decryption failed: Bad session key

[Peter Lebbing]

Hi Frank,

On 03/01/2019 15:25, Frank Hrebabetzky wrote:
> gpg: AES256 encrypted data
> gpg: encrypted with 1 passphrase
> gpg: decryption failed: Bad session key

This is also the error message you get when you specify the wrong
passphrase. Perhaps you mistyped the passphrase when encrypting it? That
way, no matter how correct you type it when decrypting it... you get it.

Other password problems can occur if you use special characters and your
OS upgrade changed the handling of those in some way. If this is the
case, you could try temporarily running an old backup of your previous
OS. Or if that is not available, you could try a live CD, but that might
be configured differently than your old OS with regard to special
characters.

Or you could try purpose-built tools that will try variations on the
passphrase you supply brute-force. I don't have any experience with
these, I just saw them mentioned now and then. The idea is that it can
quickly try all kinds of typo mistakes and see if one of them gets you
in. Actually brute-forcing a good passphrase with no specific clues
should be impossible by design; the fact that you /almost/ know the
correct passphrase is what gives you the edge.

HTH,

Peter.

-- 
I use the GNU Privacy Guard (GnuPG) in combination with Enigmail.
You can send me encrypted mail if you want some privacy.
My key is available at <http://digitalbrains.com/2012/openpgp-key-peter>

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