Weird music playback problem

[Teunis]

Two years ago I ripped some CD's to .ogg.
Now I found out playing a single file will ask for a for me unknown password.
But throwing (dragging) the file on a player like SMPlayer or VLC will play it.
What could cause this?

[die.boer]

What is probably happening is that the file manager or the application associated with .ogg files is asking for authentication, rather than the file asking for a password.

A few possibilities:
-The file is on a location requiring authentication — for example, a mounted/network location or a folder with unusual permissions.
-The default .ogg application is sandboxed (Flatpak/Snap) and is requesting permission to access the file.
-The default application has a privilege/authentication problem and is incorrectly triggering a password prompt.
-The .ogg files may have been created with unusual permissions/ownership two years ago.
-Less likely, the files are inside an encrypted/password-protected archive or filesystem, although VLC being able to open them directly would make this less likely.

in a terminal run the following and post the output please:

ls -l "/path/to/file.ogg"

file "/path/to/file.ogg"

xdg-mime query default audio/ogg

can you also perhaps post a screenshot of the password prompt ?

[Teunis]

Sorry for the delay, I have a problem with the battery I ordered for this laptop.

The xdg line tells me to open the file in XSMplayer (smplayer_enqueue.desktop)
The other two give no joy (No such file or directory)
As a good boer you can probably read a lot of the screenshot

[die.boer]

from screenshot we can see PIM, keyfiles, and PKCS-5 PRF. These are associated with VeraCrypt and TrueCrypt disk encryption.
The .ogg file is likely being opened through an encrypted container or a file association involving an encryption tool, rather than being opened directly by SMPlayer.

please post output of this:

grep -RilE 'veracrypt|truecrypt' ~/.local/share/applications ~/.config 2>/dev/null | head -30

Also, right-click one of the .ogg files in Dolphin and select Properties. Check the file type and location.

And, does this password window appear when you double-clicks the .ogg file in Dolphin, or does it appear when you open it from somewhere else?

PS: en ja ek kan nogal n paar goed uitmaak van die screenshot lol

[Teunis]

You are right, the properties had Veracrypt on top and when I changed it to SMPlayer all worked as normal.
Stupid of me I never looked at the properties!
And how it happened will stay a mystery

Thanks a lot for pointing out the solution!