Question

I have a sqlite database that I want to open using sqlite3.exe. Now I get an error when I try to make queries, saying “file is encrypted or is not a database”. This may seem stupid but I’ve been looking around on internet and I just don’t find how to supply a password (or key) to sqlite3.exe to decrypt the database. The -help option or .help command of sqlite3.exe don’t show anything to do that… Is it possible to do that, and if so how can I do it?

Answer 1

It is unlikely that the database would be encrypted, unless you have a reason to believe it is. Are you able to open the database at all, or are you getting this error once you issue some SQL query? If it’s the former, your file is probably either not an sqlite db to begin with, or it is corrupted; if it’s the latter, please check the integrity of your db with:

pragma integrity_check;

See http://www.sqlite.org/pragma.html#pragma_integrity_check for more info about this pragma.

In any case, unless your db is really encrypted (which sqlite does not support natively), your db is probably unusable.