[Enigmail] The revocation certificate could not be created.

[Charly Avital]

Heiko Freundel <vmuetze at gmx.net> wrote:
> Ubuntu 7.10
> Mozilla-Thunderbird 2.0.0.12
> Enigmail 2:0.95.0-ubuntu4 (20070830)
> 
> I created a new key pair.
> 
> But when I want to create an revocation certificate, a window opens to
> locate the place, where to save the certificate. When I confirm that, I get the
> message "The revocation certificate could not be created."
> 
> The place where I want to save it, is writable.
> 
> Does anybody know a solution or where to find more detailed information?
> 
> Thanks
> HF

Running: MacOSX 10.5.2 - Ubuntu 8.04 (under virtual ware Parallels 3.0 
for Mac)  GnuPG 1.4.9 - gpg2 2.0.9 -
Thunderbird version 2.0.0.12 (20080227) - Enigmail 0.95.6 (20080101)

Is that the complete text of the error message you have received?
If it is not, could you please copy/paste it?
Also, what version of gpg are you running, and have you enabled in 
OpenPGP/Preferences/Advanced "Use gpg-agent for passphrases"?

Creating a revocation certificate requires the use of the passphrase for 
the secret key related to the key pair that has been generated, and for 
which a revocation certificate is being created.

If for any reason an incorrect passphrase is entered, or if the 
passphrase cannot be entered because, e.g., the user's gpg system has 
been set to 'use-agent' and use-agent is not running or enabled, the 
process will fail.

Therefore I believe that the error message you have received does not 
relate to the place where you want save the revocation certificate, but 
to the inability of creating the revocation certificate itself, maybe 
for one of the reasons indicated above, or for any other reason that I 
am not aware of (maybe the Enigmail version you are using?).

For the sake of comparison, using 'Key Management' I have just generated 
a key, a revocation certificate, and saved it to Documents.

I also created a revocation certificate for another key I had created 
five months ago, using Terminal, in Ubuntu 7.10. Saved the certificate 
in Documents.

All this is only a test, none of these keys have ever been uploaded to a 
server.

By the way, you might want to consider using Enigmail 0.95.6 (20080101), 
instead of Enigmail 2:0.95.0-ubuntu4 (20070830)
Charly