Broken "unlock with apple watch" preventing password authentication in Safari extension

pnomolos
pnomolos
Community Member
edited March 2023 in Mac

This is somewhat pursuant to the discussion here: https://1password.community/discussion/120630/unlock-with-apple-watch-disappears

I have the same problem where my watch occasionally de-syncs from my MacBook and I have to go into MacOS Settings -> Security & Privacy and uncheck and recheck the "Use your Apple Watch" checkbox. This is all fine and I realize this is an Apple issue and there's nothing the 1Password team can do about it.

However, what is incredibly frustrating is that when I click the "Open 1Password" button in the Safari extension, I see a very quick flicker of the "Unlock with Apple Watch" dialog (maybe a 10th of a second) and then nothing happens. I would very much appreciate if it would be possible for the team to detect the case where an "Unlock with Apple Watch" dialog returns failure in a subhuman amount of time and then present the regular password dialog. Half the time I'm in the middle of a flow and entering my master password is much preferable to hunting down and changing the Apple Watch security setting.

1Password Version: 8.8.0
Extension Version: 2.3.7
OS Version: macOS 12.4
Browser:_ Safari

Comments

  • pnomolos
    pnomolos
    Community Member

    Hi 1Password team. Hate to be the guy who bumps this, but this is still an issue. Running Ventura 13.1 and 1Password 8.9.13 now. Any idea if this is something that's fixible on your end?

  • jac.pd_1p
    jac.pd_1p

    Hi @pnomolos

    I do apologize that we missed your first message here about this issue you're experiencing with unlocking 1Password with your Apple Watch. We do have some initial troubleshooting steps we recommend going through before we start digging into the diagnostics reports which I ask that you try out for me:

    1. Disable Apple Watch Unlock in 1Password for Mac (1Password > Settings > Security > Uncheck "Apple Watch"). (If you don’t see the Apple Watch option in 1Password then skip this step.)
    2. Disable Apple Watch Unlock for your Mac (In the MacOS menu bar:  > System Settings > Touch ID & Password > Uncheck your Apple Watch under "Use your Apple Watch to unlock your applications and your Mac")
    3. Turn off your Mac.
    4. Restart your Apple Watch: Restart your Apple Watch - Apple Support
    5. Turn on your Mac.
    6. Enable Apple Watch Unlock for your Mac (In the MacOS menu bar:  > System Settings > Touch ID & Password > Check your Apple Watch under "Use your Apple Watch to unlock your applications and your Mac")
    7. Enable Apple Watch Unlock in 1Password for Mac (1Password > Settings > Security > Check "Apple Watch").

    That should then clear out all the problematic files under the hood to get you back up and running again. If you still run into this issue, let me know and we'll try out some other troubleshooting steps.

  • pnomolos
    pnomolos
    Community Member

    Hi jac,

    I've gone through and done these steps - it normally takes some time for the problem to show up so I'll give it a week or two and then follow up if it's still occurring.

    Thanks,

    Phil

  • jac.pd_1p
    jac.pd_1p

    @pnomolos

    No problem, we'll be here to help further if the issue does pop back up on your Mac after following those steps. If the problem does show up again, make sure to note down the information about your setup and what you tried doing around that time since it'll make diagnosing slightly easier :)

  • pnomolos
    pnomolos
    Community Member

    Hi @jac.pd_1p!

    OK, so things worked for awhile but are happening again. No idea why my Mac stops wanting to authenticate via my watch, but it does. This is at the system level, by the way - installers and other items that would normally do watch auth are no longer able to.

    The big distinction here is that other system items fail gracefully - they pop up the "Authenticate with Apple Watch" dialog for a split second, determine that it's not a valid authentication option, and then fall back to a standard password dialog. With the 1Password browser extension I see the watch dialog for a split second, then it closes and I'm left with a still-locked extension. At that point I end up opening the 1Password application manually and forcing it to authenticate via password.

    Anyway, TL;DR:

    • Watch auth not working is a system-level issue
    • 1Password browser extension could do a better job of failing gracefully in this case
  • Dave_1P
    Dave_1P

    @pnomolos

    Thank you for following up. It sounds like there's room for us to improve our messaging when Apple Watch unlock fails on a Mac. So that we can look into this further, I'd like to ask you to reproduce the issue one more time and then create a diagnostics report from your Mac:

    Sending Diagnostics Reports (Mac)

    Attach the diagnostics to an email message addressed to support+forum@1password.com.

    With your email please include:

    The report will be in zip format. Please send the entire file.

    You should receive an automated reply from our BitBot assistant with a Support ID number. Please post that number here. Thanks very much!

    -Dave

  • pnomolos
    pnomolos
    Community Member

    Thanks @Dave_1P !

    I sent the diagnostic report - the ticket number is 117041.

    Thanks, and have a great day :)

    Cheers,

    Phil

  • Dave_1P
    Dave_1P

    @pnomolos

    Thank you for posting the ticket number, I've just sent you a reply. Let's continue the discussion over in the email thread. 🙂

    -Dave

    ref: IVI-71818-231

This discussion has been closed.