Encryption Key

[ecca]

Hi Brendan

I have been using TAP FORMS for a while without any encryption key

I have just re-opened TAP FORMS and all I get is a welcome screen asking for an encryption key..That I have never created…

What should I do? Lose my work? hope not

;)

Can’t even open TAP FORMS, not just a specific Form

Eric

[Brendan]

Hi Eric,

Hmm.. that’s unusual. I’ve never had anyone have this issue before since you’ve never used encryption.

Can you try force-quitting Tap Forms and see if that gets you back in?

Thanks,

Brendan

[ecca]

Hi Brendan

Since I had a backup (I crossed my fingers since I didn’t know if it would work; it crashed the last time I tried; but that was before you fixed it); erased TAPFORMS from my iPhone; re-downloaded it; imported my TF-xxxxx Backup

Seems to work fine.

Can’t tell what happened since I don’t need encryption for the type of data I am using with TF.

Thanks anyway

Quick reply as always thanks for this too

Eric

[m_jon]

Hi Brendan and Eric,

The same thing just happened to me. I was in the middle of using TapForms when my phone (3GS) crashed (it locked up and screen dimmed). At the time, I was in a notes field copying a line of text. When I started the iPhone again and went back to Tapforms, all I got is the screen asking for my encryption key. I’ve never encrypted anything in TapForms.

I tried my iPhone password and, among other things, the line of text I was copying at the time the phone crashed. Nothing lets me in.

I have a two day old backup I can restore to but there are also more recent records I would like to recover.

I followed the instructions at https://www.tapforms.com/forum/topic/passcode-or-encryption-key-not-functioning-after-last-update to reinstall TapForms. It reinstalled fine, and worked fine, until I restored my backup, which immediately brought back the encryption window.

I downloaded the TapForms_db.sqlite file and opened it in BBEdit and I can see some of the last two days data messily hidden in there. I installed a free trial version of RazorSQL to try and open it directly without success. Perhaps there is some corruption in there that TapForms is interpreting as encryption?

I accept that I will likely have to give up and accept a couple of days lost data (or trawl through the sqlite file and manually extract what I can). Before I do so, is there any general default encryption password that would have been set when this crash occurred?

Any help would be great. Otherwise, this is FYI and I am about to restore my iPhone in iTunes.

Cheers,

Jon

[Brendan]

Hello Jon,

It’s more like Tap Forms is assuming you have encryption turned on because it is unable to open the database file. The code checks to see if it can open the database file without an encryption key, then if it can’t it asks for the key so that it can try opening it up with the key. Since it sounds like that’s failing, it’s probably a corrupt SQLite file.

If you send me a copy of it I can run some diagnostics on it to see what might be wrong with the file.

I’m glad you have a backup file though.

Thanks,

Brendan

[strikerdlm]

Same happened to me, never used encryption keys now it is asking for one now to as soon as I open the program, i have the backup but I use the program at work but now i need to go home a restore the data today. For now, i think i lost all the data input today, alsO had databases with simple calculations but with the latest update, they don’t work anymore and managed to solve it remaking the form but it’s been time consuming.

[kid1417]

I’ve got the same problem. So, It seems we’ve lost all data we trust your program to record.

Please tell us the solution to solve and get my data back.

Thanks

[gracels]

I just developed the same problem! I followed the instructions to remove and restore, and it still opens to the encryption screen.

This is beyond frustrating.

Also on the last iCloud sync, I lost 4 records.

[Philip Schroeder]

I just purchased Tap Forms a few days ago after using it in trial mode for several days. Today when starting up it asked for an Encryption Key. I thought that was the license key and used that. It would not unlock. Then I realized maybe it was an actual encryption key that it wanted. That is highly unusual since I never set encryption on the application.

So is all my data lost? I have most of my data from before I converted from Bento, but all the work since is that lost?

How do I recover from this?

If this happened to me now, will this happen again in the future? If so I am questioning my purchase.

[Brendan]

Hi Philip,

I’m sorry for this trouble. Did your Mac experience a crash while you had Tap Forms open recently?

Do you have Time Machine running? If so then you can restore the TapForms_db.sqlite file to an earlier version. You can find that file here:

~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents

To get there, copy the above path, then in the Finder press command-shift-g to open the Go to Folder dialogue. Paste in the above path and then press the Go button. You should see the TapForms_db.sqlite file there. Click on it and then use the Enter Time Machine function in the menubar. Then restore that file to an earlier time. Now launch Tap Forms. Hopefully that’ll get you back in.

Thanks,

Brendan

[Philip Schroeder]

Hi Brendan

Yes, I did have a crash, possibly/probably Tap forms was open. I also do have a backup within 24 hours, so I should be able to follow your pointers there.

Thanks
Phil

[camill goliasz]

Hi Brendan,

Great app! can’t stop working with it, since my purchase last week! I’m new here and I know there are still many things to learn, but with this one I cannot manage: it doesn’t let me in:( My Mac crashed yesterday, restarted and voila, TAPFORMS asks for key, which i didn’t settle; however I did the sync with dropbox, but its password doesn’t work. I followed your instruction going through the “keychain”, but it doesn’t let me “check-the-box” to show the password (screen enclosed); any idea what’s wrong in my case? thanks, camill

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[Brendan]

Hi Camill,

That’s not the right Tap Forms entry. That’s the Tap Forms Dropbox entry. You need the other entry that’s just called “Tap Forms” with the “kind” of “application password”.

But if you are being asked for an encryption key after a crash, then it could be a corrupted database file. You’ll need to restore to a previous version most likely.

Brendan

[camill goliasz]

Ups, it seems that I sync my DB only with dropbox and so there is only this Tap Forms Dropbox entry in keychain; to have this situation more difficult, my time machine was off:( is there any other way to restore my database anyhow? partly? at all?

[Brendan]

Hi Camill,

Did you ever make a backup using the built-in Backup command in Tap Forms? Or do you have it on any of your other devices? If so, you can make a backup there and restore to your Mac version.

[camill goliasz]

No Brandon, i realised, I did not! I just started playing with your app a week ago! Certain enthusiasm covered my eyes and made me manage only with that dropbox backup. I’ll be wiser after the damage (of course), but is there any way to recover anything form the “*.tfs”, “*.tfx” files?

[Philip Schroeder]

The backup from TimeMachine worked seamlessly and am back up without any great loss of work. Thanks for the work around.

[Brendan]

Hi Camill,

Try this:

1. Launch Terminal
2. Enter in the following command:

defaults delete com.tapforms.mac

3. Delete the TapForms_db.sqlite file from ~/Library/Containers/com.tapforms.mac/Data/Documents
4. Make sure the encryption key is set exactly as it was before.
5. Re-enable sync. Do not do the Reset Sync function.
6. The data that’s in the .tfx files MAY come down. No guarantees though. By removing the defaults and re-launching Tap Forms, it will think it’s a new installation of Tap Forms on your Mac. It won’t recognize the .tfx files as having been generated by itself, so it will think it’s from another device. So it should sync with the data in them down to the local database.

But all is moot if those files don’t exist if you reset sync.

Thanks,

Brendan

[camill goliasz]

Hi Brandon,

Unfortunately it didn’t work.
What worked instead, was the app that I decided to buy for ipad and it came down on this device, yeahh! happy again:)

by the way, I’d like to ask about some other features…

1. is it possible to move whole record from one library (form) to another? simple drag and drop doesn’t work. are you thinkig about making it possible or there’s no point, as the difference in form’s fields may cause problems?

2. to colour a certain range of fields in a table view?

3. to move/export a layout?

thanks!

[Brendan]

Hi Camill,

1. That’s right, the difference in the forms fields is the primary reason I haven’t added support for this. Not to mention (ok, I just did), that the record you’re dragging (if you could) might contain all sorts of things such as file attachments, photos, drawings, audio recordings, and very likely links to other records in other forms. But for now if you switch to multi-column list view, what you can do is copy the text of a record by selecting a row, then go to some other form and click on a cell in a blank record and then paste the clipboard to the other record. Tap Forms will put the data from the clipboard into each cell in that row.

2. You can set the “Record Colour Field” property on the form to any field which has a Pick List associated with it. A Pick List has the ability to let you mark each of its values with a different colour. When you have this setup, Tap Forms will put a colour bar next to the record in the records list view. So in that way you can colour your records.

3. Layouts are specific to a form. You can move a layout by dragging the tab left and right in the tab bar at the top of the layout designer. You can duplicate layouts and copy and paste objects from one layout to another within the same form. Layout objects are associated with specific fields within that form, so that’s why you can’t copy and paste layout objects between forms.

Thanks!

Brendan

[camill goliasz]

Hi Brandon,

with the “coloring” I ment sth like that (attachement);
such feature might be very helpfull when working on data in a table view,
but so far it’s just an ithem to be consider on a wish list.

thanks

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