iOS 11 breaks journal app. How to retrieve entries?

January 5, 2018 10:52 AM

I used a journal app called Stenosaur for a few years on iPhone. I had a passcode lock in the app. With the iOS 11 update on iPhone, when I open the app, the passcode screen shows up, but I can no longer enter the passcode, as the keyboard does not appear. How can I get my data out of the app?

The developer seems to be defunct/unresponsive. The app does not sync to desktop, but I have backups from a few months ago (so all is not lost).

I was looking into temporarily downgrading my phone to iOS 10, but that seems to no longer be possible. Maybe there's some way to force the keyboard to open on the passcode screen, or attach an external keyboard? Or maybe there's some way to unlock the data in iTunes?

The passcode is four digits, and I also have an iPad, if that helps.

posted by icosahedron to Computers & Internet (2 answers total)

Could you pair a bluetooth keyboard with your iphone, and use that to type in the password?

Other idea: could you type your password elsewhere (in Notes for instance), copy it, and attempt to paste it when prompted by Stenosaur?

Another alternative: make a backup of your phone using iTunes, and make sure that the backup is not encrypted. Then, even though it'd be a pain, I'm pretty sure that it would be possible to find the app's backup files on your computer (i.e., a way to recover Stenosaur's data on your desk/laptop). The notes are most probably stored in a sqlite database. If it comes to this (i.e., this is the only thing that works), I'd be happy to help you -- write a script to attempt to find the backup file, and extract your notes. Anyway, we can think of something then!

Cheers
posted by vert canard at 12:18 PM on January 5, 2018 [1 favorite]

You can connect a keyboard via Bluetooth or a USB OTG Lightning cable.
posted by neckro23 at 12:23 PM on January 5, 2018