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msecure 3.57 dropbox forcing relink, fails
Mike - mSecure
Hi Peter,
I'm sorry I wasn't able to get back to you sooner, as I was out of the office all last week. I'm back now, so I'll be able to respond much more quickly.
Syncing directly to Dropbox by linking mSecure to your Dropbox account will no longer work in the older version of mSecure. The only way to do it now is to use the "Sync With a Shared Folder" feature you found. I'm not sure what is happening to show that message the message you are seeing. While I'm not sure any longer exactly what happens in the old app when you change sync features, I believe the cloud password does get reset when you change sync features. This is ok though, and you don't have to worry about the message.
In the older app, there were two passwords used for encrypting your data when using a cloud sync service. There is the unlock password that you enter into the app to unlock it and decrypt the data stored locally on the device, and there is the cloud password, or remote sync password, that is used to encrypt the data stored in the cloud service. The reason for this is that you could set a very, very strong password for protecting your data in the cloud, but then have a more memorable, yet still strong, password for protecting your local data. The cloud password never has any affect on your local data, so you can change the sync feature to "Sync With a Shared Folder" and then set a new cloud password.
Before you do anything, of course, it never hurts to create a quick backup by clicking "File > Backup" in the app's menu bar.
To clarify your statement about dropbox syncing not working, this only applies to the windows version of msecure 3.5.7 (last release), not on other platforms.
The program could only store 1 cloud sync password. When you change the sync from dropbox to shared folder, you get warned the stored cloud password will be removed. When you select sync with shared folder, you get a folder dialogue box to point to the folder you wish to use. In my case I selected the msecure folder in my dropbox account. The program found the existing sync file and said it had been encrypted with a cloud password on a different device. I was then presented a box where I could enter a cloud password. I chose to reuse the original dropbox cloud sync password which was accepted.
I then did some back and forth testing of the sync feature between msecure windows 3.5.7, android 4, macos 3.5.7 and iphone. All these other old versions were happy to sync with the file on dropbox.
So it is possible to keep using the windows 3.5.7 msecure by changing to shared folder but with an understanding of the following; the sync file in dropbox is not being merged by msecure but is being replaced by the dropbox file sync function. I found there was a substantial delay in the sync file getting transferred between the real dropbox folder and the dropbox folder on my pc. I may have to look into dropbox select folder syncing.
If anyone chooses to to use the shared file type syncing,I'd strongly suggest making regular backups of your datafile in case something breaks with the dropbox syncing.
Thanks for your response.
peter
Mike - mSecure
Hi Peter,
We have been getting reports that the Mac version of mSecure 3.5.7 doesn't work with Dropbox syncing either, so I'm not sure how that's working for you. If it is, that's great, but from my understanding with other customers, it's no longer working. I'm wondering if you are using the Sync With a Shared File option in the Mac version.
Also, I'm not exactly sure I understand what you're saying in the rest of your post. The Sync With a Shared File feature has the exact same functionality as syncing directly to your Dropbox account by linking to it. Instead of linking to the account so some of the file pointers are taken care of automatically, you are simply pointing mSecure to the files manually in your Dropbox folder on your PC. The syncing, however, is handled in the exact same manner. Once the .mscc file is pointed to, mSecure doesn't overwrite it. It will look at the data in that file, see if there is a sync necessary, and then pull in changes and push any new changes to it for other devices to sync in. The actual syncing works exactly the same no matter which sync feature you are using.
mike:
The fact msecure 3/ dropbox continues to run on my iphone and on my macbook pro may be related to the OS versions. I am running 10.13.6 on my macbook pro and am 1 IOS version back on my iphone.
I am definitely not using sync with shared folder on the macbook. It is still set to use dropbox syncing.
My understanding on how dropbox works on a win 10 computer is that there is set of folders located within the c:/users folder structure that are mirroring the folders online at dropbox. Since making the change to sync with file, msecure is acting on the sync filed located within that structure. I know msecure uses a temp database to decrypt changes but the sync file on the local computer is what is getting changed. Msecure does nothing beyond making changes to that local file.
It is up to the dropbox app to transfer the modified local sync file to the online dropbox folder structure. where the other devices can access it. Dropbox takes the modified local sync file and transfers it, replacing the sync file that is online at dropbox. Am I missing something here?
peter
Mike - mSecure
Thank you for the clarification Peter. What you are describing is correct. The local file is updated in the Dropbox folder on your computer, then the Dropbox app is in control of pushing that changed file to Dropbox. I have never had a problem with the Dropbox app syncing data from my devices to my online Dropbox account, so I didn't consider there being an issue in that part of the process. Technically, that could be a problem, though I would say if that was happening, it's most likely that the mSecure app wouldn't be able to sync directly to the Dropbox app it's linked to, because that would probably constitute a system problem with the account. At any rate, it never hurts to make backups of your data regularly =)
Peter
My friend and I are both still using msecure 3.57 on windows and both have been hit by the dialog saying dropbox sync failed try relinking. I found the discussion from about a year ago saying this was a known issue with the dropbox api forcing the use of IE to do the linking and that is why dropbox throws an error browser type is unsupported if you are using a "modern" browser.
In that discussion you suggested changing the cloud sync to Sync with a File. If you select that, the program gives a warning that the cloud password will be cleared. Can you please explain what this means? If I sync to the dropbox folder on the windows box and let the Dropbox app do the syncing to to dropbox cloud, what security is being used?
Will the password on the local database remain the same?
If I use this sort of lash up will that mean the database at Dropbox will no longer be encrypted with my long cloud password? If other devices are syncing to Dropbox does that mean their sync will fail because the cloud password is missing from the datafile?
Thank you
peter