PBKDF2 is implemented in Pascal rather than through javax.crypto SecretKeyFactory: PBEKeySpec takes a char[] and the provider decides how those chars become bytes, so a non-ASCII sync password would derive a different key than the browser and fail as 'wrong password'. AES-GCM does go through JNI - one call, hardware-backed, and WebCrypto's tag-appended layout is exactly what Cipher expects.
The vector is generated with WebCrypto itself and uses a non-ASCII password on purpose; an ASCII-only vector would have hidden that bug. It records the derived key separately from the plaintext so a failure points at one stage instead of the whole chain.
r-zakarya
02d89c58d2