# Fail to open database after encryption in Android **URL:** \ **Category:** SQLCipher\ **Created:** [March 22, 2018, 3:20am UTC](https://discuss.zetetic.net/t/fail-to-open-database-after-encryption-in-android/2730 "2018-03-22T03:20:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![min0623](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@min0623](https://discuss.zetetic.net/u/min0623)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 3:20am UTC](https://discuss.zetetic.net/t/fail-to-open-database-after-encryption-in-android/2730/1 "2018-03-22T03:20:22Z")
Hi, I’m a bit worried this may be duplicate issue, but not any answer helped to resolve my issue, so I would like to share my code to get some idea what’s going wrong. ``` private static synchronized void createSession(Context context) { try { SQLiteDatabase.loadLibs(context); encrypt(context, DBOpenHelper.DB_NAME, "password"); } catch (IOException e) { e.printStackTrace(); } DBOpenHelper helper = new DBOpenHelper(context); db = helper.getEncryptedWritableDb("password"); } private static void encrypt(Context context, String dbName, String passphrase) throws IOException { File originalFile = context.getDatabasePath(dbName); File encryptedFile = context.getDatabasePath(ENCRYPTED_DB_NAME); if (originalFile.exists() && !encryptedFile.exists()) { encryptedFile.mkdir(); SQLiteDatabase.openOrCreateDatabase(encryptedFile, passphrase, null); SQLiteDatabase db = SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(originalFile.getAbsolutePath(), "", null, SQLiteDatabase.OPEN_READWRITE); db.rawExecSQL(String.format("ATTACH DATABASE '%s' AS encrypted KEY '%s';", encryptedFile.getAbsolutePath(), passphrase)); db.rawExecSQL("SELECT sqlcipher_export('encrypted')"); db.rawExecSQL("DETACH DATABASE encrypted;"); int version = db.getVersion(); db.close(); db = SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(encryptedFile.getAbsolutePath(), passphrase, null, SQLiteDatabase.OPEN_READWRITE); db.setVersion(version); db.close(); originalFile.delete(); encryptedFile.renameTo(originalFile); } } ``` This is my code to encrypt original local unencrypted databases whenever the application is updated. However, I’m getting error when I try to open the encrypted database even though I’m using the same passphrase(in this case, “password”). Following is the error I’m receiving. ``` 03-22 11:37:17.599 9080-9080/com.example E/SQLiteOpenHelper: Couldn't open %my-db-name% for writing (will try read-only): net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteException: file is not a database: , while compiling: select count(*) from sqlite_master; at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteCompiledSql.native_compile(Native Method) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteCompiledSql.compile(SQLiteCompiledSql.java:91) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteCompiledSql.(SQLiteCompiledSql.java:64) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteProgram.(SQLiteProgram.java:89) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteQuery.(SQLiteQuery.java:48) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDirectCursorDriver.query(SQLiteDirectCursorDriver.java:60) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.rawQueryWithFactory(SQLiteDatabase.java:1867) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.rawQuery(SQLiteDatabase.java:1785) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.keyDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:2486) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openDatabaseInternal(SQLiteDatabase.java:2415) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:1149) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openOrCreateDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:1212) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteOpenHelper.getWritableDatabase(SQLiteOpenHelper.java:162) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteOpenHelper.getReadableDatabase(SQLiteOpenHelper.java:227) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteOpenHelper.getReadableDatabase(SQLiteOpenHelper.java:214) at org.greenrobot.greendao.database.DatabaseOpenHelper.getEncryptedWritableDb(DatabaseOpenHelper.java:134) ``` There is no problem when I pass empty string when I open my database: it just opens unencrypted database. How can I open the encrypted database with my passphrase? ---
**Author:** ![developernotes](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.zetetic.net/developernotes/32/1309_2.png) [@developernotes](https://discuss.zetetic.net/u/developernotes)\ **Post date:** [March 22, 2018, 1:45pm UTC](https://discuss.zetetic.net/t/fail-to-open-database-after-encryption-in-android/2730/2 "2018-03-22T13:45:07Z")
Hi @min0623 Try removing this line from your example: ```auto SQLiteDatabase.openOrCreateDatabase(encryptedFile, passphrase, null); ``` The `ATTACH` statement will create the file if it doesn’t already exist. We have an example of importing a plain-text database, encrypting it [here](https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher-android-tests/blob/master/app/src/main/java/net/zetetic/tests/ImportUnencryptedDatabaseTest.java). ---
**Author:** ![min0623](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/48db29/32.png) [@min0623](https://discuss.zetetic.net/u/min0623)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 1:43am UTC](https://discuss.zetetic.net/t/fail-to-open-database-after-encryption-in-android/2730/3 "2018-03-23T01:43:20Z")
Thanks @developernotes Removing the line throws another SQLite exception on the first `rawExecSQL`. ``` Caused by: net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteException: unable to open database: /data/user/0/my.package/databases/db-encrypted at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.native_rawExecSQL(Native Method) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.rawExecSQL(SQLiteDatabase.java:2281) ``` This is another error that occured. ``` E/Database: close() was never explicitly called on database '/data/user/0/my.package/databases/remember-db' net.sqlcipher.database.DatabaseObjectNotClosedException: Application did not close the cursor or database object that was opened here at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.(SQLiteDatabase.java:2402) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:1148) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:1116) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:1065) at net.sqlcipher.database.SQLiteDatabase.openDatabase(SQLiteDatabase.java:1019) ``` This was why I inserted that line in my code. Any idea what is happening? ---
**Author:** ![developernotes](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/discuss.zetetic.net/developernotes/32/1309_2.png) [@developernotes](https://discuss.zetetic.net/u/developernotes)\ **Post date:** [March 23, 2018, 12:58pm UTC](https://discuss.zetetic.net/t/fail-to-open-database-after-encryption-in-android/2730/4 "2018-03-23T12:58:15Z")
Hi @min0623 What are your results of running the SQLCipher for Android [test suite](https://github.com/sqlcipher/sqlcipher-android-tests)?