Windows 10 will reach EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. For more information, see this article.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Natao arisiva ity resaka mitohy ity. Mametraha fanontaniana azafady raha mila fanampiana.

The PKCS #12 operation failed for unknown reasons

  • 5 valiny
  • 2 manana an'ity olana ity
  • 3 views
  • Valiny farany nomen'i ict_bmn

ict_bmn
ict_bmn
more options

Hello,

our organisation is using Thunderbird for email handling. For a few of our employees we also have personal S/MIME signing certificates from Globalsign (Personalsign 1). In the past importing these certificates into Thunderbird was no problem whatsoever.

For some reason we cannot import these certificates anymore on any of the computers (windows10 and windows7). The error mentioned is "The PKCS312 operation failed for unkown reasons". The windows certificate manager imports these certificates without any problem.

Is there any way to debug this; is there a log file or is this a known issue?

Kind regards Tom Doenen

Hello, our organisation is using Thunderbird for email handling. For a few of our employees we also have personal S/MIME signing certificates from Globalsign (Personalsign 1). In the past importing these certificates into Thunderbird was no problem whatsoever. For some reason we cannot import these certificates anymore on any of the computers (windows10 and windows7). The error mentioned is "The PKCS312 operation failed for unkown reasons". The windows certificate manager imports these certificates without any problem. Is there any way to debug this; is there a log file or is this a known issue? Kind regards Tom Doenen

All Replies (5)

Matt
Matt
  • Top 10 Contributor
  • Moderator
more options

I now know a lot more about PKs than I ever wanted.

Does Thunderbird prompt for a password when you do the import?

Matt
Matt
  • Top 10 Contributor
  • Moderator
more options

Do these users have a master password set? the last of these type issues I saw the guy was inserting the certificate password in the master password unaware that both passwords were required.

ict_bmn
ict_bmn Tompon'ny fanontaniana
more options

Hello Matt,

there is no master password set; the import prompts to select a pkcs12 (.pfx) file; after that is selected there is a prompt for the certificate password. The errors occurs right after the password (which is correct) is entered.

We tried numerous times; have certificates re-issued, even bought some new certificates. Some users have multiple email accounts set up, some have only one.

christ1
christ1
  • Top 25 Contributor
more options

To which tab in the Certificate Manager are you trying to import the cert?

ict_bmn
ict_bmn Tompon'ny fanontaniana
more options

the certificate is intented for the personal tab.

We have been experimenting with the certificate and it seems that if we import the certificate into the windows 10 certificate manager, (which reads the certificate without problems) then export it we can import this "rewritten" certificate without problems into Thunderbird.