# Astermail E2E email, anyone heard of it? **URL:** https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/astermail-e2e-email-anyone-heard-of-it/36662 **Category:** General **Created:** 2026-03-29T18:59:11Z **Posts:** 78 ## Post 1 by @iron_angel — 2026-03-29T18:59:11Z I signed up for the waitlist a while back after seeing them on reddit, looks like they will be launching in a week or so. Any thoughts? Fully FOSS > **[Aster Privacy | Join the Waitlist](https://astermail.org/)** > > Privacy-first encrypted communication. End-to-end encrypted email built for people who value their privacy. --- ## Post 2 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-29T19:04:39Z Never heard of it. Thanks for sharing. It’s actually E2EE, not E2E. It says we are not the product but also doesn’t say how much it costs if that’s the case. :confused: Also, why do you say FOSS? It’s open source. We’d have to look into to see if it’s actually FOSS or only OSS. --- ## Post 3 by @iron_angel — 2026-03-29T19:07:19Z You’re correct on both of those points, I didn’t check the source code license. It seems strange to me that there is not a truly open source fully end to end option for encrypted email. The only one I know of is the Dovecot crypt plugin which still allows the server owner to access emails while the account is logged in. --- ## Post 4 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-29T19:08:56Z Looking at their UI/UX upon logging in, they are heavily inspired by Proton’s. Very similar looking. Also, no private way to pay yet. No crypto option. Defeats the purpose of private, secure, encrypted email for me. --- ## Post 5 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-29T19:19:30Z Other things I’m noticing: 1. USA based. 2. It’s basically ProtonMail with a Internxt inspired skin. 3. They say zero knowledge architecture. Isn’t this Proton’s marketing terminology as well? And FYI for others reading: ![Screenshot 2026-03-29 at 23.22.45](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/3X/1/8/181971892dfc38856e9534acea26c2582721d2a4.png) ![Screenshot 2026-03-29 at 23.22.53](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/3X/6/f/6ff05f42fd6d4e8c4aea94db67fbd22d7d50d682.png) --- ## Post 6 by @iron_angel — 2026-03-29T19:24:17Z Interesting that the free plan offers custom domains, that’s fairly rare --- ## Post 7 by @Grapeg — 2026-03-29T19:29:02Z But no catch all until the 8.99 plan. --- ## Post 8 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-29T19:40:44Z Considering you can get Proton Unlimited (well established, and all the other good things about them) for 10 USD per month, this one seems to be asking for a lot more. I’m not convinced it’s worth it even if it holds up to the same privacy, security, and encryption standards of Proton/Tuta or even if the audit shows all is great with this one (which I am doubting). --- ## Post 9 by @iron_angel — 2026-03-29T19:42:43Z Could be good for an alternate free private account to test out which is how I’m going to use it. If they offered a lifetime plan I’d probably throw them some money and see where they’d land in a few years --- ## Post 10 by @iHateKYC2 — 2026-03-29T20:24:47Z Another group of discord kids trying to replace proton mail. Sigh. --- ## Post 11 by @iron_angel — 2026-03-29T20:26:01Z Serious question why is it a bad thing that we have alternatives? They have to start somewhere. There have been some serious criticisms of proton of late as well and the only other real contender is Tuta --- ## Post 12 by @seize — 2026-03-29T20:58:39Z > [@anon25722375](#): > > They say zero knowledge architecture. Isn’t this Proton’s marketing terminology as well? Zero knowledge isn’t strictly “Proton’s marketing terminology “, they do use it, but so do numerous other companies which focus much of thier marketing on privacy advantages. Otherwise I agree that this looks like: > [@anon25722375](#): > > basically ProtonMail with a Internxt inspired skin. and: > [@anon25722375](#): > > for 10 USD per month, this one seems to be asking for a lot more. I’m not convinced it’s worth it even if it holds up to the same privacy, security, and encryption standards of Proton/Tuta --- ## Post 13 by @donutfreak — 2026-03-29T23:46:36Z Yeah, there’s a waitlist, but you can also make an account as well via a link at the bottom of the main page. No 2FA settings, although looks like a placeholder. Edit: hours later, 2FA and other settings are available. --- ## Post 14 by @ethanak — 2026-03-30T02:00:14Z There is 2FA. Turned it on and it worked --- ## Post 15 by @donutfreak — 2026-03-30T02:37:10Z Hrm, yeah, now it’s there. I didn’t have radio buttons hours ago for all the settings, just one. --- ## Post 16 by @Anonymous582 — 2026-03-30T08:11:23Z Cannot access that. The website was shutdown? --- ## Post 17 by @lamtrinhdev — 2026-03-30T08:14:20Z The free plan looks good. Why I cannot access the website? Anyones access it successful today? --- ## Post 18 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-30T08:17:35Z No, it works. May be just you. --- ## Post 19 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-30T08:18:06Z Working fine for me. --- ## Post 20 by @Catalyst2422 — 2026-03-30T08:47:29Z Their Github states “Aster is completely open source under AGPL v3” but there doesn’t seem to be any published code. Though as it’s still in Beta I’d at least give them the benefit of the doubt here. --- ## Post 21 by @lamtrinhdev — 2026-03-30T09:14:23Z Dear @anon25722375 , Thank you for your feedback. It seems my VPN or AsterMail blocked my VPN. When I disconnect my VPN and I can access the mail. Thanks, --- ## Post 22 by @vincent — 2026-03-30T09:49:21Z They forgot to add the PGP key and just left a placeholder there: “[link - publish to [keys.openpgp.org](http://keys.openpgp.org) and add it here]”. ![1774864135876](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/3X/0/0/004abf163fc1f584e01f9d513afc4be2c34b0683.jpeg) Kind of ironic for a security policy lol --- ## Post 23 by @Grapeg — 2026-03-30T10:54:29Z I had problems accessing the site too --- ## Post 24 by @landordragen — 2026-03-30T11:17:01Z Oh, is something like Skiff back? :zipper_mouth_face: --- ## Post 25 by @ethanak — 2026-03-30T13:50:18Z I noticed that my vpn was blocking it so I turned it off and could access it fine. --- ## Post 26 by @PurpleDime — 2026-03-30T14:30:56Z This looks interesting. I love hearing about new E2EE email providers. And if I am honest, even if it is a low bar, finding out about any email provider that doesn’t require a phone number is exciting to me. **How do you know it’s launching in a week?** If that’s actually true, I would rather wait instead of providing an address to be on the waiting list. --- ## Post 27 by @PurpleDime — 2026-03-30T14:32:47Z I was scared there for a second that there wouldn’t be any free tiers. Thank God there is! --- ## Post 28 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-30T14:42:06Z > [@PurpleDime](#): > > How do you know it’s launching in a week? You can sign up right now. No waiting needed. That’s how I got those screenshots. --- ## Post 29 by @ethanak — 2026-03-30T15:06:03Z Their discord has an announcement saying April 7th is the launch date ![image](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/3X/9/0/90c8daaa4305b6168fb55bbd839c42d1948db352.jpeg) --- ## Post 30 by @TrashPanda — 2026-03-30T15:12:08Z Their Privacy Policy page returns 404 error for me. --- ## Post 31 by @anon32162901 — 2026-03-30T15:12:22Z > [@PurpleDime](#): > > **I** would rather wait instead of providing an address to be on the waiting list. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click/tap the Mail link. It will take you to [this page](https://mail.astermail.org/welcome) where you should be able to create an account. I didn’t create one myself, but from what I encountered, no recovery account address needed. --- ## Post 32 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-30T15:21:55Z I noticed a bug. You can’t empty trash for some reason. It simply doesn’t delete deleted emails. Weird. Hope that gets fixed soon. --- ## Post 33 by @PurpleDime — 2026-03-30T15:38:47Z > [@anon25722375](#): > > ![](https://forum-cdn.privacyguides.net/user_avatar/discuss.privacyguides.net/purpledime/48/4885_2.png) PurpleDime: > > > How do you know it’s launching in a week? > > You can sign up right now. No waiting needed. That’s how I got those screenshots. > [@anon32162901](#): > > ![](https://forum-cdn.privacyguides.net/user_avatar/discuss.privacyguides.net/purpledime/48/4885_2.png) PurpleDime: > > > **I** would rather wait instead of providing an address to be on the waiting list. > > Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click/tap the Mail link. It will take you to [this page](https://mail.astermail.org/welcome) where you should be able to create an account. I didn’t create one myself, but from what I encountered, no recovery account address needed. I was able to create an account. Thank you. --- ## Post 34 by @Regime6045 — 2026-03-30T16:49:11Z Unfortunate that IMAP/SMTP is behind a paywall as usual --- ## Post 35 by @anon25722375 — 2026-03-30T16:53:28Z I was wondering the same. And how they’re managing to have it all E2EE while using IMAP & SMTP. Don’t know how that works. --- ## Post 36 by @anonymous590 — 2026-03-30T17:10:06Z > [@Anonymous582](#): > > Cannot access that. The website was shutdown? > [@lamtrinhdev](#): > > Why I cannot access the website? > [@Grapeg](#): > > I had problems accessing the site too I also can’t connect to it. > [@lamtrinhdev](#): > > It seems my VPN or AsterMail blocked my VPN. When I disconnect my VPN and I can access the mail. > [@ethanak](#): > > I noticed that my vpn was blocking it so I turned it off and could access it fine. I’m most definitely not disabling my VPN just for them. --- ## Post 37 by @ethanak — 2026-03-30T23:19:22Z Appears to be a protonvpn issue, at least for me, as i switched over to windscribe and it works fine. --- ## Post 38 by @Cyber-Typhoon — 2026-03-31T00:37:32Z > [@ethanak](#): > > protonvpn issue Is it a problem with ProtonVPN or with the Website blocking the ProtonVPN IPs? Some websites are aggressive blocking certain VPNs. --- ## Post 39 by @yes — 2026-05-17T15:14:35Z > **[Sustainability Commitments](https://astermail.org/blog/sustainability-commitments/)** > > No venture capital. No advertising. No exit strategy. How Aster is funded, how we're structured, and why we're committed to staying independent. We wrote this to be held against us. --- ## Post 40 by @donutfreak — 2026-05-18T18:35:34Z Be aware and don’t go heads in. My account that I created few weeks back and subsequently logged into a few times, I can’t log in right now. “Forgot my password” goes nowhere. Astermail may need more maturing time. --- ## Post 41 by @PurpleDime — 2026-05-18T19:43:24Z Exact same thing happened to me. Couldn’t retrieve my account. Contacted support, and they said it didn’t exist anymore, and they didn’t have an explanation as to why. They didn’t delete my account, and yet it didn’t exist anymore. They encouraged me to recreate my account, which I did, and I got a few months of free premium for the hassle. --- ## Post 42 by @iron_angel — 2026-05-18T23:34:04Z As an additional data point the account that I created back when I started this thread is still going strong, haven’t really logged into it since then. Not a good look for an email provider but I’m gonna also point out this is everyday behavior at Tuta. My tuta address which I created less than 6 months ago didn’t survive which is a very common complaint I’ve seen both here and on /r/tutanota/ . I haven’t had this issue with any other provider including proton. --- ## Post 43 by @ethanak — 2026-05-19T02:48:49Z I created an account back during the beta for it, and I’m pretty sure that after the beta any existing accounts were deleted. Recreated mine right after the launch, still working fine. --- ## Post 44 by @iron_angel — 2026-05-19T02:50:58Z Yes, my account was also created after launch, maybe that’s relevant. --- ## Post 45 by @ethanak — 2026-05-19T05:05:15Z I’m not really using my account, right now I’m just watching it to see how it develops. --- ## Post 46 by @iron_angel — 2026-05-19T05:06:52Z Same here, love to see e2ee alternatives but wouldn’t want to be paying for any of them early stage until they’re established --- ## Post 47 by @PurpleDime — 2026-05-19T15:57:21Z > [@iron_angel](#): > > I’m gonna also point out this is everyday behavior at Tuta. My tuta address which I created less than 6 months ago didn’t survive which is a very common complaint I’ve seen both here and on /r/tutanota/ . I haven’t had this issue with any other provider including proton. **Did you have a free or paid Tuta account?** If it’s the former, Tuta requires that you log in a least once a month to consider your account active. If you fail to do that, you may still be able to log in, but the chances that your account gets shut down if you don’t are high. That being said, one could argue that Tuta is somewhat generous, because people who have had their accounts deactivated for inactivity were able to retrieve it, at least if they report it soon enough. The only thing that sucks is that Tuta support an be very slow to respond, but if you highlight your issue and communicate its urgency in the subject line, Tuta Support should be more prompt. > [@iron_angel](#): > > Not a good look for an email provider What happened to me is not a good look for a new provider like Aster Mail, but I don’t think it’s comparable to the issues with Tuta, if you are referring to inactive accounts. > [@iron_angel](#): > > Yes, my account was also created after launch, maybe that’s relevant. That could be a factor, You’ll have to ask support. They still don’t know why my account was deleted, but you may be on to something here, so I will inquire about it. [**ASTERMAIL’S PAID TIERS DON’T MAKE SENSE**](https://astermail.org/pricing/) ![ASTERMAIL PAID TIERS_002](https://forum-uploads.privacyguidesusercontent.com/original/3X/1/6/16c246c43b1e49a5480234c6b32b934b0d4a6af4.png) The thing I don’t understand about Aster Mail’s paid tiers, is why they offer so much storage (up to 5TB) if they don’t have a cloud service. If they had a cloud service, it would make sense, but they don’t. Nobody has 5TB of emails, let alone 500 GB. **NO ANONYMOUS PAYMENTS?** As far as I can tell, Aster Mail does not accept anonymous payments like cash or Monero. To me, it is unacceptable that in 2026, a new privacy company could launch with a new service, and not accept anonymous payments from the start. I can understand that setting up a relationship with the Proxy Store could possibly be costly, especially if you’re a small team and are just starting out with no venture capital, but if you are that small, the risk of accepting direct payments via Monero is very low. So why not do it. Although I don’t remember their names, I have seen new privacy companies accept anonymous payments at launch. It should be the standard for any new company at this point. --- ## Post 48 by @anon7180143 — 2026-05-19T16:34:54Z > [@PurpleDime](#): > > Tuta requires that you log in a least once a month to consider your account active. If you fail to do that, you may still be able to log in, but the chances that your account gets shut down if you don’t are high. It’s every 6 months. Not 1. --- ## Post 49 by @PurpleDime — 2026-05-19T18:22:51Z Are you sure? I remember reading it was one month. Did they change it? --- ## Post 50 by @anon7180143 — 2026-05-19T18:25:28Z It’s always been 6 months as far as I know and for how long I’ve known Tuta. --- ## Post 51 by @iron_angel — 2026-05-19T19:13:17Z Yes, I haven’t seen any one month described anywhere and made sure to note the 6 month notice given on the site. However I think what’s being said about them just running some script to flag accounts before then is likely as there are countless, countless reports of accounts that you can no longer sign into randomly and the message is awful like “wrong password” instead of “Account suspended” or something. Maybe you’ve had a good experience with Tuta but I won’t touch them now after this. --- ## Post 52 by @flucas — 2026-05-20T17:07:46Z Hello, Aster Mail founder here! Thank you for taking the time to write all of this up. Genuinely, all criticism is good criticism for us, especially right now when we are still in active development. On the storage point, the reason the tiers go up to 5 TB is because we have an Aster Drive planned, we don’t have a set timeline for it, but we will have it. The storage pool will be shared across mail and drive on the same plan, so your Supernova plan will cover everything. You won’t be paying for multiple plans, which is why the numbers look crazy for an email-only product right now. On anonymous payments, you’re right. We are actively developing a crypto payment system, as well as cash mailing. Right now, we’re focusing on stabilizing the product and getting mobile apps out. XMR (and other cryptocurrencies) is on the roadmap, so hopefully soon after the mobile apps are released, we will have it implemented. It’s worth mentioning that signup does not need a phone number, real name, or recovery email, so the account is not tied to you. The payment trail still exists until we let people pay with cryptocurrency and cash. I really do appreciate the write-up. This is the kind of feedback that will actually make our product better. Please keep it coming! --- ## Post 53 by @ph00lt0 — 2026-05-20T17:10:09Z I am mostly wondering why are you advertising with hosting in Germany while it is a US company? I don’t see how that would bring any advantage. --- ## Post 54 by @ph00lt0 — 2026-05-20T17:13:25Z How can you comply to the GDPR as stated in your privacy policy without having a registered business entity in the EU? --- ## Post 55 by @anon7180143 — 2026-05-20T17:22:43Z For a privacy product that’s critical in anyone’s stack with a very high threat model, is there a reason you released a product that was not in-fact as secure as it can be? Presumably, you want people to use and rely on your product but have not ensured of it. Or are people with a higher threat model not the target for now until you get properly and legitimately audited? I see you responded to the critical reddit post and fixed several (but not perhaps all) but also not to other comments in it. Can you explain? --- ## Post 56 by @flucas — 2026-05-20T17:37:42Z Two good questions. Let me address both of them: In Germany, the advantage is less than people sometimes assume, so I’m not going to overstate it here. Hosting with Hetzner puts all of our physical infrastructure and our data at rest under German jurisdiction, so anything that would be aimed at the hosting layer would go through German and EU legal process. On the other hand, we’re still a US entity, so a US warrant served on us is still exactly that. The reason this still matters is that, with our zero-access architecture, the content sitting in Falkenstein is not useful to anyone who compels it. On GDPR, you are right to push back on this. We are already in the middle of rewriting both our privacy policy and terms of service, and getting Art. 27 EU representative and SCCs with our subprocessors squared away is part of that work. The current policy is ahead of where our paperwork really is, and I’d rather just say that than pretend otherwise. Once the rewrite of our terms and privacy policy gets pushed out, users will be notified, and the representative info will be posted with it. Thank you for the feedback! --- ## Post 57 by @ph00lt0 — 2026-05-20T17:41:18Z Definitely appreciate the transparrency here, but hope you do the same on your own website. --- ## Post 58 by @flucas — 2026-05-20T17:45:32Z Thank you again for the feedback. It does help improve the service, and it means a lot to the small team we have here :blue_heart:. We do already have a lot of things for transparency on our site already. This includes: - A transparency report - Warrant canary - Source code - Our cryptography All of it is linked in the footer. Here are a few of the relevant ones. Transparency report: [Aster Transparency | Aster](https://astermail.org/transparency) Warrant canary: [https://astermail.org/notices/canary.txt](https://astermail.org/notices/canary.txt) Open source: [Aster Open Source Projects | Aster](https://astermail.org/open-source) Cryptography: [aster-crypto: Post-Quantum Cryptography for Rust | Aster](https://astermail.org/crypto) When we finish the rewrite, we are going to add plain English to our privacy policy and tighten the privacy policy and Terms of Service to match the same level of honesty. Again, I appreciate the feedback! --- ## Post 59 by @ph00lt0 — 2026-05-20T17:47:11Z I didnt mean that but about the GDPR compliance. --- ## Post 60 by @flucas — 2026-05-20T17:55:11Z To be upfront with you, we have not gone through a third-party audit yet, so I’m not going to pretend we’re Proton or Tuta. We are currently in talks with a few firms, and Cure53 is the one we’re looking at. Once that’s done and public, it will change things. Until then, if you have a nation-state in your threat model, some of the more established providers might be a better fit, as we are still new. We are a great fit right now for people who want out of Gmail and want end-to-end encryption without ads or AI scanning your inbox. For the reddit comments, I did not reply to most of them, which were debates on responsible disclosure or back and forth between us and Adrian’s side. Appreciate the feedback! --- ## Post 61 by @anon7180143 — 2026-05-20T18:51:21Z Thanks for responding. --- ## Post 62 by @tooinfinity — 2026-05-21T19:23:51Z nightmares for me trying to login. Keeps telling me it failed to fetch data, over and over and over again. Very frustrating --- ## Post 63 by @flucas — 2026-05-21T21:24:47Z Are you on [app.astermail.org](http://app.astermail.org)? Other users are signing in fine, try: - Refreshing with Ctrl+Shift+R (or Cmd+Shift+R) - Using a different browser or an incognito window - If you’re behind a VPN or a switch network, toggling that off for the login step On our end, I have tested on my phone and my desktop computer. It is working fine. Our status page can be found at [status.astermail.org](http://status.astermail.org). If you shoot me a direct message, I can help you troubleshoot. --- ## Post 64 by @tooinfinity — 2026-05-22T06:36:45Z Yes correct. Yesterday it would log me out and it was very frustrating to log back in. No vpn (although if I want to use one I want to be able to) No super hardened browser (brave mostly (but in strict mode) No sudden changes in settings, so nothing really different my end. It would just tell me it failed to fetch data in red --- ## Post 65 by @tooinfinity — 2026-05-22T10:20:42Z And now i logs in but never actually fully loads. The places where the numbers would normally be to denote how many messages you have just keep flashing grey scale. Like it never fully loads? --- ## Post 66 by @flucas — 2026-05-22T11:30:37Z I sent you a direct message, as I need a little bit more information on your account to find exactly what’s going on. --- ## Post 67 by @WhyRhy — 2026-05-24T09:37:17Z Is anyone else seeing [astermail.org](http://astermail.org) not connecting? I’m using multiple browser and nothing blocking in DNS but getting no response. Their [status page](https://status.astermail.org/) suggests everything is fine. Weirdly this page is fine: [https://astermail.org/notices/canary.txt](https://astermail.org/notices/canary.txt) --- ## Post 68 by @BlackDog — 2026-05-25T11:58:36Z > [@WhyRhy](#): > > Is anyone else seeing [astermail.org](http://astermail.org) not connecting? I’m using multiple browser and nothing blocking in DNS but getting no response. Same here. Can’t connect today, couldn’t connect when I tried a couple of days ago either. --- ## Post 69 by @WhyRhy — 2026-05-25T12:01:26Z Try [https://app.astermail.org/](https://app.astermail.org/) This appears to work, although worrying the main site appears unresponsive?! EDIT: Update [https://astermail.org/](https://astermail.org/) appears to work for me now. --- ## Post 70 by @tooinfinity — 2026-05-25T12:24:31Z Yes I was having a nightmare for a few days but it seems to be fine right this second. Fingers crossed --- ## Post 71 by @tooinfinity — 2026-05-25T12:59:17Z I stand corrected. It won’t open in vanadium as it says it is an insecure site. Doesn’t seem to want to work in brave, but will in safari. And encryption still won’t function properly. I think it looks super clean and I am glad I have my preferred email there, so fingers crossed it works itself out --- ## Post 72 by @Regime6045 — 2026-05-27T16:15:46Z The FAQ webpage mentions that using mail clients like Thunderbird or Outlook is possible with the paid version, using the “Aster Bridge” (like Proton Bridge, I assume). However I can’t find this anywhere in the downloads. Does it not exist yet? --- ## Post 73 by @flucas — 2026-05-27T19:29:02Z Currently it is in beta. If you would like beta access, feel free to shoot me a direct message, but we plan to release it in the coming weeks. --- ## Post 74 by @layeringmysterious — 2026-06-03T12:46:10Z i am wondering what do people think of aster mail. --- ## Post 75 by @Niek-de-Wilde — 2026-06-03T12:50:54Z I saw them pop up a few days ago as well. They seem to work like tuta, so e2ee between users of the service, with build in openpgp support for users outside of their services. They are hosted in germany on hetzners servers, the privacy policy does not have any redflags on a first glance. Also they have an .onion service, which is cool. Regarding funding they seem to be anti VC money: [Why Aster won't become the next Skiff | Aster Privacy](https://astermail.org/blog/why-aster-wont-become-the-next-skiff/) The company seems to be american sadly though. Overall, they seem pretty decent, especially for a new service, but I would first them run for a few years to see how sustainable their business model is. Also their crypto does not seem to be audited as of yet, so would not put to much trust into their implementation till that happens. --- ## Post 76 by @yes — 2026-06-03T13:53:29Z duplicate of: [Astermail E2E email, anyone heard of it?](https://discuss.privacyguides.net/t/astermail-e2e-email-anyone-heard-of-it/36662) --- ## Post 77 by @Niek-de-Wilde — 2026-06-03T13:57:09Z Good catch, merged. --- ## Post 78 by @Sorge — 2026-06-18T08:48:42Z I tried the app a bit, it does not look good. I reported about the issue on reddit: > **[Reddit - Please wait for verification](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsterPrivacy/comments/1u8y7h5/false_encryption/)** The app has to be designed pretty poorly for this to happen — no tests, no error handling or something like this