I suspect that my Nitrokey Storage is broken. I have been wearing it on my keychain for many years. I just wanted to confirm this with you before destroying it and buying a new device. Here are the symptoms:
- When initially connecting the Nitrokey, it is detected normally
- The first unlock attempt results in the message “Communication error. Please reinsert the device”.
- Then the app enters a loop between “Device connected. Waiting for initialization” and “Nitrokey disconnected”
- After reconnecting the device, it takes a long time (about a minute) until the device is shown in the app as connected again
I tried this on Linux and Windows, with similar results.
There are some other things that seem weird in the “About” window:
- The PIN retry counter is shown as 77 for both admin and user, which seems too much
- The “Encrypted volume” is shown as “Not active” even though I have been using it in the past
- It also shows the message “New SD card found: Smartcard is inaccessible”
Is my Nitrokey broken?
Edit: Possibly related: Unable to unlock Nitrokey Storage 2, communication error