Delete corrupt database and perform a fresh setup

Imagine for some reason we lose our encrypted database key (see Android KeyStore issue) and as a fallback we want to send the user to our app’s registration process. There, the app workflow will be restarted and our Realm database would have to be deleted and set up again.

As we’re not able to delete Realm using deleteAll() API method (lost key), we could remove Realm database file from the file system getting it’s path previously.

Once I send the app to the registration process, I set up the new database with it’s new configuration:

realmConfiguration =
                    new RealmConfiguration.Builder()
                            .encryptionKey(newEncryptionKey)
                            .directory(realmFile)
                            .deleteRealmIfMigrationNeeded()
                            .build();

In this step I get two behaviors:

1. If the database key is matches the previous one, I get a “class_xxxxxx has no primary key defined” error.
2. Instead, if the database key is different and fresh one, I get the “Wrong key used to decrypt Realm.” error.

How could I solve this problem?

[kneth]

@XabierGoros I don’t think we have ever considered this case - thanks for bringing it up 😃

Currently solution is either to manually delete the Realm file or use a different name.

Long term solution is that we add a deleteRealmIfWrongEncryptionKey() option to RealmConfiguration.

[XabierGoros]

@Zhuinden I’m basically storing all Realm data in a custom folder, and erasing the whole folder which should be similar to the code above except it is performed by RealmCache (not accessible outside):

File realmFile = new File(mContext.getFilesDir() + "/database", "myDbName.realm");
if (realmFile != null) {
    deleteRecursive(realmFile.getParentFile());
}
..
private void deleteRecursive(File fileOrDirectory) {
    if (fileOrDirectory.isDirectory())
        for (File child : fileOrDirectory.listFiles())
            deleteRecursive(child);
     fileOrDirectory.delete();
}