Limitations and known issues

Reporting issues

Please report sensitive issues that are specific to your instance via the support portal.

Bugs and other issues that are not specific to your instance can be reported via GitHub using the following links:

If you encounter a security-related issue, please see SECURITY.md for instructions on how to privately report it.

Current known issues

  • Searching/filtering by codename is not yet implemented.

  • While failed file downloads are automatically retried, there is currently no mechanism cancelling in-progress downloads or viewing the progress or speed of a download. These features are planned.

  • Updates are slow due to the number of VMs involved, and due to some updates being fetched over Tor. We have made improvements to the performance and reliability of the updater, and this work will continue.

  • SecureDrop instances with very large numbers of sources may encounter UI performance issues. While performance improvements are on the roadmap, our recommendation is to delete information from the servers as regularly as possible, both for performance and security reasons.

  • Printer support is limited to specific HP and Brother printer models, and printing different file types is not as reliable yet as under Tails. Support for additional non-networked printers will be added in a future release.

  • Printing of individual files inside an archived submission is not yet supported.

  • Currently, only app-based two-factor authentication (TOTP) is supported.

  • The SecureDrop Client does not currently handle files that are “double-encrypted” (when a source pre-encrypts a submission locally before uploading it to SecureDrop). Until this is fully supported, we suggest using the Tails-based Secure Viewing Station for pre-encrypted submissions.

  • There are a limited number of file types that can be viewed on SecureDrop Workstation. Some file types (such as .eml) are not yet supported for viewing, and must be exported via USB, and/or viewed using the Tails-based Secure Viewing Station. Broader file type support is planned.

  • If the Submission Key for your SecureDrop server was rotated in the past, you must manually re-add the old key to your vault VM (sd-gpg) in order to view old submissions in SecureDrop Client. Contact Support for assistance.

  • We do not support uninstalling SecureDrop Workstation without wiping all of Qubes OS. There is an --uninstall option for sdw-admin, but it is not officially supported and will leave behind sensitive material in /usr/share/securedrop-workstation-dom0-config in dom0. If you need to decomission a SecureDrop Workstation, please contact us for assistance.