that needs to be cleaned.

The icon is only red when there’s  a need to clean something. As I said, mostly it’ll do it automatically.

You do need to be signed in also for the icon to be active, since it may need to re-encrypt modified files and it can’t do that if you’re not signed in.

[John Little]

I guess I’m not understanding something. The “recent files” tab has only 2 items even though I’ve worked with several dozen files in the last couple days. And I’ve never seen that icon be red, whether I’m signed in or not.

I guess the bottom line is I’ve found about 10 unencrypted files sitting in Windows and AxCrypt hasn’t cleaned them up automatically nor prompted me to do it manually. That doesn’t make me feel confident.

[John Little]

I was able to make the icon appear red: When I “open” (not decrypt) a file, if the main window is open, then the icon is red until I close the file. But the main window doesn’t automatically open when I open a file so there’s no way to see the red icon. Also, I still don’t see why all those files are un-encrypted in the C:\Users… folder.

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello John,

The files that go into the “Recent” tab are the only ones that are temporarily decrypted to %localappdata%\AxCrypt. These are only files that are “opened” – i.e. not decrypted manually, but opened, viewed while remaining encrypted (or updated if you’ve edited the file). Files that you for example decrypt using the AxCrypt Windows Explorer context menu right click | AxCrypt | Decrypt do not go there, nor are they temporarily or in any other way decrypted to the %localappdata%\AxCrypt subfolders.

The icon will become red for the duration that you are signed in and AxCrypt has a record of any file being decrypted temporarily to %localappdata%\AxCrypt.

If you could please email the text files you find in %localappdata%\AxCrypt to support att axcrypt dott net, we’ll take a look at them and see if we can determine what has happened. To what’s in them, just open them with notepad – they are just regular text files.

[John Little]

Actually, the files that were in the \AxCrypt folder were photos, not text files. As soon as I double-clicked the folders they were in, they were displayed. I can’t send them to you for the same reason that I encrypted them: People don’t want them seen. :)

I have done some tests by viewing photos while they were still encrypted, and I do see that they show up in the \AxCrypt folder and the icon does turn red, then when I close the photo it disappears from the \AxCrypt folder and the icon turns gray. So that looks good.

But it still concerns me that all those photos were viewable in \AxCrypt after all of them were closed and encrypted in their actual desktop folder. When I first installed AxCrypt, I was doing a lot of rearranging and organizing files and folders (and playing with AxCrypt to get familiar with it) so I can’t duplicate all of the actions I took at that time. I just know that when I found all those photos viewable in the \Axcrypt folder, I was signed out of AxCrypt, and all the photos were encrypted in their folder and not open anywhere else. (And just to be clear, they remained viewable until I deleted them a few hours ago. Nothing I’ve done with AxCrypt since I discovered them has affected them.)

 

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello John,

I’m sorry, I was not clear enough. Of course I don’t want you to send any real content files! No, what I meant was the configuration text files that are located in %localappdata%\AxCrypt (this is above the ‘randomly’ named folders where you saw the decrypted images).

These files are named ‘FileSystemState.txt’, ‘ReportSnapshot.txt’, ‘UserAccounts.txt’, ‘UserPublicKeys.txt’ and ‘UserSettings.txt’.

Once again – the only time that AxCrypt creates decrypted in ‘random’ folders below %localappdata%\AxCrypt (where you found them) is when you double-click an AxCrypt file to open it directly.

This can in turn lead to another situation – if you *edit* the files after this type of open, *and* do a ‘Save As’, you may inadvertently be saving new copies to the temporary folder. These may then be left around, and it’s a known issue for this very special case.

I’m guessing the files in question were leftovers from your ‘playing around’ time. Perhaps you cleared all settings, or reinstalled AxCrypt or did something similar while they were there. In this case, yes, AxCrypt will lose track of them. I’ve added an issue to handle this situation also. You can follow progress here: https://bitbucket.org/axantum/axcrypt-net/issues/214/scan-temp-folder-for-unknown-files-during .

[John Little]

Okay, I’ve sent the files you requested.

Any of the possibilities you suggested (editing files, saving them, reinstalling AxCrypt) are realistic for that time period.

Thanks again.

[John Little]

I’ve spent some time playing with this problem and I believe I’ve found 2 things that are significant. What I’m doing is simply opening (not decrypting) a photo that I previously encrypted. It doesn’t seem to matter whether I open it by double-clicking or by right-clicking and choosing AxCrypt>open.

1) Sometimes the photo opens twice. (Two separate windows with the photo in each window.) When that happens, there are 2 entries in the \Axcrypt folder under C:\Users. Weird but not so much of a problem since both the entries in the \AxCrypt folder go away when I close the photos.

2) But sometimes the photo opens only once, as it should, but there are two entries in the \AxCrypt folder, both containing the same photo. When I close the photo, only one of the entries in the \Axcrypt folder goes away!

Most of the time things work as they should, but occasionally I get this, and I think it would explain what happened to me.

[SvanteSpectator]

Hello John,

Thank you for working with us to determine the cause of this behavior.

As you noted, there is no difference in double-clicking or right-click AxCrypt | Open. That is expected.

You seem to have found something when you say that it sometimes opens twice. We’ll have to stress test that and see if we can reproduce it.

I did notice though that you’re not running the latest version of AxCrypt. Please always ensure that are running the latest and greated, especially when testing things out.

May I ask what version of Windows you’re using, and also what viewer you are using for pictures?

[John Little]

I’m using Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 and my default picture viewer is Irfanview.

There is actually a reason I’m not using the newest version. When I installed the one I’m on now it didn’t make any visible  changes to my machine. But when I downloaded the new one and installed it my screen went totally black with just a little trace of some kind of window in the bottom left. There was nothing to click on and the ESC key did nothing so I had to power off the machine. When it came back up the new version of AxCrypt was installed but there were cosmetic changes to my desktop: the taskbar was sort of translucent blue instead of black, my “open desktop” button on the far right had shrunk to half its previous size, and there was something else that I can’t remember. Uninstalling AxCrypt didn’t reverse those changes so I did a System Restore to before the installation. It fixed everything but the size of the “open desktop” button. Later I tried again to install the new version and the same things happened so I went back to the previous version, the one I’m running now. Everything looks the way I like it to be but the “open desktop” button has stayed tiny.

[SvanteSpectator]

Ok,

Thanks for all the info.

Actually, what you’re saying about the install of the latest version makes me think that there is a problem is with your machine, possibly in combination with some problem with AxCrypt.

There is really no way that the AxCrypt installer could do remotely what you describe, unless something in your system is severely broken. There is also absolutely no difference whatsoever between the 2.1.1460 and 2.1.1464 installers, only very minor differences to the actual executable being installed.

You’re also on a rather old system, with a lot of history presumably (unless you happened to install Windows 7 recently of course). You might not by any chance be using some kind of Windows Explorer replacement or similar software as well?

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