How to set the settings encryption key via preload file (Windows)

Support
1

I just updated to 2.2.0.0_stable (on my Windows 10 22H2 machine) and saw the “unencrypted database” warning for the first time. After wading waist-deep through the docs, I decided to attempt to configure the “settings encryption key” by using a preload file.

I created the file C:\ProgramData\Duplicati\preload.json as indicated, and populated it with the following text.

{
    "env": {
        "*": {
            "SETTINGS_ENCRYPTION_KEY": "some long string I just generated"
        }
    }
}

However, upon restarting Duplicati, I still received the same warning message, which I assume means Duplicati didn’t read the preload file I created:

2025-11-03 00_08_50-NVIDIA GeForce Overlay DT
2025-11-03 00_08_50-NVIDIA GeForce Overlay DT340×296 9.51 KB

I would appreciate any assistance in figuring out where I’ve gone wrong.

2

The problem here is that Duplicati will not clear the messages when you fix the issue.
Most likely, you have already fixed the issue, but the message stays.

The fix for now is to click the “Dismiss” button and discard the message.

We have a fix ready that will be in the next patch stable release, and will auto-clear the message if the issue is fixed.

1 Like