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Thunderbird 78 external smart card not working (GPGME)

  • 1 reply
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  • Last reply by Kai Engert

mathias.muehlbacher
mathias.muehlbacher
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Hello everyone,

I have installed the current Thunderbird 78.2.1 and followed the manual (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Smartcards) for enabling my external smart card. Unfortunately this does not work.

I have added my public key to the Thunderbird key store and granted it full trust. I am using Gpg4Win with Kleopatra. There I have created my primary key and different subkeys. The primary key for certifying other signatures resides on my computer while the other three (encryption, authentication & signing) resides on my smart card.

According to the manual I have added the primary key ID to Thunderbird.

Problems: I can encrypt draft email but I can't decrypt them. I cannot send myself encrypted and signed emails. Thunderbird does not even ask myself for entering a PIN to unlock my smart card.


Anyone else having similar issues?


Thanks & best regards, Mathias

Hello everyone, I have installed the current Thunderbird 78.2.1 and followed the manual (https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:OpenPGP:Smartcards) for enabling my external smart card. Unfortunately this does not work. I have added my public key to the Thunderbird key store and granted it full trust. I am using Gpg4Win with Kleopatra. There I have created my primary key and different subkeys. The primary key for certifying other signatures resides on my computer while the other three (encryption, authentication & signing) resides on my smart card. According to the manual I have added the primary key ID to Thunderbird. Problems: I can encrypt draft email but I can't decrypt them. I cannot send myself encrypted and signed emails. Thunderbird does not even ask myself for entering a PIN to unlock my smart card. Anyone else having similar issues? Thanks & best regards, Mathias

Modified by Wayne Mery

All Replies (1)

Kai Engert
Kai Engert
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If you're using the external gnupg configuration, then please check that Thunderbird can load GPGME. The Thunderbird error console should show a success message mentioning gpgme if it can.

Are you using a 64 bit version of Thunderbird? It's currently know that it doesn't work, because a 64-bit version of the GPGME DLL is required, which is not yet available.

https://admin.hostpoint.ch/pipermail/enigmail-users_enigmail.net/2020-August/005731.html

If that's your issue, you could try to temporarily use the 32 bit version of Thunderbird on Windows until the issue has been resolved.

Kai