MacOS and iOS vaults are out of sync

Faust

I use 1Password on two Macs (desktop and laptop) and two iOS devices (iPad and phone). I recently discovered that new items are not being synced across these devices. They are all synced via Dropbox and the original vault(s) has existed since 1Password version 2 or 3. The items on the iOS devices appear to be identical and in sync, although missing recently added or modified items. The MacOS devices appear to have diverged at about the time I installed/upgraded 1Password 7 on the laptop (which is new) around July 21st. So there are items created or modified on the desktop post July 21st that do not appear anywhere else and there are items created or modified on the laptop post July 21st that do not appear anywhere else. I was alerted to this situation on Sunday when 4 items were flagged in Watchtower as being part of a security breech. I changed passwords on those items on the desktop, but two days later those changes were not reflected on the other devices. It was at this point I discovered the apparent date they forked and found several items on each MacOS machine that were out of sync. In addition, while the iOS devices are in sync with each other, they have none of the changes that have happened on either of the MacOS devices since July 21st.

I looked at the troubleshooting article on your website for Dropbox and was able to confirm the modification dates of the Dropbox folder on the desktop and laptop change as expected when a local edit is made in 1Password. Unfortunately it is impossible to confirm the same thing within dropbox.com as the 1Password vault appears as a folder and folders do not get a modification attribute in Dropbox. There are mod dates on the files in the folder, so if you can tell me which file to look at I can proceed further down this path.

Thanks

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1Password Version: 7.6
Extension Version: 7.6
OS Version: OS X 10.14.6, 10.15.6; iOS 13.6
Sync Type: Dropbox
Referrer: forum-search:syncing

ag_ana

Hi @Faust! Welcome to the forum!

You mentioned the Dropbox troubleshooting steps, are these the ones that you are referring to?

Faust

Yup. That's what I did up to resetting the Dropbox data; haven't done that yet.

ag_ana

@Faust:

Thank you for the confirmation. Please complete all the troubleshooting steps at this point, and let us know if they helped :)

Faust

How can I safely reset the Dropbox data if there is no authoritative version of my vault? Each machine has different information.

Ben

@Faust

The only way forward in that case would be to make an authoritative version of your vault manually by reviewing the information in each copy and then updating one of them such that is contains all of the information you want to keep. It may help to sort your data in 1Password by 'date modified' to make it easier to spot which changes are the latest:

We no longer recommend Dropbox as a solution for syncing 1Password data. To avoid having this situation again in the future, once things are resolved, I'd highly recommend considering an upgrade to 1Password membership:

About 1Password membership

You can read about how to upgrade here:

Move your existing 1Password data to a 1Password account

Ben

Faust

Ben,

That’s what I feared would be the case. It looks like I have some work ahead of me. Perhaps I will try using iCloud sync.

I’ve been a 1Password customer for a long time and I really rely on your product, but I would never, ever consider a subscription. The tech world, as well the larger world, is drowning in an unsustainable subscription deluge. Purchasing something once and then deciding to upgrade/repurchase, on the consumer’s schedule, is sustainable and manageable. Being forced into yet another subscription is neither sustainable nor manageable. There is a limit to how many additional monthly charges a person can tolerate. The software and services industries are betting they can forever stretch that limit. I hope you’re all wrong and people rebel. People being who they are it’s unlikely, but there’s my rant for the day.

That aside, you folks really do make a great product. I for one hope you continue selling it and not just rent it.

Thanks,
Michael

Ben

Thanks for the kind words, as well as the feedback, @Faust. I can certainly empathize with that position, and it wasn't all that long ago that I felt the same way. In some ways I wish selling one-off licenses were a viable business model in 2020, and there are certainly vendors who have made it work, but it just isn't sustainable for us. We're updating 1Password quite frequently, especially compared with what might be required e.g. from spreadsheet software, in order to keep up with browser updates, OS updates, bug fixes, and feature requests. Not only that, but in order to deliver the best sync experience possible we had to bring that service in-house, which comes at a recurring cost to provide. Not to mention one of the longest standing and most frequent requests we had for many years was to provide a way to securely share 1Password data within families and teams, which also required in-house infrastructure. I don't say this to change your mind (though one can hope!) but rather just to show why it is that we're moving in the direction that we are.

If you have any further questions please feel free to write back. :)

Ben