Syncing Logins on 1Password 7 and 1Password X

williakz

@Ben
@ag_ana
@brenty
@Lars

How does one force sync between the list of logins displayed by 1Password 7 Mac (menu bar icon->gear>Open 1Password) and that displayed by 1Password X (blue icon in Chrome browser toolbar)?

I recently added a new Best Buy login and modified an existing one in my main vault using 1Password X, and the changes were NOT displayed by 1Password 7 Mac until I completely closed it, fired it back up, and entered my Master Password. Is there some other way to force the two displays to sync? (No "desktop app required" extensions are being used and all browser password saving/autofilling is disabled.)

Thanks in advance for any and all responses.

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1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

ag_ana

Sync should normally happen almost immediately, but if you want to force a sync, the quickest way would be to lock the 1Password for Mac app (select 1Password from the menu bar > Lock), and then unlock it again.

williakz

Thanks, @ag_ana. To know just when I need to employ the Lock/Master Password sequence to force sync and redisplay, can you tell me under what circumstances the two login displays get out of sync? I get that the underlying login data is (likely) consistent, but I can't see that data except through your (1PM,1PX) displays of it.

williakz

@ag_ana:

I posted a follow-up question on November 15 and haven't yet (Nov 20) received a response. As I am about ready to bring my elderly family members into 1P, I need to fully understand the anomaly I reported and the easiest way (for them) to work around it in order to make the installation, run-up, and use of 1PM/1PX go as smoothly as possible. Please give my issue some additional thought and commentary. Thanks in advance. P.S. I again experienced the same mismatching between 1PM's and 1PX's displays of logins while adding/changing some eBay accounts/details.

Original Nov 15 posting:

"Thanks, -ag_ana. To know just when I need to employ the Lock/Master Password sequence to force sync and redisplay, can you tell me under what circumstances the two login displays get out of sync? I get that the underlying login data is (likely) consistent, but I can't see that data except through your (1PM,1PX) displays of it."

AGAlumB

can you tell me under what circumstances the two login displays get out of sync?

@williakz: I don't know what you're asking here. Can you clarify?

williakz

@brenty:

My question of November 14 was:

"How does one force sync between the list of logins displayed by 1Password 7 Mac (menu bar icon->gear>Open 1Password) and that displayed by 1Password X (blue icon in Chrome browser toolbar)?

I recently added a new Best Buy login and modified an existing one in my main vault using 1Password X, and the changes were NOT displayed by 1Password 7 Mac until I completely closed it, fired it back up, and entered my Master Password. Is there some other way to force the two displays to sync? (No "desktop app required" extensions are being used and all browser password saving/autofilling is disabled.)

Thanks in advance for any and all responses."

The response I received from ag_ana was to shut down (Lock) and reopen 1P desktop (with entry of Master Password). As I've explained previously (and at length), my elderly family members will have problems employing that "solution" to what appears to me to be a simple display mismatch problem. I'm therefore looking to you folks for an alternate method of syncing the login entries displayed by 1P desktop with those shown by the 1PX display. I hope that's clear; if not please explain where I'm amiss.

AGAlumB

@williakz: I saw that question:

My question of November 14 was: "How does one force sync between the list of logins displayed by 1Password 7 Mac (menu bar icon->gear>Open 1Password) and that displayed by 1Password X (blue icon in Chrome browser toolbar)?

But I also see Ana's answer to it:

Sync should normally happen almost immediately, but if you want to force a sync, the quickest way would be to lock the 1Password for Mac app (select 1Password from the menu bar > Lock), and then unlock it again.

That's why I was confused. That's for elaborating.

But there is no "alternate method of syncing" we can offer. If something is preventing sync from happening immediately and without your intervention, simply adding another sync option would also have the same problem since you did not resolve the underlying cause. Ultimately it's going to be something specific to your setup, because in the vast majority of cases, even with slow/unreliable internet connections, changes sync in a matter of seconds. Do you have "security" software, proxy, VPN, or something similar that might be interfering?

I'd also like for you to test to determine exactly where the delay is:

1. Create a new test item in the 1Password.com web interface
2. See how long it takes to show up in the 1Password app on each device
3. Create a new test item in the 1Password app on a device
4. See how long it takes to show up in the 1Password.com web interface, and then your other devices

That will help you narrow down where the bottleneck is so you can focus on looking there instead of everywhere at once. Let me know what you find. :)

williakz

Thanks for the guidance @brenty. I'll get cracking on that and get back to you with the results.

OK. Got the results.

The sync is more or less instantaneous in all cases on all my devices. Works perfectly—with one exception. The display of logins arrived at by: menu bar icon/gear/Open 1Password (from the same menu used to "Quit 1Password Completely") does NOT update its display automatically when a new login entry is made elsewhere. Even closing the list using Apple's red dot and bringing up a new one (menu bar icon/gear/Open 1Password) does not show the new login entry made elsewhere. It takes selection and display of a different vault then re-selection and redisplay of the desired one to force a display update showing the new login entry. I hope my terminology, if not exactly correct, is adequate to communicate the issue I'm experiencing.

I appreciate your looking into the matter.

AGAlumB

@williakz: Likewise, thanks for your patience. While I'm glad to hear that sync is working quickly for you, one thing that I am still having trouble conceptualizing is what you mean here:

Works perfectly—with one exception. The display of logins arrived at by: menu bar icon/gear/Open 1Password (from the same menu used to "Quit 1Password Completely") does NOT update its display automatically when a new login entry is made elsewhere. Even closing the list using Apple's red dot and bringing up a new one (menu bar icon/gear/Open 1Password) does not show the new login entry made elsewhere. It takes selection and display of a different vault then re-selection and redisplay of the desired one to force a display update showing the new login entry.

Can you give me a concrete example, with the OS and 1Password versions involved? I'd like to understand so I can test and try to reproduce it myself. I just haven't seen or heard of anything like that before.

williakz

@brenty:

I know it's a major pain to communicate this stuff without screenshots, but I can't put them up publicly or even privately for you for obvious reasons. So my descriptions of the issue will have to suffice. As far as versions, I'm running the latest NON-beta versions of all 1Password7 software as well as the latest NON-beta operating systems on my exclusively Apple gear. I do not use any "desktop required" browser extensions, only 1Password 7 Mac, 1PasswordX, and 1Password IOS. I have no vestiges of previous versions of 1Password around as I became a customer and began with 1Password7 only a couple months back.

I don't really know what else to tell you that I haven't already. Running on my MacBook Pro and starting with a blank screen (only dock and menu bar up), I go to the menu bar and click the 1Password icon there. The 1Password7 mini display comes up. I click on the gear icon in mini's upper right corner then select "Open 1Password" from the menu that pops up. The "full" display of 1Password replaces the mini display. It is set to display the contents (almost exclusively logins) from my main vault. The logins displayed DO NOT CHANGE even when I add a new one or delete one using a different device. I can even close the 1Password display by clicking on Apple's red button in the top left of the window and then bring up another instance of it as described above, and the logins displayed are exactly as before—they still show the login I've already deleted elsewhere or do not show the new one I've already added elsewhere.

To my way of thinking, ANY 1Password display of logins should reflect the current contents of the underlying database (give or take a small delay for changes to propagate). This seems not to occur for 1Password7's full-sized vault contents display window. Is it possible a refresh display command is being lost somewhere or is the 1Password7 full display some kind of one-shot, non-refreshable window?

My concern with this issue centers on having to start out explaining an anomaly to my elderly family members who will be coming on board beginning this weekend. They (and I) need to know that what is displayed by 1Password is an accurate representation of what IS, not what WAS and is no longer.

Thanks again for your assistance.

Ben

Thanks @williakz. I have not been able to reproduce that. Here are the steps I took:

1. Click on the 1Password icon in the menu bar - by the clock
2. In the resulting 1Password mini window click the gear icon, and then click Open 1Password
3. Take note of the contents of the list of items
4. Use a different device signed into the same 1Password.com account to add a new Login item (I titled it !!!!!! so it would be at the top of the list)
5. The new item added on the other device appeared on my 1Password for Mac display instantly

If that isn't happening for you, that would seemingly indicate that something on your system is blocking communication with the 1Password account notifier. The way these changes happen is that the notifier constantly listens to 1Password.com for changes to your items. If that communication is blocked, then you'll only see changes by locking and unlocking or quitting and re-launching the 1Password for Mac app.

So then the question becomes... what on your computer or network is blocking that communication? We may be able to assist in tracking that down, but not knowing what software you may have installed or what your network configuration is makes our insight into that fairly limited. The usual suspects, in no particular order, are:

1. Proxies
2. VPNs
3. Firewalls
4. DNS filtering
5. Ad blocking

I'd suggest starting there. If you're using any of those things, either on your computer or on your network, I would suggest disabling them one at a time, re-testing the steps I posted above between each one. When things start working as expected then you have a pretty good idea of what the culprit was. You may need to add a rule of some sort to allow communication with 1Password, or may need to discontinue use of whatever it is altogether and find an alternate solution in order to get things to work.

Please let me know how it turns out and if there is any further information we can provide that may be helpful to you in figuring this out.

Ben

williakz

Thanks for the detailed analysis and things to try, @Ben. I'll get on that and get back to you. These non-reproducible problems are almost as tough to solve as intermittent ones.

As (I think) I said previously, I've found that neither screen refreshes nor recycling 1Password's "big display" (I don't have a better term for it) produces an updated list of logins. However, simply clicking to a different category within the "big display" then back instantly shows the updated logins (new ones appear/deleted ones disappear). I don't know if that helps at all, but another data point can't hurt.

As far as my system setup, it's (purposely) about as vanilla as you can get. No fancy internet or network stuff just plain 5GHz WiFi in a no-interference environment (MacBook Pro) or wired 1Gbps Ethernet (iMac) to a generic Arris gateway running at 55Mbps over AT&T fiber.
However, I do indeed run ad blockers, so I will serially disable them as you suggest to see if a culprit can be identified and apprehended.

Ben

Great. Please let us know how it turns out. :)

Ben