Password will not open document.

[mgomgo]

For the second time in about a month a document would not open using the correct password. The problem happens on password protected docs that are opened and saved many times a day.

My standard procedure is to -save as- when creating the original .cod, then whenever I update the doc, I key control+S. Most of the time that works fine. But two times, the docs would not open when the password was entered.

Fortunately, I back up my docs several times a day, so I was able to retrieve an earlier document with minimal data loss. That older backed up document DID open up with the password.

Because of these two failures, I just cannot rely on the Atlantis encryption scheme to secure my docs any more. Has anybody else had this problem?

The password protected docs are stored within an encrypted container, so at least I do have some security available.

I have been using password protected Atlantis .cod docs with the same containers for more than two years with no problems until recently.

I am running Windows XP home with SP-1. This configuration has been running for about a year with no Atlantis password problems until now.

Any ideas or comments would be appreciated.

-michael goodrich
Tucson Az

[admin]

The encryption of Atlantis works in absolutely the same way as it worked two years ago.
We have made no changes to it since the first public release.

Possible reasons: the different passwords were used for the “save as” and “open” operations, or the document file is corrupted.

Note: passwords are case-sensitive. Also no spare spaces or other punctuation signs are allowed.

[mgomgo]

Thanks so much for the prompt reply.

How truly interesting:
In your reply you said,


>Note: passwords are case-sensitive. Also no spare spaces or other >punctuation signs are allowed.

Additionally....I am confused by the statement:

"Also no spare spaces or other punctuation signs are allowed."

...because the Atlantis Help file says, "You can use any symbols for your passwords: punctuation signs, spaces, digits, the letters from different language alphabets." That seems to contradict your above statement.

The passwords I have been using -do indeed- contain spaces and punctuation. The format was...

I am blahblah with blahblah blahblah.

There were spaces between words and there was a period at the end. Did the spaces and period make the password "illegal" but the program still allowed me to use it without a warning, and then it finally balked?

If I use a password (passphrase) like,

Mikey's little test.

The password will work and the document will save and it will open using that password. Note that the passphrase contains punctuation and spaces. Atlantis allows me to use that password (passphrase) without any sort of warning.

Now...would "Mikey's little test." be considered an "illegal" password?

Could you give me an example of an "illegal" password or passphrase? It would help me to see an example.

I assume that a acceptable password would be:

blahblah123

But a "illegal" passord would be:

B blah blah 123.

Am I correct?

Thanks for the assistance!

-michael goodrich
Tucson, Az

[admin]

Probably you misunderstood my words.

I meant that if the original password was

"something something something"

the following password would not be accepted:

"something something something "

[admin]

Maybe the incoming beta version of Atlantis Ocean Mind will also include the CRC checking for the "save as encrypted document" operation.
It the CRC checking detected no problem, your document file is OK (you could open it using your password).

[vanDivXII]

maybe its better than make new thread

I got same thing as that guy, I got atlantis on two computers and neither will open my .cod file, now I am stuck

only way seems to be then that the file itself got corrupted, it is so rare you can't open some wordprocessing file due to corruption, I take it the corruption is in your built in security, not document per se.

I suppose one should back up anything on computer but I think YOU SHOULD WARN PEPOPLE right there when you are putting pass on your cod files, damn it, that your encryption can get corrupted

vanDivX

[vanDivX]

if your files get corrupted, why not save backup files automatically and make it so you can't disable it as you can for normal files, just like it works for normal files and keep those backups in the same location as original file even after Atlantis is shut down (I believe those backups that you can switch on in preferences are just temporary thing or not?)

I suppose the second backup file wouldn't be corrupted when the original is. I feel this is failing of your coding, never had a file failed to open, in Atlantis or in other program, just this protected file. When I think of it, I used Atlantis most often just because it had this feature, now I am going to look seriously at some other solution, if it failed once, it can't be trusted anymore, once is too many for me.

/edit: I can edit this post but couldn't the first one? also had to change name on that one since it blabered something about name already taken, looks like corruption on forum as well, looks like I wasn't logged in but I believe I was, I just made new acct before posting that (my old one wouldn't work for some reason, the name that I had from times several years ago but that's as may be)

vanDivX

[admin]

You cannot edit your first post because you posted it as a guest.

The backup files of Atlantis are not temporary thing. Atlantis never deletes backups without user's permission.

Normally encrypted files get "corrupted" when users try to open them with a password different than the one that was used for saving these files.

[Guest]

You cannot edit your first post because you posted it as a guest.

The backup files of Atlantis are not temporary thing. Atlantis never deletes backups without user's permission.

Normally encrypted files get "corrupted" when users try to open them with a password different than the one that was used for saving these files.

that wouldn't be my case, I don't remember when I last mistyped password, I do keep the encrypted file on my USB key though and I suppose files on removable devices are more susceptible to potential corruption...

I rummaged around and managed to find this file just two month old (on image of HD I made at the time) and it didn't have many changes made to it since then, so I was lucky, had all my loging including bank and tons of forum and voip phones passes and what not, would be pain if I had to recover them completely piece by piece.

I suppose it is my fault for not using the automatic backups that's why I don't even know that they are permanent) but after years with computers, I never had any problems that would make me better use those auto backups. If I have them, it starts bothering me before long as I notice the periodic saving just when I am in deep thought, if you happen to have sound volume up, you hear the sound it makes (I know that can be switched off, just that particular sound if need be) and all in all, I disabled the auto saving long ago, would be handy though if one could enable that just for these encrypted documents.

Anyway, I will from now be making a more frequent backups (on USB key as well as CD-RW, especially after making more extensive changes to the file. I was lucky I used to keep the file on PC because lately I keep it just on the USB key exclusively.

vanDivX

[admin]

Creating backups of your important data regularly (preferably at multiple locations of the same disk, or even on different storage devices) is always a good idea.

Note that Atlantis has two different features related to safety: the Safeguard feature and the Backup Files feature.

The Safeguard feature protects your documents against system failures and accidental shutdowns by creating Safe Copies of them at regular intervals under the Temp folder of Windows. Safe Copies are temporary files. Atlantis removes them after recovering data from them. If there are Safe Copies under this folder when you launch Atlantis, it suggests to recover documents from these Safe Copies. You will rarely need Safe Copies if you shut down your Windows properly.

The Backup Files feature creates automatic and regular permanent backups of all open documents. Successive versions of each document are saved to a special folder. In this way, you will always be able to go back to earlier versions of any document, for example when you made undesirable changes to a document, and saved it. Atlantis may delete older backups of a document if there are too many backups of this document (this can be configured through the “Tools | Options… > Load/Save > Backup Files…” dialog). Also when Atlantis runs out of the allowed disk space for backups (this amount of disk space also can be configured through the “Tools | Options… > Load/Save > Backup Files…” dialog), Atlantis might suggest to delete some older backups in order to free disk space for new backups.

When Atlantis creates backup files, no sound is played.