Unable to decrypt message. Please try again.
this post was submitted on 08 Sep 2025
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While I appreciate the joke, I have not seen that problem in quite some time :D
I've last seen it last month. And I have an old chat, where FluffyChat and ("old") Element show all messages by now, but Element X can't decrypt many and both Elements report that they can't guarantee the authenticity of many messages (even my own). For a long time, my chat partner could only read messages I sent via FluffyChat but not those sent by Element. I have not checked if that is still the case.
definetly report the problem. there's a function for it in the app, 3 points menu on the chat list menu, use it after making those errors show up. tick the contact me box. ceo recommends to also notify himself directly: https://gist.github.com/ara4n/190ad712965d0f06e17f508d1a45b554
"can't guarantee the authenticity of this message" just means it was restored from backup. In the same vein, if you can decrypt a message in any client, it should upload the keys to the message backup so it can be decrypted on other clients, even ones that haven't logged in.
Some months ago, I had UTD issues with Element X too. My hs has been up for some years, and the devs claimed they had done a lot to fix UTDs.
I was about to bring the server down, but as a last resort decided to log out all but one Element web session which was able to decrypt the messages and try resetting the key backup. Haven't had any UTD issues since then.
Maybe worth a try.
This is quite annoying. When will devs learn to tell people to resolve the problem instead of just showing a pointless error messages?
afaik those errors can't really be solved by users. I mean other than using an up to date client and server.
If users cannot do anything because all encryption keys are lost, then they need to know that and also how to avoid the situation in the future.
I think it's not a bug. It's simply no one online who can share a decryption key.
its often a bug, because the clients who have the keys don't know they should retry sending.
but also it's all been fixed a year ago as I know. I don't usually use dm rooms and public ones are not encrypted, so I wouldn't know if I didn't read about it.
Matrix encryption keys don't need other people online - they get queued up as messages for each device you have.
https://matrix.org/docs/matrix-concepts/end-to-end-encryption/
Key sharing When an event cannot be decrypted due to missing keys, a client may want to request them from other clients which may have them.
That page seemed outdated, but: From further down that page:
The recommended strategy is to share the keys automatically only to verified devices of the same user
This is the same situation where the key backup is accessible - which is not described on that page, but it's a key store of all the megolm keys. This is what is now generally used instead of that as it doesn't require devices to be online and allows recovering keys if all devices are lost.
I've only seen this message in the last months where different servers are having network issues and can't talk
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- DNS adjustments aren't needed if you do .well-known delegations which is easier
- Can recommend continuwuity, it runs much better on less resources. Lacks certain features compared to Synapse but overall good
- Notifications (and read markers) depend on client-specific black magic to work
- Federation do sometimes silent-fail completely, you can reset continuwuity's cache + restart when that happens. But full room history convergence needs patience
- Don't join large rooms unless your server can handle the load
- Don't host public rooms without modbots
The many small bugs make Matrix still bad - I wouldn't recommend a non-tech user unless accompanied by a 24/7 admin. It is trying to improve but very slow because of reasons
Matrix works perfectly for me, if you're setting up a new server, I'd go with tuwunel. I'm stuck on synapse, when the tuwunel team makes a way to migrate, I'll do it.
matthew the ceo addressed aot of the criticisms recently, check it out: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyuqM7RbX5E
transcript with links: https://gist.github.com/ara4n/190ad712965d0f06e17f508d1a45b554
other than that, push notifications work fine for me with Ntfy. but as I heard matrix.org hs users have problems, possibly because of serverside firewall issues, investigation is stuck somehow
I didn't like synapse or dendrite at all, but conduit has been great.
I did synapse about a year ago but kind of wish I had done conduit, it seems so much simpler. That being said, all of the bridges and add-ons assume you're running synapse
I agree, I amselfhosting conduit too and its working great.
Matrix seems to work well. I'm on a smallish non-profit server. I regard it as the premium open-source step forward from IRC.
The worst problem is that there are really no channels that I care to follow.
You might want to check out https://matrixrooms.info/, which is good for a search around. Some project communities also have offtopic rooms that are good to chat in. Even very small rooms can be very active.
I host my tuwunnel server and I am happy with it. The lack of a top level client is my turn down. Element X is good but still lacking, and fluffy chat is maybe better looking but more lacking.
My matrix use case is only WhatsApp and telegram backup using the bridges, actually... So YMMV.
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I believe the machines are currently struggling against the humans
I've been wanting to get matrix up for my family and friends to chat with my 6 year old on her tablet. I found nextcloud talk to do all the things I wanted with none of the hassle. My daughter is a ridiculous texter.
I use conduit. And really happy with it. Since I use 3 bridges the compose.yml is a mess. It works really nice. The sliding feature boosts all media files. But there is always something broken or misconfigured. Actually my WhatsApp bridge blocks all mediafiles and I was too busy to fix it already.
Conduit is long dead. Upgrade to tuwunnel, its successor, while its still binary compatible...
All bridges works fine here.
Continuwuity developer here - Conduit is reviving itself, and you can no longer move from Conduit to tuwunel or Continuwuity. You haven't been able to for as long as either project has existed. You might be confusing conduwuit with Conduit.
Conduwuit has another child? What the difference between continuwuity and tuwunnel?
https://continuwuity.org/ or https://forgejo.ellis.link/continuwuation/continuwuity
As for the difference: https://lemmy.world/post/33271240
Thanks.
I am currently on tuwunnel, might consider a continuwuity migration in the short term future maybe.
Ibwant to stay clear of any drama but stay on a future proof solution if possible.
Hard choices.
Synapse was too heavy on my resources. Moved to XMPP despite I like Matrix more.
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