Element no longer opens -- "Your system hsa an unsupported keyring"

[ieure]

Steps to reproduce

1. Launch Element Desktop.
2. A modal window appears offering me "Cancel" and "Use weaker encryption" buttons.

Outcome

What did you expect?

Element Desktop to open.

What happened instead?

It offers me the choice of not using it, or using "weaker encryption." I wish to continue using it, without using weaker encryption. I can't make an informed decision about whether to accept the "weaker encryption," as no information is provided about the specific ways it's weaker.

The modal contains a URL, which I thought might help me resolve this issue. Unfortunately, the URL isn't clickable, nor can I select the text to copy it. After typing the URL in manually, the referenced page is Electron API documentation for a method which returns the name of the storage backend. This does not explain any of the numerous question I have about why Element Desktop stopped working, or how to make it work again.

This seems to be intentional behavior introduced by #2227, and possibly related to element-hq/element-web#32416.

I'm not using a desktop environment, however, both org.gnome.keyring and org.freedesktop.secrets D-Bus services are available.

Running Element Desktop in a terminal produces these messages:

/home/ieure/.config/Element exists: yes
/home/ieure/.config/Riot exists: no
(node:21376) [DEP0180] DeprecationWarning: fs.Stats constructor is deprecated.
(Use `element-desktop --trace-deprecation ...` to show where the warning was created)
Loading app config: /gnu/store/0bjhr70cfmz5imvww3c2w6cgix9af1b6-element-desktop-1.11.104/lib/Element/resources/webapp.asar/config.json
Loading local config: /home/ieure/.config/Element/config.json
Skipping nonexistent file: /home/ieure/.config/Element/config.json
[21376:0626/170057.141816:ERROR:dbus/object_proxy.cc:590] Failed to call method: org.freedesktop.DBus.Properties.Get: object_path= /org/freedesktop/portal/desktop: org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.InvalidArgs: No such interface “org.freedesktop.portal.FileChooser”
[21376:0626/170057.141836:ERROR:electron/shell/browser/ui/file_dialog_linux_portal.cc:78] Failed to read portal version property
Reached Electron ready state
Starting auto update with base URL: https://packages.element.io/desktop/update/
Auto update not supported on this platform
Fetching translation json for locale: en_EN
Changing application language to en
Fetching translation json for locale: en
Resetting the UI components after locale change
Resetting the UI components after locale change
Opening main window
Ensuring storage is ready
(node:21376) [DEP0044] DeprecationWarning: The `util.isArray` API is deprecated. Please use `Array.isArray()` instead.
[21376:0626/170059.537381:ERROR:content/browser/browser_main_loop.cc:278] GLib-GObject: ../glib-2.82.1/gobject/gsignal.c:2684: instance '0x28402b69500' has no handler with id '1260'
Error: safeStorage backend basic_text and user rejected it
    at Store.consultUserConsentDegradedMode (file:///gnu/store/0bjhr70cfmz5imvww3c2w6cgix9af1b6-element-desktop-1.11.104/lib/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/store.js:337:23)
    at async Store.reallyPrepareSafeStorage (file:///gnu/store/0bjhr70cfmz5imvww3c2w6cgix9af1b6-element-desktop-1.11.104/lib/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/store.js:253:17)
    at async App.<anonymous> (file:///gnu/store/0bjhr70cfmz5imvww3c2w6cgix9af1b6-element-desktop-1.11.104/lib/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/electron-main.js:432:15)
(node:21376) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: TypeError: Object has been destroyed
    at n.loadURL (node:electron/js2c/browser_init:2:14440)
    at App.<anonymous> (file:///gnu/store/0bjhr70cfmz5imvww3c2w6cgix9af1b6-element-desktop-1.11.104/lib/Element/resources/app.asar/lib/electron-main.js:439:28)
(node:21376) UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: Unhandled promise rejection. This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block, or by rejecting a promise which was not handled with .catch(). To terminate the node process on unhandled promise rejection, use the CLI flag `--unhandled-rejections=strict` (see https://nodejs.org/api/cli.html#cli_unhandled_rejections_mode). (rejection id: 1)

Operating system

Guix System

Application version

1.11.104

How did you install the app?

From nonguix: https://gitlab.com/nonguix/nonguix/-/blob/master/nongnu/packages/messaging.scm?ref_type=heads#L37

Homeserver

n/a, but selfhosted Synapse.

Will you send logs?

Yes

[Rutherther]

I can't make an informed decision about whether to accept the "weaker encryption," as no information is provided about the specific ways it's weaker.

I found information about this from documentation linked in source, specifically the weaker encryption corresponds with "basic_text" backend https://www.electronjs.org/docs/latest/api/safe-storage#safestoragegetselectedstoragebackend-linux

Linux: Encryption keys are generated and stored in a secret store that varies depending on your window manager and system setup. Options currently supported are kwallet, kwallet5, kwallet6 and gnome-libsecret, but more may be available in future versions of Electron. As such, the security semantics of content protected via the safeStorage API vary between window managers and secret stores.

Note that not all Linux setups have an available secret store. If no secret store is available, items stored in using the safeStorage API will be unprotected as they are encrypted via hardcoded plaintext password. You can detect when this happens when safeStorage.getSelectedStorageBackend() returns basic_text.

So weaker encryption is almost like no encryption at all as long as one can find out it's a string encrypted by chromium. If I was searching properly, I think this hardcoded key is here https://github.com/chromium/chromium/blob/f4e011075c40982b924bc76c4aa9ab9f409f4a56/components/os_crypt/sync/os_crypt_linux.cc#L47

The documentation also explains why you are getting this backend instead of the secrets service. It is because the detection of the backend is done by matching for desktop environment rather than looking for available implementations directly. This should be overridable by a flag --password-store="gnome-libsecret". As seen by code https://github.com/element-hq/element-desktop/pull/2227/files#diff-2717c7fb31c2070dd96f07394997809bc9be7f3fff03ab638db696cc480f39b6R242 this is already known issue and has been reported in electron electron/electron#39789.

[yokarion]

Doesn't work on Element Flatpak too. Shows a warning. Seems like this issue wasn't solved since 2023, I guess epic Electron moment and need to wait for upstream?

[t3chguy]

@ieure the nonguix package isn't maintained by us, it is abusing the deb in a way we do not support. For environments where we do not provide a system package, a tarball build is available and recommended. You would need to seek support from the maintainers of the package which you are using.

@yokarion issues for the flatpak package live at https://github.com/flathub/im.riot.Riot/

Closing in favour of element-hq/element-web#32041 about the keyring detection being based on envvars.

[Rutherther]

How does this even relate to the Guix package? And for the record, the guix package is using the packaged deb, just changing the unpack location (to not have everything under usr etc.), and changes the rpath... So there is really nothing that would be 'guix specific' in this issue...

[t3chguy]

The guix package does indeed use the deb, but clobbers paths, and reusing the deb like this is not supported, this is why we provide a static tarball for re-packaging, which is what e.g. flatpak does

[Rutherther]

This is really sad, an issue that isn't concerning the packaging at all closed because of the packaging, with reference to going to nonguix, who have no way to fix this other than hacking around it. The same issue is concerning Debian and when Debian package will be fixed, nonguix package will be fixed as well, maybe even without any changes other than updating the source.

[MisguidedEmails]

This almost certainly will occur with other OS's, and is likely a product of not having a full DE, as opposed to the OS itself. You can see this when vscode started having a similar issue on systems with (for example) i3 - microsoft/vscode#187338

However it's likely the maintainers here will not accept it as a legitimate issue unless it can be reproduced on a supported OS.

[t3chguy]

@MisguidedEmails ^

[MisguidedEmails]

Ah, that's my mistake. I wasn't following that issue, and completely missed you referencing it. My bad.

[serious-angel]

We got a similar error today:

The source of the program installation was Flatpak installed via Discover software with Flathub backend in the up-to-date and latest Kubuntu 25.10 OS.

Solution ("Workaround")

The error message hasn't yet appeared after replacing the version with the official repository release.

I.e. The installation steps at https://element.io/en/download#linux

---

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