failed to format output: consume [avatar]: can't read attachment of length 0 about signal-back HOT 8 OPEN

Forgive me if I am wrong, but I was having a similar issue- and after reading the help document more carefully, I found that using "-p" means you're specifying the password and not a password file. In order to specify the password file, use a capital p, "-P password.txt"

from signal-back.

+1 Same here. Extractin media works fine, but no text

from signal-back.

you are right about the option -p! it's supposed to be capital P!!
but it does not produce a clear error message in the form of: "option -p expects password from stdin" or "password file given, manual input expected, terminating" :)
it just spits out a bunch of errors that i can not interpret.
but it should not be able to extract media, because no password is supplied!?

i have found that in my case the process runs out of memory. i will try it on a machine with more ram.

from signal-back.

I tried to convert the backup file to XML on a more recent machine and it took ~29GB of Ram to process a ~3.1GB file. What you get is a XML file with all the media inline (i'm guessing Base64 encoded?) sized ~6.5GB.

from signal-back.

I have this problem too.
My machine has 8GB of RAM

My signal file is 263MB, I don't think the problem is related to memory.
I tried it on windows and linux but the message is the same
Can you help me please

from signal-back.

I succeeded by making a new backup from Signal

from signal-back.

Check if the password is actually correct!

from signal-back.

I'm getting the same issue too, I'm trying everything. Tried two different Signal backup files, double-checked the password, tried entering the password manually and with the password file, tried all 3 different output types (raw, XML, CSV), and I always get the:

error: failed to format output: consume [avatar]: can't read attachment of length 0

...error. It's a real problem, I need this output for legal issues. A shame this has been abandoned. I've tried this using build binaries on MacOS and Centos, I've tried using the prebuilt binary on Windows, same issue.

I'm guessing this utility is simply no longer compatible with new versions of Signal (I'm trying this in May of 2020).

from signal-back.