"You don't seem to have permission to decrypt this secret. Contact the secret owner to gain access." error when decrypting a Secret macro

Summary

When removing users from your site ensure that they are not the only user who are the secret's user owner or the only user in the group owner.

If the removed user cannot be added back to your site, the Secret macro loses the user owner/group owner and thus nobody can access the Secret macro.

The data within the Secret macro cannot be recovered and owner access cannot be transferred.

Clicking Decrypt on a Secret macro triggers an error "You don't seem to have permission to decrypt this secret. Contact the secret owner to gain access.".

In normal cases, reaching out to the secret owner to provide you the access will resolve the issue.

In this scenario, the secret owner is unreachable due to user administration related factors.

Environment

Confluence Cloud

Diagnostics Steps

Cause

The secret owner has got their account removed by the site administrator.
The secret owner has got their account suspended by the site administrator.
The secret owner has got their account deactivated by the site administrator.

Workaround

Resolution

Depending on the status of the secret owner's account, there are three possible solutions to this issue.

Restoring the account of the secret owner

The error shows the user's name followed by unlicensed. For example, Username (Unlicensed).

Go to Administration > click Manage User for your organization.
Click Invite Users and add the removed secret owner's email address.
The Secret macro can now be accessed and decrypted.

Unsuspending the account of the secret owner

The error shows the user's name only. For example, Username.

Go to Administration > click Manage User for your organization.
Search for the user's account and click Restore Access to activate the account.

For more information, check out the Remove or suspend a user documentation.

Reactivating the account of the secret owner

The error shows the user's name followed by deactivated. For example, Username (Deactivated).

For more information, check out the Reactivate accounts documentation.