Chat Encryption: Messages fail to decrypt randomly | Community
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StefanScherbik
Community Champion | Customer
Community Champion | Customer
September 2, 2021
Question

Chat Encryption: Messages fail to decrypt randomly

  • September 2, 2021
  • 15 replies
  • 38 views

Has anyone had issues in which chats will just randomly refuse to decrypt for certain users?  Most frequently it happens when someone views/sends a chat on one device and then attempts to view/send it on another device (eg the chat is opened on one's work laptop and that works, but then the user views it on their personal laptop and they can't view the chat).

 

 

But sometimes, it happens even when both users involved assure me they're only using one device.  And it seems to strike users at random.  Sometimes chats will fail to decrypt for one person and at no point does the "decryption key become available" no matter what they do--the chats simply fail to display for one person.  It even happens in group chats or channels where one person's messages will not decrypt for everyone else, yet everyone else's messages do.  And sometimes someone will tell me that nobody can view any of their messages, but then I send them a test message and they respond and we can both view each other's messages.  Yet the messages don't display for everyone else they chat with.  So it's a totally random yet persistent occurrence and I have as yet not managed to find a cause.

 

The way I used to fix this was to delete and re-create the affected user's account.  Which works like a charm, but this means they lose all their chats so many people aren't too happy with that solution.  Zoom Support once provided me with a cleaner.exe file which I can run on someone's computer and then re-install the latest version of Zoom.  This works for the most part, but sometimes we do this on someone's computer, and then a week later, the same encryption issue starts happening again.

 

So has anyone found a permanent solution for this issue?  And does anyone know the cause?  I wish Zoom would add some kind of functionality to get the encryption working more reliably because it does seem to get stuck for people frequently.

    15 replies

    StefanScherbik
    Community Champion | Customer
    Community Champion | Customer
    November 15, 2022

    So, my company is on v 5.12.3 (we're only allowed to update once per quarter) and is 99% Windows, and the user who had the issue where chats would not decrypt was on 5.12.8 on Mac.  So, I asked Zoom support for a Mac pkg file for 5.12.3.  After installing this on their Mac, their chats now de-crypt properly.  So it seems that ensuring there is no version difference does the trick.

     

    Just wish Zoom engineers would make chats de-crypt no matter what version people are using.  This is such an annoying and persistent issue.

    Newcomer
    November 15, 2022

    Making the error messages more useful would be nice. Something like "Key suchandsuch is required. Last seen on device blahblah"

    YaBoiB
    Community Champion | Employee
    Community Champion | Employee
    November 16, 2022

    Hello All, 

     

     I am looking into the chat decryption issue now. I was under the impression that Zoom Engineering solved this issue with the 5.12.8 version release last week. I'll let you all know what information I find concerning this case. 

     

    Thanks,

    Brandon

    YaBoiB
    Community Champion | Employee
    Community Champion | Employee
    November 16, 2022

    Hello All, 

     

     I checked in again with our Engineering team and this is what I have found. If a user upgrades from 5.12.x to 5.12.8 then they should not face the bug issue that appeared in 5.12.6, but if they did already upgrade to 5.12.6 then it is imperative that the user uninstall and reinstall while removing the Zoom data folder from their machine to solve for this issue. If you or your users are having any other issues with this bug, please let our Technical Support Engineers know about them and we can handle those issues on a case-by-case basis. 

     

    I have tested 5.12.8 on a macOS, windows OS, and iOS with ACE enabled and the issue is no longer present.

     

    Thanks, 

    Brandon 

     

    Regards,

    Brandon

    Newcomer
    January 11, 2023

    Great, and what about ver 5.12.9? Because our Zoom has recently updated to this version and everything randomly got lost again.

    Newcomer
    April 24, 2024

    I know it’s been a while since this thread was updated, but I’m having this issue on my iOS phone with the most up to date version installed. 

    Mark_White
    Newcomer
    Newcomer
    August 29, 2024

    Yes, this is still an issue, Zoom, please resolve!