662067 - "Error While Syncing", possibly triggered by power outage on one of the synced computers

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: Sync, defect)

Description

[Oliver Henshaw]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110428 Fedora/3.6.17-1.fc13 Firefox/3.6.17
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-GB; rv:1.9.2.17) Gecko/20110428 Fedora/3.6.17-1.fc13 Firefox/3.6.17

For the last couple of days I've had problems syncing between a desktop (Firefox 3.6.x + Sync 1.7) and a laptop (Firefox 4.0.x) - the status bar reports "Error While Syncing". 

The problems started after the desktop was accidentally hard-powered off. Perhaps it was syncing at the time, or perhaps this is a coincidence. Is the syncing process expected to be robust against interruption, or is this an unavoidable failure mode?

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Start firefox & wait OR "Sync Now"

Actual Results:  
Statusbar reports "Error While Syncing"

Expected Results:  
No error, everything synced successfully.

I first noticed this on the desktop - recent history from the laptop was not synced and the "tabs from other computer" page was blank. But now, after having logged in to both machines, history and tab syncing appears to be working again though the "Error While Syncing" message persists.

Comment 1

[Oliver Henshaw]

Attachment: Extract from about:sync-log after pressing "Sync Now" icon on Fx 3.6

The whole of about:sync-log is available if needed. Also I have backups of the 3.6 profile from before the power outage.

Comment 2

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Sync should be robust against interruptions.

You have hit Bug 638301, because something went wrong crypto-wise: you have records on the server that were encrypted with a different key than the one stored on the server.

I don't know why that is.

The quickest solution is to generate a new Sync Key on one of your devices, then add it to the other. (Prefs > Sync > My Sync Key > Generate)

That will wipe things out and start afresh without losing local data on either machine.

Comment 3

[Richard Newman [:rnewman]]

Closing old HMAC bugs after remediation. Reporter, please reopen if you've had this reoccur after some time after successfully using Firefox 7 or later on all of your devices.