Normal locking blocks for "no reason". Options offered – force lock, retry, cancel – leads to Cryptomator hanging.

[davidleejy]

Please agree to the following

• I have searched existing issues for duplicates
• I agree to follow this project's Code of Conduct

Summary

As per title.

What software is involved?

• Operating System: macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71)
• Chip: Apple M3 Pro
• Cryptomator: 1.17-0 (dmg-5144)

Volume Type

Uncertain. I don't think I installed FUSE.

Steps to Reproduce

flowchart

restart["Restart machine"]
loginOS["Log in. No app windows are opened."]
unlockC["Unlock vault using Cryptomator GUI. <br>Click 'Reveal drive'. <br>Finder window displaying unlocked vault opens."]
restart --> loginOS --> unlockC
preview["Open one photo in Mac OS' Preview.app. <br>Close Preview. <br>Close Finder window displaying the unlocked vault."]
unlockC --> preview
lockC["Click 'lock vault' in Cryptomator GUI."]
preview --> lockC
lockblockeddialog[**Locking is blocked dialog**]
lockC --> lockblockeddialog
optretry["Select Retry option"]; optcancel["Select Cancel option"]; optforcelock["Select Force Lock option"]
revealdriveC["Select reveal drive"]
hang["Cryptomator hangs. Need to restart machine."]
lockblockeddialog --> optretry --> hang
lockblockeddialog --> optcancel --> revealdriveC --> hang
lockblockeddialog --> optforcelock --> hang

%% another scenario:
dontpreview[No interactions with files in the unlocked vault. <br>No clicks on files. <br>Close the Finder window displaying the unlocked vault immediately.]
lockC2["Click 'lock vault' in Cryptomator GUI."]
lockblockeddialog2[**Locking is blocked dialog**]
optforcelock2["Select Force Lock option. <br>Force locking succeeds. <br>Cryptomator does not hang."]
unlockC --> dontpreview --> lockC2 --> lockblockeddialog2 --> optforcelock2

Locking is blocked dialog:
"Locking "my-vault-name" was blocked by pending operations or open files. You can force lock this vault, however interrupting I/O may result in the loss of unsaved data." Options offered to user: Force Lock, Retry, Cancel.

Expected Behavior

Normal locking should function smoothly esp. in the simple situation described in the "Steps to Reproduce" section.

Actual Behavior

Normal locking blocks with the dialogue:

"Locking "my-vault-name" was blocked by pending operations or open files. You can force lock this vault, however interrupting I/O may result in the loss of unsaved data." Options offered to user: Force Lock, Retry, Cancel.

Reproducibility

Always

[infeo]

@davidleejy Please update to the latest version of Cryptomator and try to reproduce the issue again.

[nickasd]

I'm having this issue as well with Cryptomator 1.12.0. Unlocking a vault, duplicating a file in it and trying to lock the vault again already results in the "Locking is blocked" dialog. The last time I tried I clicked Retry and then it worked. The time before, I'm not sure what exactly I did, but I ended up clicking on "Force lock", which first caused the Finder to hang, and eventually the whole macOS didn't respond anymore, forcing me to do a force shut down.

[nickasd]

By the way, is there a way to check if I have MacFUSE or FUSE-T installed, and what version? I cannot remember if I installed any of the two, it was last year.

[davidleejy]

@davidleejy Please update to the latest version of Cryptomator and try to reproduce the issue again.

Hi @infeo,

Thanks for writing back and apologies for the delayed follow up.

Uninstalled and installed Cryptomator version 1.12.3 (dmg-5219). Installed FUSE. Sadly, this issue persists.

Operating System: macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71)
Chip: Apple M3 Pro

[davidleejy]

I would like to inform the community that, in my experience, Cryptomator (recent version 1.12.3) is near un-usable on macOS Sonoma 14.2.1 (23C71) on the Apple M3 Pro chip. (Yes, I have FUSE installed.)

I tried to use Cryptomator to do a basic unlock, copy eight small (< 1 MB) photographs into the decrypted directory, before locking. To my surprise, the simple operation of copying the eight photographs caused Finder to hang (Finder is Mac OS default file explorer application). After force quitting Finder, I could not re-open Finder as it kept quitting seconds after starting. I left my machine in this state for about twelve hours, turned in for the night with the hope that the running processes behind the scenes, if any, would progress to a better state when I returned.

Unfortunately, after twelve hours, things remained in limbo.

To rectify matters, I had to restart my machine twice.

The first restart was a non-starter – my machine booted into a blank screen – and if I could be frank, this experience felt like a personal wake-up call to begin shopping around for Cryptomator alternatives. I shuddered at the thought of possibly needing to take drastic action like reinstalling the OS in the event that the filesystems got messed up.

The second restart, fortunately, restored matters to normality ("normal" as far as I could tell).

I don't know if the cryptomator vault I was interacting with has suffered any degree of corruption through this bumpy process, and would be grateful if someone could advise me how to ascertain this. It is not necessarily as straightforward as simply unlocking and locking the vault as this has led to issues in the past (see earlier comments in this thread).

While my ride with Cryptomator hasn't been ideal, I am glad that Cryptomator, its maintainers, and developers have built an open-source solution for cloud storage privacy and security.

Thank you for reading my experience, and have a great week ahead 😄