Forums Bugs & issues Can't open existing Axcrypt files with latest version of Axcrypt Reply To: Can't open existing Axcrypt files with latest version of Axcrypt

#3389 Reply

Svante
Spectator

Hello Andy,

Apologies. We really need to continue working on the onboarding process for existing users. We thought it was so simple, and we beta tested for almost 6 months. We’ll improve and clarify the process, I promise! So sorry for the confusion.

In the meantime, here’s how it works:

AxCrypt 1 – Each and every file was encrypted entirely independently. AxCrypt 1 did have the option to ‘remember this password for encryption’, so while it was active you did not have to retype it every time you encrypted a new file.

AxCrypt 2 – Each and every file is still actually encrypted entirely independently with a password. But… We made the ‘remember this password for encryption’ feature mandatory, and associated each AxCrypt session with an e-mail and an online account, which happens to be the same as was used for update notifications for AxCrypt 1.

So, the typically confusing situation is that an existing AxCrypt 1 user upgrades to AxCrypt 2, and is asked for an e-mail, and if the e-mail was used to register the old AxCrypt, asked for the password to that account.

Now, it appears, most people do not remember the password used to register AxCrypt 1 a couple of years ago… ;-) And a lot of users think that the password requested is the “AxCrypt” password used to encrypt their files. This is confusing of course. We realize that now.

Here’s what you should do (until we improve this in the actual sign in/sign up) if you’re not asked to create a new AxCrypt ID, but just prompted for a password after entering the e-mail and your AxCrypt 1 file-password does not work:

1. Go to http://www.axcrypt.net, click the “sign in” menu, and on that page select the “Forgot password” link in the lower right.

2. Follow the instructions to reset the account (AxCrypt ID) password.

3. Set a good and strong password on the account (AxCrypt ID). This *can* but does not *need* to be the same as the old password you used for your files. It might be time to upgrade that password to something better anyway.

4. Ensure you have the latest (2.1.1398 or later) version of AxCrypt installed.

5. Start AxCrypt 2 and sign in with your new password.

6. Open your old AxCrypt 1-files. You’ll probably be prompted (again) for a password. This time it *is* your old AxCrypt 1-password!

7. If you followed step 4, you’ll be prompted to enable auto-conversion of your old files. This will cause them to be re-encrypted with AxCrypt 2, using your new AxCrypt ID-password as you open and use them.

Why did we do these changes?

Mostly because it happened every now and then that users encrypted new files but mistyped the password, and subsequently were unable to access them when they did type it correctly.

The new procedure (once you get past the conversion from 1 to 2 hurdle) is much less typing-error prone.

There are many other reasons as well, but this is one of the major ones.