Re: MS Excel files password bug ?

[Jon Kåre Hellan <hellan acm org>]

On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 16:07, Arnaud Launay wrote:
> Hello people,
>
> Was trying to open the MS excel file my mom sent to me and that
> she protected with the password "MADELEINE" (without the "", in
> caps), but when I try to open it (first with gnumeric 1.2.2, then
> updated to 1.2.4, got the same thing), it prints:
>
> ** (gnumeric:24262): CRITICAL **: file ms-biff.c: line 236 (ms_biff_query_set_decrypt): assertion 
> `q->length == sizeof_BIFF_8_FILEPASS' failed
>
> And loops again asking for password.

This file turns out to be encrypted with an older, simpler scheme than
the usual. xor, in fact. Coinicidentally, support for that scheme was
added to the unstable branch a week ago. Your sheet opens fine in that
version.

I don't know if Jody plans to backport this feature to the stable
branch. It would be a nice selling point, since AFAIK OpenOffice Calc
can't open password protected Excel sheets at all. Anyway, you should
try to think of a nice way to encourage Jody to do the backport.

Regards

Jon Kåre