Remote passphrase reset fails to sync locally, causing a verification loop

tentiuzyou

tentiuzyou

Hello Opera Team and community.

I am writing to report a severe and highly disruptive bug involving Opera Sync and the passphrase encryption mechanism on Windows.

[The Problem & The Loop]
After forgetting my sync passphrase, I used the official Opera Sync website (opera.com) to successfully reset my hosted data. The web interface correctly displayed "You have no sync data stored." However, the local Opera client on my Windows PC completely failed to recognize this server-side reset. Under opera://settings/syncSetup, it continuously demanded the old forgotten passphrase. Inspecting opera://sync-internals/ revealed endless "Cryptographer error" and "Passphrase Required" states. The browser was completely trapped in an authentication deadlock.

[Catastrophic Local Data Loss]
While attempting to break this loop by signing out and signing back into my Opera Account, a catastrophic error occurred. The browser performed an unauthorized, silent factory reset of its local environment. It completely wiped out my local configuration, erasing over 25,000 Bookmarks, 1,000 Passwords, along with all my customized Speed Dials, Workspaces, and Extensions.

[The Resolution (How I fixed it)]
Manually deleting the Sync Data and Default folders did not resolve the passphrase prompt upon relogging. The only way I successfully restored my environment was by fully closing Opera, completely deleting the corrupted Default folder, and restoring an older backed-up profile folder (Default.old) from my Windows Recycle Bin. Once the old profile folder replaced the new one, the client finally communicated with the server correctly, cleared the passphrase lock, and safely uploaded all 25,000+ items back to the cloud.

This handshake failure between a web-side passphrase reset and the desktop client poses a high risk of permanent data loss for users. Please investigate this token/cryptography sync bug immediately.

[Environment]

OS: Windows11（JP）
Windows 11 Pro Insider Preview
25H2
OS Build 26220.8474

Web Browser: Opera (Latest Stable Build)

Rei Narumiya　
(https://x.com/tentiuzyou)