63 encrypted item detail records, not 12,619: an exact count from the Forever client

The Forever client keeps a small number of item records encrypted, and its own readable files say exactly how many. In the table that holds item names and most details, the count is 63.

Campfire counted them in the installed wowf 1.60.1.70630 client on 27 October 2026. Items are split across two database tables. Item holds base information such as class, equipment slot and icon. ItemSparse holds names and many detail fields. Both are among 83 tables in this client that mix readable and locked sections: most sections open normally, and a few don’t.

How a locked row can be counted

Ahead of their section bodies, both tables carry readable metadata: a header for every section, giving its row and copy counts, and, for each key-protected section, including the ones that can’t be opened, a list of the IDs it holds. The readable sections can simply be opened and their rows counted. Together, the two give each table’s full population without decrypting anything.

Item accounts for 31,944 IDs, 68 of them locked. ItemSparse accounts for 19,320, 63 of them locked, and all 63 are locked in Item as well. The other five locked Item IDs have no detail row listed at all.

Fourteen of the 68 locked Item IDs are copy records, which reuse another row’s base data in storage. That is a storage detail. It doesn’t tell us how many distinct items the 68 IDs stand for, because names and details live in ItemSparse, where these rows are locked or absent.

The 12,619 that aren’t encrypted

A much bigger number sits nearby, and it is easy to misread. 12,619 readable Item IDs have no row in ItemSparse anywhere: not in a readable section, and not in the locked one. Whatever the reason they lack details, it isn’t encryption in this file, and this snapshot doesn’t say what the reason is.

“Partly readable” is narrow too. In this audit, a locked row stayed closed as a whole: its ID was visible, and so was any readable record pointing to it, but no fragment of its name was recovered. A partly readable table doesn’t mean a half-decrypted tooltip.

Where locked items surface

Those pointers are where locked IDs become interesting. A search of named item-ID columns across 18 tables turned up readable references to 11 locked items, all in 12 condition records. They include six items linked to crafting professions and one beside a Lunar Saturation aura. The search covered those columns only, so it isn’t exhaustive.

This was work on relationships between records, not new decryption. No keys were found or broken; everything here comes from parts of the files that were already readable.