Unable to issue subkey revocation

[Andrew Gallagher]

On 29/05/2026 21:14, marqueandreprisal--- via Gnupg-users wrote:
> The primary key had been initially revoked and should have revoked the 
> subkey also.

This is conventional, but not necessary. If one of your correspondents 
found a way to use that subkey when its primary was revoked, that would 
be a serious bug - but in your correspondent's software, not yours. 
Subkeys attached to revoked primary keys should not be used. It should 
not make any difference whether the subkey itself is revoked.

> The revocation of the primary key should not be an issue 
> because no error is given about usability when going back to reissue the 
> revocation explicitly against the subkey. GnuPG BUG: Unable to issue 
> subkey revocation

It may well be a bug, but afaict it is a minor one with no practical 
consequences.

> Workaround possibility: There may be some difficult workaround like 
> exporting the subkey as a single key and then using it's own authority 
> to revoke itself as a primary key

This would not do anything. If you used the same key material in a new 
primary key it would be a different key. If it then revoked itself, the 
new primary key would be revoked but the subkey attached to the original 
primary would not. Subkeys cannot revoke themselves.

> You may formulate a path to try in this meanwhile time of getting it 
> straightened out.

None of this is necessary. Your primary key has been hard revoked as 
intended, and it is correctly unusable. You don't need to do anything more.

A