# pcsc-lite 2.5.3 fixes smart card session persistence and large UID auth

> **Key takeaway:** pcsc-lite 2.5.3 fixes three bugs including preserving card sessions across polkit restarts and correcting authorization for UIDs above 65536.

**Published:** 2026-10-18T14:27:08+00:00 
**Source:** Planet Debian (Developer Blogs) 
**Category:** distro-planet 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/pcsc-lite-253-fixes-smart-card-session-persistence-and-large.html 

## Summary
Ludovic Rousseau released pcsc-lite 2.5.3, a maintenance update to the free PC/SC implementation for Unix systems used with smart cards and readers. The release addresses a regression in session persistence, improves ATR decoding, and fixes authorization failures for systems using UIDs larger than 65536.

## What's fixed in pcsc-lite 2.5.3
- **pcscd.service**: card sessions now survive polkit restarts without interruption
- **ATR decoding**: corrected to properly handle all Answer-to-Reset sequences; previous fix (AI-suggested) was itself buggy
- **Authorization**: resolved failure to authorize users with UIDs exceeding 65536, relevant for large-scale deployments and containerized environments