new to GPG: "gpg: Fatal: zlib inflate problem: invalid code lengths set"

[john doe]

On 7/24/2019 5:20 PM, Lentes, Bernd wrote:
>
>
> ----- On Jul 24, 2019, at 12:15 PM, john doe johndoe65534 at mail.com wrote:
>>> I sent a cleartext e-Mail with my public key to adele at gnupp.de (which is an
>>> automated system for practicing encryption and decryption)
>>> and i got an answer which is encrypted. I think it's encrypted with my public
>>> key so i should be able
>>> to decrypt it with my private key. That's what i tried. But i got the message
>>> while decrypting:
>>>
>>> gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID F742DB29, created 2019-07-23
>>>      "Bernd Lentes (Helmholtz GPG Schluessel) <bernd.lentes at helmholtz-muenchen.de>"
>>> gpg: Fatal: zlib inflate problem: invalid code lengths set
>>>
>>> What does this meesage mean ?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I might be rong here, but I would use build-in GPG capability in my
>> e-mail client to decrypt the encrypted e-mail.
>>
>>
>> Do you have the same error if you encrypt and decrypt a file?
>
> I just tried it and it worked like a charm with a file.
>

Quoting your original e-mail:

"i'm new to GPG, so please excuse asking silly questions.
I managed to create my keys with "gpg2 --gen-key"
I wrote an e-Mail to adele at gnupp.de with the subject "Mein öffentlicher
Schlüssel", which is german for "my public key".
Shortly thereafter i got an encrypted response which, i assume, i have to
decrypt with my private key.
I pasted the encrypted stuff into a file and then tried to decrypt:

gpg2 -d nachricht.txt

I've been asked for the passphrase for my private key which i entered,
but then
i got the following error:

gpg: encrypted with 2048-bit RSA key, ID F742DB29, created 2019-07-23
      "Bernd Lentes (Helmholtz GPG Schluessel)
<bernd.lentes at helmholtz-muenchen.de>"
gpg: Fatal: zlib inflate problem: invalid code lengths set

The file has a size of 68 KB, could that be the culprit ?"

Now addressing what I think is the culprit:
You encrypt your e-mail with the public key of the recipient.
When you are the recipient of an encrypted e-mail, the sender needs your
publick key to be able to encrypt  the e-mail that will be send to you.
You, the recipient, will use your private key to decrypt this e-mail.

That having been said, as far as I know, you need to configure your
e-mail client (TB/Enigmail, Mutt ...) to do that for you .


In otherwords, the encrypted stuff should not be pasted into the file
"nachricht.txt".

--
John Doe