Missing pw_cost key error after I updated encryption version to 004

[rdhyee]

After I updated the encryption version from 004 from 003 (https://standardnotes.org/help/security), I started to encounter the following exception when running standardnotes-fs:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/raymondyee/.pyenv/versions/myenv/bin/snfs", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/Users/raymondyee/C/src/my_conda_envs/myenv-3.8.5/.venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/standardnotes_fs/standardnotes_fs.py", line 205, in main
    keys = sn_api.gen_keys(password)
  File "/Users/raymondyee/C/src/my_conda_envs/myenv-3.8.5/.venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/standardnotes_fs/api.py", line 73, in gen_keys
    pw_cost = pw_info['pw_cost']
KeyError: 'pw_cost'

Has anyone else run into this problem? I've been running standardnotes-fs with few problems for over a year before today. I'll try to debug and fix this issue.

[tannercollin]

Unfortunately version 004 isn't supported by snfs :(

This goes for all the alternative SN clients. I don't think it's likely any of them will be updated to support 004 because of the amount of work involved.

[rdhyee]

@tannercollin Thanks for letting me know that it would a lot of work to get support in place for 004. I'm going to roll back to 003 because snfs is such an important part of my workflow!

[rdhyee]

@tannercollin Thank you so much for snfs. I'm going to close this issue because for the time being it sounds like the best thing I can do right now is roll back to 003 and live with that.

[tannercollin]

You're welcome!

I just fixed a bug and also added an error message if 004 is detected. Please upgrade snfs.

[tannercollin]

@mobitar is there any way to downgrade an account to 003 in case a person doesn't have backups?

[atmoio]

You can (at your own risk) perform the following steps:

1. Download a decrypted backup of your data
2. Delete your account
3. Download a pre-3.5 client from our desktop repo Releases page
4. Register for an account
5. Import your data

Your new account will use 003.

[rdhyee]

@tannercollin Thanks again for snfs and for continuing to fix bugs. I've updated to the new code but I still can't get snfs to work with my recovered setup. I'm going to try again with the advice from @mobitar -- I need to try a pre-3.5 desktop release.

[rdhyee]

Partial success. I logged off of SN everywhere, deleted my account, set up a new account using SN desktop on my mac (version 3.4.10). snfs works again for me. (big yay). I restored my backup that uses 003. app-legacy.standardnotes.org also works.

What doesn’t work fully:

1. app.standardnotes.org the notes seem to be decrypted properly, but the tags are all marked with “missing keys”
2. The apps on Android and the iPad. I run pretty much the latest versions of all the apps (and I’m a beta user). On my Pixel 2 (3 years old) — the app dies in the process of trying to decrypt my 1700+ notes. On the iPad (3 yeears old), it’s a mess — all I see is “Missing keys” 294/294 notes and tags encrypted — I have > 1700 notes.

[rdhyee]

Now, I'm getting closed to getting things working like they were. More success: I updated my mac SN client to 3.5.14 and that enabled me to get my Android SN client to be happy again. Also app.standardnotes.org started working for me. Presumably the mac app will start working for me soon….

[tannercollin]

The newest mobile app versions are fine working with 003? They don't try to upgrade the encryption?

[rdhyee]

@tannercollin The newest apps work fine for me after I used the 3.4.10 macos desktop app to load up my 003 backups and then upgrade my desktop app to 3.5.15 to get some magic cleaned up version to the server, which the latest Android and iPadOS apps could then be happy with. Does that make sense? Getting the sequencing of restoring my set up was the painful part here.

[rdhyee]

@mobitar @tannercollin Well, that was an adventure. I had grown so dependent on running Standard Notes on my two laptops, my Android phone, my iPad + snfs on my laptops that it was disruptive to have had part of that workflow fall apart when I thoughtlessly upgrade from 003 to 004. (I'm generally conservative about upgrading precisely because I want to avoid untimely disruptions like this.)

@mobitar It seems that in the longer time frame, if people want to keep running snfs, we'll have to implement 004. What pointers can you supply me so that I can see what I can to do that implementation (with guidance from @tannercollin if he has time.) I'm motivated to do an implementation if it's not way too hard and if there's enough time to do it before the plug on 003 is pulled.

[tannercollin]

I'd love it if you implemented 004 and I can provide guidance. There used to be a spec at this link, but it must have been moved:

https://github.com/standardnotes/snjs/blob/004/specification.md

Edit, found it here: https://github.com/standardnotes/snjs/blob/master/specification.md

Also note that we have the luxury of only implementing the bare minimum to get it to work. For example, we don't have to implement 003 -> 004 migration because we can tell the user to do it in an official client, etc.