I do not think that this is the only place where such an issue occurs. Maybe we should make the documentation clearer about context key reuse. But the context is specifically designed to cache information about a key, so as to avoid memory overhead. I learned early on that its best for each new operation to use a new context. A context is basically an instance of gpg or gpgsm. So you start one process, ask it for a keylist, keep the process running, start another process, modify the key database, and then ask the first process again about his worldview. Either the first process is a bit confused because it has read data and then that data changed (what happens here) or it has no idea about the change since it was efficient and only read the database once. But here in this example you should be able to reproduce this also by making any other modifications to the key, adding other subkeys, userids etc. That GPGME even notices the secret key is more of a side effect of how the programming works because the GPGME gpg process will ask the gpg-agent (so a third process).

looks good to me on gpg4win-4.4.1-beta59@win10

Checked with Gpg4win-4.4.1-beta59, too, which contains gpgme 1.24.3. Works!

In T7627#200387, @werner wrote:

We won't apply any fixes to the cpp, QT, or Python language bindings in the 1.24 branch. The Qt branch has been factored out to the gpgmeqt project on request from the KDE folks. And yes, we should add projects (tags) for gpgmepp and gpgmeqt.

In T7620#200845, @Saturneric wrote:

I think it would be much better if GnuPG automatically performed a key listing immediately after key generation when a smartcard is involved. This would allow GnuPG to detect the presence of the subkey on the card right away, rather than leaving it marked as a stub until the user manually lists keys.

I see that you generated the secret encryption subkey with backup. This means that the secret subkey is generated on your computer, then copied to the card, and then deleted from your computer. The deletion is the reason why the subkey is marked as stub. Only after listing the keys on the card gpg notices that the secret key is actually on the card.

works for me, thanks

The first call of get_key receives the following key listing from gpg:

2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: sec:-:256:19:C4A24EB0B5F2E025:1746474606:::u:::s
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: cESCA:::D2760001240100000006180489130000::brainp
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: oolP256r1:23::0:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: fpr:::::::::DEC0948C398A6E7B50746EC6C4A24EB0B5F2
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: E025:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: grp:::::::::06BDACFBDEDBC5783A75AE5E7251FA3369C4
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: 0FF4:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: uid:-::::1746474606::2222D8E2F373B9BDEE0DEA2A20A
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: 9402214E9F984::Eric <eric@bktus.com>::::::::::0:
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: <LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: ssb:-:256:19:EAFC5EA29B758B22:1746474606::::::a:
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: ::D2760001240100000006180489130000::brainpoolP25
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: 6r1:23:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: fpr:::::::::1AD596DDEC9B8CF3C1AC6C41EAFC5EA29B75
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: 8B22:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: grp:::::::::52F0797C0B0439BBD718E2534D46656A6C45
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: 6A78:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: ssb:-:256:18:A874804DB497B91C:1746474606::::::e:
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: ::#::brainpoolP256r1:23:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: fpr:::::::::33B273C7BD46E4EB63DD6874A874804DB497
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: B91C:<LF>
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: grp:::::::::34A1F8D9B2AA0CF07C2E042D70E10F9D4EBE
2025-05-05 21:50:23 gpgme[57059]     _gpgme_io_read: check: E734:<LF>

Note the line

ssb:-:256:18:A874804DB497B91C:1746474606::::::e:::#::brainpoolP256r1:23:<LF>

where the # marks the subkey as stub.

I have now identified the exact conditions and a reproducible path for the issue I previously reported. I will also attach the relevant gpgme.log.

I doubt that this is a gpgme problem. With a gpgme log we will be able see the exact commands send to gpg and replicate this on the command line.

Should be fixed.

For gpgme 2 we changed the data types of the time fields to unsigned: rMf2d40473b522e348d96a70c089d2191d0b978098 . Since this change breaks the ABI we use the above change for the 1.24 branch.

tested @ikloecker

The following patch for gpgme 1.24 should fix the test.

diff --git a/lang/cpp/src/key.cpp b/lang/cpp/src/key.cpp
index 42046aa..2b14d90 100644
--- a/src/key.cpp
+++ b/src/key.cpp
@@ -633,7 +633,7 @@ time_t Subkey::creationTime() const

I did a local change (on amdahl.d.o) changing _gpgme_subkey.expires to long long (ABI-break) and all tests succeeded.

It looks like the entirety of gpgme timestamping was missed when the 64bit time transition happened in Debian and Ubuntu.

This looks like a problem in gpgme. struct _gpgme_subkey stores the expiration date as long int expires which is a signed 32-bit value on all 32-bit architectures. gpgmepp casts this to time_t, but that doesn't help if the 32-bit value is already negative. The same problem exists with all other timestamps in gpgme (i.e. key creation date, signature expiration date, etc.).

The logs of gpgme would be helpful, i.e. run your test program with GPGME_DEBUG=8:$(pwd)/gpgme-$(date +"%Y-%m-%d-%H%M%S").log to create a log file with gpgme's logs.

This is resolved in the final Beta15.

I tried to apply crude patches. Since _POSIX_C_SOURCE is defined when <string.h> is included (in pre-compiled source I see

That error code is actually not an error code but it is the ERROR state from the Kleo SFM. We have seen that yesterday already.

this exact case is fixed in VS-Desktop-3.3.90.12-Beta
Adding further UIDs and making more certifications still works, too.

Very likely this bug exists since 2017 when support for promotion of local certifications to exportable certifications was added.

Fixed in gpgmepp for gpd5x. I think for VSD 3.3 we'll add a patch to gpg4win.

Attached is a patch which adds gpgme_subkey_set_flag() to handle both encryption and signing keys. Or maybe it would be better to add another signing function that does recpstring?

BTW, do we really need a C++ API for this? Might make sense due to the need for a context.

This was using GCC to build, but on AIX. I believe support for dollar signs in identifiers are platform specific.

GCC allows dollars in identifier, that's the reason why we haven't encountered this issue, I suppose.