moonD4rk/HackBrowserData · error

no vault for browser

Error message

no vault for browser %q in keys (have: %s)

What it means

BuildFromDump restores browser instances from a previously exported master-key dump, selecting the vault whose Browser field matches the requested filter. When a filter is given but no vault in the dump matches (case-insensitively), the function fails and lists which vaults are available to help correct the name. The dump's vault names are the authoritative set.

Solutions

1. Use one of the names listed in the error's (have: ...) set as the filter value.
2. Pass an empty filter "" to process all vaults in the dump instead of a specific browser.
3. Regenerate the keys dump so it includes the target browser's vault.
4. Match the dump's exact vault name (check spelling/spacing) when filtering.

Example fix

// before: name not present in dump
browser.BuildFromDump(dump, dataDir, "chrome")
// after: use a vault name actually in the dump
browser.BuildFromDump(dump, dataDir, "brave")

names := make([]string, 0, len(dump))
for k := range dump { names = append(names, k) }
if filter != "" && !slices.Contains(names, strings.ToLower(filter)) {
    return fmt.Errorf("filter %q not in dump vaults %v", filter, names)
}

browsers, err := browser.BuildFromDump(dump, dataDir, "brave")
if err != nil && strings.HasPrefix(err.Error(), "no vault for browser") {
    // retry with empty filter or a listed vault name
    browsers, err = browser.BuildFromDump(dump, dataDir, "")
}

When it happens

Trigger: Calling BuildFromDump(dump, dataDir, filter) with a non-empty filter whose value matches no vault's Browser field in the keys dump — e.g. "chrome" when the dump only holds "firefox" or "brave" vaults.

Common situations: Typo or different casing/naming in the filter ("Chrome" vs "chromium"), filtering a dump produced on another machine with different browsers, or a dump missing the target browser because its keys were never extracted.

Understand the failure class

Background: Record Not Found Errors: "not found", RecordNotFound, and "was not found" — what they mean and how to fix them — this error's family across 28 libraries.

Related errors

• not found in credential store
• %q: %w
• %q: %w
• unknown browser kind

AI-assisted analysis of moonD4rk/HackBrowserData@0503d04d7a (2026-09-06). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1141ae216a7709af. Report an issue: GitHub.

Appendix: source

Thrown at browser/keydump.go:82

//
// Data layout is resolved two ways. When dataDir holds per-key subdirs (the archive layout), each
// vault is rooted at dataDir/<key>. Otherwise dataDir is treated as one browser's User Data (a
// hand-copied folder), which is unambiguous only for a single vault — so filter must pick one.
func BuildFromDump(dump masterkey.Dump, dataDir, filter string) ([]Browser, error) {
	filter = strings.ToLower(filter)
	if filter == "all" {
		filter = ""
	}

	var selected []masterkey.Vault
	for _, v := range dump.Vaults {
		if filter != "" && !strings.EqualFold(v.Browser, filter) {
			continue
		}
		selected = append(selected, v)
	}
	if filter != "" && len(selected) == 0 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("no vault for browser %q in keys (have: %s)", filter, vaultKeys(dump))
	}

	if !dirExists(dataDir) {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("data dir %q does not exist", dataDir)
	}

	archiveLayout := isArchiveLayout(dataDir, selected)
	if !archiveLayout && len(selected) > 1 {
		return nil, fmt.Errorf("--data-dir %q has no per-browser subdir but keys has %d browsers; "+
			"point it at the archive root, or use -b <browser> for one browser's User Data (have: %s)",
			dataDir, len(selected), vaultKeys(dump))
	}

	var browsers []Browser
	for _, v := range selected {
		root := dataDir
		if archiveLayout {
			root = filepath.Join(dataDir, strings.ToLower(v.Browser))

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