2FA scanner not scanning QR code [As of v7.4.4 no longer possible with App Store version]

rmnelson

Attempt to add authenticator to existing login. Added 2FA section, selected OTP, press scan button, scan window appears with blue brackets. Move scan window over QR code brackets stay blue and no key added to 2FA section. Successfully added a couple of keys where a non QR key was available, but QR codes are not scanning. Restart mac no help.

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1Password Version: 7.4.2 (70402004)
Extension Version: 4.7.6.1
OS Version: OS X 10.15.3
Sync Type: Dropbox

ag_tommy

Hey @rmnelson

Can you look over this topic and check the settings. I would recommend a restart after applying them. A reboot is not always necessary, but I find it gives me the best results.

https://support.1password.com/screen-recording/

rmnelson

That did it @ag_tommy. I had camera permissions enabled but missed screen recording. Thanks for the help!

ag_tommy

:+1: :)

aal

Hi. I'm seeing essentially the same issue but I'm running MacOS 10.14.6, so there is no screen recording permission to set (since I'm not running Catalina yet).

If I bring up the one-time password QR code scanner window from 1Password 7.4.3 (MAS), it can no longer see anything (the scanner window shows a grey background).

I'm not sure if this started happening after the OS update in January or the recent 1P update. Thanks.

ag_ana

@aal:

Have you given 1Password Camera permission already though, even though Screen Recording is not available in 10.14.6?

aal

Yes 1P has camera permission, and the scanner window does activate the camera successfully if I switch the mode to camera vs. screen capture. Perhaps I should try toggling that permission on and off. Will try it. Thanks.

ag_ana

@aal:

Please let us know how it goes :+1: :)

dmshaw

I have the same problem (Catalina 10.15.3, 1Password 7.4.4).

When I try and scan a QR code from the screen, I just get a gray box that does not show what is underneath it so nothing can be scanned. I have confirmed that 1Password has both Camera and Screen Recording permission. I have also tried toggling the permissions off, rebooting, toggling them on, and rebooting again. I have also reinstalled 1Password.

I'm out of options. What should I try next?

ag_ana

@dmshaw:

Is this happening with 1Password from the Mac App Store or from our website?

PinkyPinkman

Same here. Not able to scan QR codes on MacOS anymore. Scanner window stays grey and content below scanner window is not transparent as used to be.

dmshaw

@ag_ana:

Oops, sorry, I should have said. I'm using the Mac App Store version.

rudy

@PinkyPinkman @dmshaw,

We are not able to make use of the API we were using to get the contents of the screen under the QR code scanning window on the Mac App Store build. Going forward your options are:

• paste the QR code image into the scanner window
• drag the QR code image into the scanner window
• click on the camera button in the bottom right of the window and choose Open File to pick an image of the QR code
• make use of Camera Continuity via the camera button in the bottom right of the window to take a picture with your iPhone/iPad
• make use of the iSight/FaceTime camera on your MacBook/Air/Pro to take a picture of the QR code on another screen/device/print out

You can also alternatively switch to using the WebStore build which does not have the same access limitation.

PinkyPinkman

Thanks. Your solutions are working. Can live with that. :)

ag_ana

On behalf of rudy, you are welcome @PinkyPinkman!

If you have any other questions, please feel free to reach out anytime.

Have a wonderful day :)

dmshaw

Thanks for your help. Can I suggest some sort of indication within the product that this won't work? It's fine that there is an App Store restriction that prevents this from working, but from the customer perspective, I had a working feature, and then it suddenly stopped working. If I had some hint (aside from a plain gray rectangle) that this wasn't a feature any longer, I could have saved a lot of debugging time, reinstalling, etc.

Ben

@dmshaw

The instructions on the QR code scanner have been updated to reflect the restriction:

("Drop your code into this window")

However, we're aware this isn't entirely clear to everyone, and we're working with our design team to further update this window to be more clear. Thanks!

Ben

ref: dev/content/design#922

efc

Where can we find release notes for the Mac App Store builds? I cannot find any documentation of this change, and the regular Mac release notes only go through 7.4.3.

Did Apple change something last week with regard to screen recording?

ag_kevin

Hi @efc,

Generally the release notes are the same between the Mac App Store versions and the Webstore versions. But because this was a Mac App Store specific change, it was inadvertently left out. We will be updating the notes to reflect the change.

7.4.4 on the Mac App Store was to correct an unrelated build issue, so an update to the webstore was not required. The next update will put the version numbers back in sync.

Cheers,
Kevin

pvaibhav

Hello, also dragging the QR code to the window is not working for me.
Clicking the camera icon just makes the window black.

macOS 10.15.3
1Password 7.4.4 (70404001) Mac App Store

What did work was to right-click and save the QR code image, then rename it to something with .png extension, and drag-dropping this.

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Btw I hope that the process of adding a 2FA to any login can be made shorter (like 1 click). It is 5 clicks right now.
1. 1Password toolbar icon
2. "Edit"
3. "T" under new field
4. One-Time Password
5. The QR code icon

and with drag-drop requirements it's even more clicks. Thanks.

ag_ana

Thank you for the feedback @pvaibhav! :+1:

asbjornu

I have the same problem in 1Password 7.4.4 on macOS 10.14.6.

I first tried dragging the QR code image directly from Slack and onto the QR code scanner in 1Password, but that didn't work. I then tried saving the QR code to a PNG file, but dragging the saved file into 1Password's QR scanner didn't work. It seems like the QR code image generated by Slack is not a valid PNG, so I had to take a screenshot of it. Copy + pasting the screenshot did not work, so I had to find the file in Finder and drag-drop that onto the QR scanner in 1Password. Only then was I able to get this to work. Needless to say, this is a major nuisance and a degradation of 1Password's utility and quality.

Can you please ensure that drag-dropping images from Firefox works, or that at least copy+paste works so this process isn't made as frustrating as possible; i.e. how it is now?

Ben

Hi @asbjornu

I'm sorry to hear about the frustration. :( For now I'd recommend switching to the download directly from us so that you can utilize the on-screen scanner. We'll do some additional testing with the App Store version and see if there are any improvements that can be made.

Ben

stszap

Hello. I may be a bit ignorant here but why can't 1Password just use the same API in Web Store version and the App Store version? Does App Store perform some static code analysis preventing you from doing that or is there a more fundamental issue? Also, does the problem affect all macOS versions (i.e. will upgrading from Mojave to Catalina help)? Thanks.

Ben

@stszap

Updates to apps in the App Store are reviewed and approved (or not) by Apple before they are made available. The rules are different for getting an app approved for publication in the App Store vs releasing directly to customers. QR code scanning isn't available in 1Password when downloaded from the App Store on any version of macOS. The best way to proceed if you'd like to be able to scan QR codes from your screen would be to download the app from us directly.

Ben

kaffeeundsalz

Hi @Ben, can you clarify a bit on this one? Which App Store rule is it precisely that prevents you from building the code scanner into the App Store Version of 1Password? I'd like to understand why Apple wouldn't allow for this feature to be available.

Ben

@kaffeeundsalz

Apps are only allowed to use the Screen Recording permission for recording the screen, not for reading the contents for things like QR codes, is what I'm told.

Ben

BenJetson

@Ben Thanks for your thorough explanation of this issue and the reasoning behind the change here in this thread.

I agree with those who said the change needs to be more obvious to end users. I did several minutes of troubleshooting myself before going to the forums to see if the lack of screen scanning was an intentional change.

Perhaps a concise summary of the reasoning mentioned in this thread (and a link to the direct download version) in the support article on 2FA code import would be helpful? Specifically this article: https://support.1password.com/one-time-passwords/

Best Regards,
Ben

ag_ana

Thank you for the feedback @BenJetson! We will continue reviewing this to come up with a good clarification :+1:

bubs

OK, I get that the App Store version won't read the QR code from the screen because of some weird limitation, but the alternative method doesn't work either. It says to drop the code image into the window which doesn't work when dragging from a web page and you can't copy/paste it into the window. If you save the image from the site's webpage and then drag that from the Finder into the scan window the image is slightly too large and won't scan because the QR code extends a little bit past the target brackets in the window and you can't resize the image from the scan window so that it will fit.

So, besides not giving the user any explanation of why this doesn't work as it's explained in the help docs and giving a misleading message in the scan window itself, it just flat out doesn't work.

I ended up having to use 1Password on my phone to scan the Mac's screen after wasting a ton of time trying to use the Mac app. I love 1Password, but this feature not working on Mac is very frustrating. What else doesn't work in the App Store version that user's should be aware of?

ag_ana

@bubs:

I think that the QR code scanner is the only feature that is now only available in the website version. May I recommend using that one moving forward, if you think you are going to use the QR code scanner?