What to do if Chilkat.Cert.LoadFromSmartcard Fails?
Here are the initial steps to follow to determine the reason why LoadFromSmartcard failed.
- Make sure to set the Cert,SmartCardPin property prior to calling LoadFromSmartcard.
- Make sure you are using the very latest version of Chilkat. Chilkat’s internal intelligence regarding the options and choices to be made for different smartcard makes/models evolves with each new version.
- Assuming the failure persists after (1) and (2), gather information about the smartcard (or token) and send it to Chilkat. Here’s what we need to know.
Gather Smartcard Information
1) Find the Smartcard Vendor and Product DataSheet
We’ll need to know the smartcard vendor and the specific card produced by the vendor. Find the smartcard vendor and product datasheet on the web. For example:
https://www.cryptotech.com.pl/Produkty/CryptoCard_Graphite,content.html
or
https://www.aeteurope.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/SafeSign_datasheet_JAN2016_Web.pdf
2) What Software Interfaces are Supported?
A particular smartcard can support any, several, or all of the following interfaces:
- PKCS11
- ScMinidriver (on Windows)
- CSP for Microsoft Crypto API
- KSP for Microsoft CNG
Chilkat can interact with the smartcard using any of the above interfaces. Some interfaces on some smartcards present particular problems, and it’s possible that using a different interface solves a problem.
3) What DLLs (or shared libs on non-Windows systems) are Associated with Each Interface?
A smartcard or token vendor typically also provides driver software (or a CSP/KSP) for their specific products. After downloading and installing, there should be DLLs (on a Windows system) created in c:\Windows\System32 and/or C:\Windows\SysWOW64. Which DLLs are present, and what are the names?
4) Get the Contents of the Cert.LastErrorText property for the call to Cert.LoadFromSmartcard
Send the contents of the LastErrorText property to Chilkat (info@chilkatsoft.com). The LastErrorText will contain detailed information about what Chilkat found on the system, and the choices made by Chilkat.
Send all of the above information to info@chilkatsoft.com