bug#25328: pinentry-gtk-2 fails after upgrade to 1.0.0: "Operation cancelled"

[Chris Marusich]

Chris Marusich <address@hidden> writes:

> Hi,
>
> Since upgrading pinentry-gtk-2 from 0.9.7 to 1.0.0, I've noticed some
> strange behavior.  Whenever I try to do something that requires access
> to my secret key, no window appears, and I get an error like the
> following:
>
>     $ gpg --sign /tmp/message 
>     gpg: signing failed: Operation cancelled
>     gpg: signing failed: Operation cancelled
>     $ 
>
> Is this expected behavior with 1.0.0?
>
> This happens about 90% of the time.  About 10% of the time, a pinentry
> window actually does pop up.  When using version 0.9.7, a pinentry
> window popped up 100% of the time.  I expected the behavior of 1.0.0 to
> be the same.
>
> My software versions are:
>
> * GuixSD 0.12.0
> * GNOME 3 (GNOME shell 3.22.2)
> * gnupg 2.1.16
> * pinentry-gtk-2 1.0.0
>
> My ~/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf file contains the following single line:
>
>     pinentry-program /home/marusich/.guix-profile/bin/pinentry-gtk-2
>
> When I change my gpg-agent.conf file to use pinentry-gnome3 ,
> pinentry-curses, or pinentry-tty (and I kill gpg-agent to make sure it
> uses the modified file), the problem doesn't occur.
>
> When I keep pinentry-gtk-2 in my gpg-agent.conf file, and I log into an
> Xfce session, the problem doesn't occur.  Likewise, when I log in via a
> virtual terminal (e.g. the kind you can get by pressing Control+Alt+F2),
> the problem doesn't occur.
>
> In other words, the problem only seems to occur when I use
> pinentry-gtk-2 as my pinentry-program, and I'm logged into a GNOME 3
> session.  The problem occurs regardless of what program I am running
> inside of that GNOME 3 session; for example, it happens in emacs when
> emacs tries to automatically decrypt files ending in ".gpg", too.
>
> Here's how to reproduce the issue:
>
> * Log into a GNOME session on (a recently updated) GuixSD.
>
> * In $HOME/.gnupg/gpg-agent.conf, set pinentry-program to
>   pinentry-gtk-2, for example:
>
>     pinentry-program /home/marusich/.guix-profile/bin/pinentry-gtk-2
>
> * If the gpg-agent process is running, kill it to make sure it loads the
>   new gpg-agent.conf.
>
> * Open up any terminal (GNOME terminal and emacs' "M-x term" will both
>   reproduce the issue) to sign a message, e.g.:
>
>     echo hello > /tmp/message
>     gpg --sign /tmp/message
>
> You should get the error very frequently.

Did anybody get this message?  I sent it in January of 2017, but I can't
find it in the online archives, so I'm worried maybe it never got
delivered:

https://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gnupg-devel/

This time, I've CC'd address@hidden so that my email gets
delivered to at least one location for posterity.

-- 
Chris

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