Ctrl + \ no longer "activates" 1Password Windows

MStyle
MStyle
Community Member
edited May 2022 in Windows

After upgrading to the latest version of 1Password Windows I noticed that whenever I am on a login page in Firefox (my primary browser) and press Ctrl + \ , nothing happens. In all the years I've been using 1Password, it would always open when pressing Ctrl + \ and prompt me to enter the master password, after which it would autofill the username and password fields and log me in.

After the latest upgrade I find that what used to be one step ( press Ctrl + \ ) is now two steps:

1) "activate" 1Password by one of the following methods:

  • click the 1Password icon in my taskbar
  • click the 1Password extension (add-on) icon in my browser
  • press Ctrl + . in the browser which "activates" 1Password

2) press Ctrl + \ to log in

I tried looking through the settings of 1Password Windows and 1Password Firefox extension. I tried setting the "Show 1Password" shortcut to be the same as "Fill in Browser" ( Ctrl + \ ) but nothing changed.

And yes, I do realize that once 1Password is "activated", Ctrl + \ works as it always has. But my point is that it never needed "activating" before other than pressing Ctrl + \ which would both "activate" it and prompt me for the master password. It seems that an extra step was added to something that for many, many years has been a seamless process: go to a login page, press Ctrl + \ , get prompted for your master password, and get logged in automatically.

This screenshot shows that when I press Ctrl + \ , 1Password's response is "Press the 1Password icon in your browser's toolbar to unlock".

If you are aware I'm trying to log in, why not just prompt me for the master password right there, instead of making me go through an extra step?

Also, when I click the 1Password Firefox extension icon, it gets stuck at this "Loading..." animation:

But when I open 1Password manually from the Windows taskbar, it works correctly. So maybe this is a Firefox extension issue?

Or maybe I missed something in the settings that easily solves this issue. If that's the case, please let me know what I need to do.

Either way, I look forward to your thoughts on this.

EDIT: Just tested it in Chrome, and both issues are present there as well, though the second one sometimes works:

1) When pressing Ctrl + \ nothing happens except for the message "Press the 1Password icon in your browser's toolbar to unlock"
2) When I click the 1Password icon in the browser's toolbar, it shows "Loading...", sometimes followed by "Unlocking...", or sometimes getting stuck, or sometimes actually opening the 1Password main window. So the Chrome extension seems to be working a little better, but the biggest issue of Ctrl + \ not working until you "activate" 1Password is still definitely present.

1Password Version: 8.7.0
Extension Version: 2.3.3
OS Version: Windows 10 Pro 21H2

Comments

  • PeterG_1P
    PeterG_1P
    edited May 2022

    Hello @Mstyle, I'm sorry to learn of this issue. Thanks for providing this detailed description of it - that made it possible for me to try out the same steps to see what happens.

    You mentioned:

    whenever I am on a login page in Firefox (my primary browser) and press Ctrl + \ , nothing happens.

    And I see you mentioned that this also happens in Chrome as well.

    By contrast, when I try the same thing (ctrl + \ in either Chrome for Firefox) it works as expected - it pops open the 1Password for Windows app, where I am able to log in, and I'm then returned to the browser where the login is provided as one might expect.

    I'm not 100% sure what might be causing this issue (yet), but there are a couple things we can check, to start. With that in mind, could you let me know what region your keyboard layout uses (for example, United States, or UK, or Germany)? I wonder if that might be relevant here.

    Thanks, and we'll look forward to helping sort this out for you.

  • MStyle
    MStyle
    Community Member

    U.S. English keyboard layout.

    Just to be clear, once the 1Password window is open, even when locked and out of focus, Ctrl + \ works correctly.

    However, when I close the 1Password window (x out of it) and then open any login page, pressing Ctrl + \ does nothing.

    While writing this I looked at my 1Password program settings again and remembered that at some point I turned off "Keep 1Password in the notification area" because I never use it from there.

    So I enabled that setting and guess what, now it works correctly again, even when the main 1Password window is locked and closed.

    I checked Task Manager in both scenarios. When "Keep in notification area" is disabled and I x out of the 1Password window, I can't find any 1Password processes running at all. No wonder Ctrl + \ is not working. And when the setting is enabled, after locking 1Password and x-ing out of the main window, the 1Password processes are still running. Hence Ctrl + \ working correctly.

    If keeping 1Password in the notification area is the only way to ensure Ctrl + \ always works, I am OK with that.

    Thanks for helping me resolve this.

  • PeterG_1P
    PeterG_1P

    Aha! Thank you for letting me know, @Mstyle. That makes sense; I had originally figured there might be a keyboard layout issue but this explanation checks out.

    That functionality does depend on 1Password running in the notification area, so that is what's required for that to work. I'm happy to have helped think through this, although credit for figuring out the issue goes entirely to you. 🙌

    Thanks again, and we'll be here if you have any further questions or anything you'd like to bring up!

This discussion has been closed.