Fails to pull encrypted attachment, says "FORBIDDEN"

[Freeedim]

Software versions

Briefcase v1.16.3 and v1.17.3 at least. Java 8 SE. Windows 10 1909

Problem description

When pulling instances of an encrypted form with versions 1.17.3 or 1.16.3 (and maybe others), the .xml files are successfully pulled but the .xml.enc attachments are not. The details window shows an error message for each instance: "FORBIDDEN", although the user is the owner and has all the permissions.

This later prevents to export the instances even though the appropriate private key file is provided.

v1.14.0 and v1.15.0 (and probably others) does not have this problem.

Cheers

Steps to reproduce the problem

Upload an XLS form with a public_key and a submission URL of the form
https://kc.humanitarianresponse.info/my_almighty_user/submission

Fill and submit some instances

Use ODK Briefcase (aforementioned versions) to pull the submissions of that form with the URL:
https://kc.humanitarianresponse.info/my_almighty_user
and the user my_almighty_user.

The result is "success with errors", the errors being the "attachment" of each instance being labeled "FORBIDDEN" and therefore not downloaded.

Expected behavior

It pulls 2 files per instance: one .xml and one attached .xml.enc

Other information

• Expected behaviour is obtainable with v1.14.0 and v1.15.0 (and probably others that I have not tried)

• May be the root cause of issue Impossible Decrypt and Export v1.17.2 #853

[lognaturel]

@Freeedim thanks for your troubleshooting efforts so far. Kobo is not part of the ODK project. Have you tried to reproduce with either Aggregate or Central? Looking at differences between those interactions might give a useful hint. You could also ask other Kobo users if they experience the same issue.

[Freeedim]

Hi,

Thanks for your answer.

Actually I am not familiar with ODK and don't know where I could try an Aggregate or Central infrastructure. KoBo's encrypted workflows rely 100% on ODK Briefcase but indeed, I don't know on which server they rely.

I think I have never heard of other KoBo users using the encryption feature.

[lognaturel]

If you're interested in following up on this, you could use the Central sandbox server. Read https://docs.getodk.org/central-install/#using-the-sandbox to learn more and you can send me your email address at [email protected] to get added!

[Freeedim]

That would be great, indeed. I think I can manage to use some time for that, this week. I'm sending you my email address right away.

[Freeedim]

Everything works fine with ODK Briefcase 1.17.3 when using an ODK Central server. So I guess the problem lies with https://kobo.humanitarianresponse.info

[lognaturel]

It seems Kobo makes some kind of assumption that Briefcase was accidentally meeting previously but stopped meeting after v1.15.0. Two possible next steps for someone who needs this fixed would be to contact Kobo support and have them look at compatibility with more recent Briefcase versions and/or do a git bisect on Briefcase to track down which commit introduced the change that caused an incompatibility with Kobo.

[aharfoot]

For information, I had raised this issue on the KoboToolbox forums in February. I'll post a link to this issue (I agree that it is not an issue with Briefcase) to that thread.

[lognaturel]

Thanks for circling back, @aharfoot! I’ll close for now since there’s no clear action to take on the Briefcase side.