NK Storage on Mac OS Sierra 10.12.6: Firmware v0.48 breaks NK App

Nitrokeys
1

Dear Support

The latest firmware (v0.48) breaks the NK App. In both modes (normal & admin) the program freezes (Activity Monitor: red warning that the program is not reacting) and the tray menu shows the spinning ball.

Is it possible to downgrade the firmware? If yes, how?

Thx & best wishes

2

@prometheus

Hi! What version of Nitrokey App are you using? Could you see is this occurring on v1.2-beta.2 too?

3

Hi @szszszsz

I am using v1.1. I will just try out v1.2-beta.2 and let you know.

Thx for the quick response!

4

The version v1.2-beta.2 fixes the freezing problem. But the next issue I’ve encountered is that unlocking encrypted volumes does not work anymore. I get the following error message:

Could not unlock encrypted volume. Status code: -1.

My encrypted volume was created via DiskUtility (Format: MS DOS FAT, Scheme: MBR)

Any hints?

Cheers

5

Unfortunately this is a known issue for v0.48 and Mac OS Sierra and we are working on a solution.
At the moment mostly encrypted/hidden volumes would not unlock themselves, but they might do after a retry. They might also unlock, but the device will return error to the Application about invalid password supplied by the user (and confuse it about it’s state). Please confront with information in DiskUtility whether the volume is available or not. Possibly a workaround will be done in next App beta to mitigate this issue.

Regarding your second question, last 3 firmwares are available on releases page. Let us know, if you would like to use v0.45. Please use latest version whenever possible.

Edit: You might want to follow #44 regarding handling encrypted volumes on Mac OS Sierra.
As for reply speed - it is not always possible so fast, but I do my best!

6

Thx a lot for this information. I will downgrade to 0.47 and see if this behaves as expected. I will follow #44, thx!

No worries, you are doing a great job!

Cheers

7

The encrypted volumes behave as expected with 0.47.

Cheers

1 Like
8

I also experienced the nitrokey-app hang on version 1.1 after upgrading the firmware to 0.48 but did eventually get everything working. Here is what worked for me:

  1. I rebuilt the nitrokey-app from sources thinking the latest code would work. However I got a popup saying that I need to use version 0.47 or later. I changed the hex firmware to 0.47 and was able to use the nitrokey-app at that point. However initialization seemed to stop from the application multiple times but I could see the red light flashing on the storage stick. I restarted the application and replugged the stick a few times and after about 4-5 retries on the initialization, it eventually completed to 100%.
  2. Note that the Mac will issue a popup to eject/ignore or open the stick when the initialization is done. Click ‘ignore’ so that you can continue with the nitrokey-app.
  3. A glitch I see is locking and unlocking the encrypted volume. Sometimes I have to remove the stick or re-insert for the volume to show in the correct configured state (present or hidden).