The desktop agent cannot start because the Network User Data Folder is has an unreadable or corrupt encryption key (7FFFFFFF)

[James_Walton]

I am using Symantec Desktop and Laptop Option 8.0 and am getting the following alerts on dozens of backups:

The desktop agent cannot start because the Network User Data Folder is has an unreadable or corrupt encryption key (7FFFFFFF)

It appears to be affecting many users, but not all. I think it might just be affecting users of a particular storage location. Not every user of this storage location is affected, just some. 

The recommended action is to delete the Network User Data Folder or delete the user. This seems a bit excessive, plus I don't want to delete the user's backed up data!

Has anyone else come across this and could propose a solution please?

[VJware · Accepted solution]

Do the affected clients have appropriate permissions as per - https://support.symantec.com/en_US/article.TECH71156.html

Also, have you tested a restore to indeed confirm if there is an issue with the encryption key or not ? If the issue is indeed due to a problematic encryption key, then the only option would be to rerun the backup either by using a new NUDF or recreating the user.

And by choosing not delete an affected user's data wouldn't help, since how would you restore if the encryption key doesn't work ?

[James_Walton]

It looks like the permissions are wrong for this particular storage location. Could you confirm exactly what the permissions should look like on a user's personal folder please? I believe it should be like this:

DLO Service Account - Full Control

Administrators - Full Control

System - Full Control

domain\username of the DLO client/user - Full Control

[VJware]

On the user's personal folder - Yes.