That, finally resolved the bricked device issue. The device is now operational on firmware version 0.47.
That, however, only solved the technical problem created by the downgrade of the firmware from 0.48 to 0.47, as proposed by Alex to a request by fernando in Lots of issues with encrypted storage (and password safe) on Mac
However, the majority of the multiple issues described by fernando in that post are unresolved by the downgrade to 0.47 .
Namely:
- Clicking the Eject button or using other GUI means in the Finder to eject disks always result in the volumes (encrypted or unencrypted) reappearing, meaning that one cannot remove the key or lock the encrypted volume safely; the only way one is able to get the volumes to stay unmounted is by ejecting the “Nitrokey Nitrokey Storage Media” entries from Disk Utility – but this only works sometimes; ejecting works fine on Linux – this behavior is unacceptable is unchanged in 0.47.
- Data corruption happens between sessions of locking and unlocking the encrypted volume, and appears unrecoverable. It is unsure if this is due to the inevitable unsafe removals described above, or to otherwise faulty software, or both.
- The device (the app) reports frequent disconnections and reconnections despite a healthy appearing USB connection (not experienced in other operating systems running on the same hardware, so assumed to be due to flaky coding).
- On a good note, the GnuPG integration (on the Mac, using the Suite) appears unaffected by these problems, though I will need to run more tests before permanantly committing keys to this apparently very unreliable device, with a very fragile software implementation.
I will continue the Mac OS testing further and report issues, but I am sorry to report that the App 1.1 and firmwares 0.47 and 0.48 barely qualify as alpha software on Mac OS.
We can continue the discussion in Lots of issues with encrypted storage (and password safe) on Mac - where it’s more appropriate.
best regards,