this post was submitted on 10 Feb 2026
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[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

Don’t know what to tell you. I’m literally unable to read messages sent to me, they all show up as “unable to decrypt”. If I can’t even use the damn protocol then how many clients it has doesn’t matter.

And I have tried different clients.

And as far as I’ve read, this “unable to decrypt” affects a lot of users.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

What server are you using and with which client most recently? It sounds like your device is unverified so untrusted or the key isn’t present.

To expand, “unable to decrypt” would affect a lot of users. That’s a good thing and exactly what you want it to do when not correctly trusted.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I'm using the default matrix server and I've tried with Element and FluffyChat. I've never used a different device to access Matrix. It has always been Firefox through Element, and then when that stopped working I switched to try to use FluffyChat which also did not work.

To expand, “unable to decrypt” would affect a lot of users. That’s a good thing and exactly what you want it to do when not correctly trusted.

No, you do not want this affecting every user who has done nothing to change their environment. The device is still trusted, else I wouldn't be able to sign in and get new messages at all. Here's a massive list detailing many of the ways this can happen and note that this goes back to 2022. So for 4 years now they've had numerous issues with thousands of users being able to decrypt messages sent on the only device they've ever used and it still isn't fixed.

[–] theherk@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe I came off as dismissive or just stupid, but I really did mean to be helpful. Of course you don’t want users experience bad interactions. I meant if those interactions were for an actual intended reason. So yeah, never mind.

Bummer you’ve had a hard time. I think they and the free software community are trying to put together a good solution.

[–] tyler@programming.dev 1 points 2 hours ago

Sorry, clearly I responded too harshly. Honestly I'm just tired of the suggestions to use Matrix, when myself (and several other people I know personally) have constant issues with it. I've tried to use Matrix for over 3 years now and I am required to use it sometimes, but every time I'm incredibly frustrated.

I think they and the free software community are trying to put together a good solution.

I agree, and I do think we need that, but sometimes the focus should be on usability before security. I know how much that sucks, but if you look at Lemmy you see the same thing. The focus was on usability first. Security came later, because (honestly) security is kinda pointless when every user can set up their own instance and intercept any posts they want. We'll get there eventually with security, but if people aren't using your platform then security is pointless.