import of GPG key doesn't work and doesn't give an error message

[Andrew Gallagher]

On 17 Nov 2024, at 09:54, Marco Moock via Gnupg-users <gnupg-users at gnupg.org> wrote:
> 
> Am 17.11.2024 um 09:14:47 Uhr schrieb Andrew Gallagher:
> 
>> A question to both Robert and Marco:
>> Where did you get your gnupg(s) from?
> 
> Debian repo, currently experimental.

OK, that would explain why Robert gets an error message and you don’t. If you don’t have a copy of the key already, then the key is unusable without the userid. The difference is that Robert’s gnupg rejects the downloaded (userid-less) key out of hand, while yours tries to merge it with any existing local copy first, which doesn’t generate the same error message. But without a userid it will still get discarded. Changing keyserver should fix the issue in any case.

>> In the above transcript it looks like it is querying
>> keys.openpgp.org, which sometimes distributes keys without userids.
> 
> Is there a special reason for that?

Excessively-cautious interpretation of GDPR. keys.openpgp.org relies on explicit consent before publishing userids, while other keyservers rely on public interest.

A