[BubuIIC]

I think where it went wrong here is that when it asked you for your "passphrase" (which is called a recovery key) it's very likely it wanted your login password instead. (Because that is indeed needed to reset the recovery key).

The recovery key (whitespace doesn't matter btw, it's just a 48 char string) is only needed when you logout of all devices and subsequently want to restore your encrypted messages.

[FieryTransition]

Even so, the fact that this could cause such confusion is a valid point, and more care need to be taken to differentiate the purpose and situation for each. It's a software problem, not a user problem.

Of course you might agree with this, and i personally find the key and password management quite problematic after using it with a few non technical people.

[zaarn]

They should have taken a page out of Bitcoins/Ethereums book and used mnemoic phrases and clearly labelling them as "Recovery key" with big red bold letters everytime you enter it.

[FieryTransition]

yeah, that would definitely help! I find it sad that so many high profile open source projects lack in UI, even though there's a lot of smart people working on them.

Maybe it's a question about prioritizing time for technical features and downgrading the importance of a good UI and onboarding. Since time is limited, but in the case of matrix, I would say UI is just as important as the technical part. If they get more funding, maybe it will change in the future.

[Daviey]

This caught me out aswell, when it asked for "recovery key" I assumed it was looking for 12 words, rather than my matrix day-to-day password.