How to improve the Wi-Fi sync in 1Password 4 from now on

Hessijames

I seriously hope that the current wi-fi sync is some kind of proof of concept.

-Dynamic ports opened on the Mac. There is absolutely no reason I can think of to use dynamic ports. It even prevents simple solutions to filter inbound traffic for the security aware users.

-Cumbersome: Wi-Fi sync has to be initiated manually and takes two clicks on the Mac and five taps on the mobile app.

-No visual feedback: First sync hung at 1/1 new and 100/100 sync without any visual feedback on neither the Mac nor the app. No progress bar, no updated numbers, nothing.

The "old" wi-fi sync (the one before the usb sync experiment) did not have any of the aforementioned problems, worked perfectly and was user friendly.

Please, AgileBits, tell me that a major redesign of the functionality is already worked on.

Hessi

bassbeats

As mentioned before by Hessijames i agree that the missing visual feedback is really annoying. Should we roll the dices if everything is ok?
There needs to be a information about when which device got successfully synchonized.

And yes, its not as user friendly as the most of us expected.

jurtrx

I agree with everything Hessijames said. More annoying than the missing visual feedback is the fact that it takes a dozen clicks / taps on both desktop and iPhone to start synching.

Oh... and nice feature... for my own security I now have to open and leave open a window presenting in huge bold letters easily readable for everyone in a 10ft radius my secret sync code while I synchronize my iPhone. Great job, that really is a drastic security improvement!

Sorry for all the sarcasm. But seriously, what was wrong with the nice and simple wifi sync of the previous version? Why fix what was not broken?

Hessijames

Any update by AgileBits about the next steps will be highly appreciated.

jhk

jurtrx absolutely correct. Cannot believe how what was a simple wi-fi sync, possible across multiple macs and devices, with immediate visual confirmation, and no key-presses or tapping through menus, has morphed into this complicated mess. I am beginning to wish I'd never moved beyond v3. Even obvious "copy" functions in the browser extensions are not visible. Are we supposed to guess how it's done? Apparently you double click, but............ not good.

Megan

Hi @Hessijames, @bassbeats, @jurtrx and @jhk

I'd like to thank you for taking the time to write in with your feedback.

While I am glad to hear that you had a good experience with Wi-Fi syncing in 1Password 3, I can tell you that many people did not. Between the need for manual syncing and networking issues, it did not provide a great user experience for many users. We have re-written it completely for 1Password 4 and hope that it will soon be a reliable and relatively pain-free alternative to cloud syncing.

As we work to improve the new Wi-Fi sync, your opinions are invaluable. I'll be sure to let the developers know that you are missing the visual feedback. Believe me, we know that the manual process is not ideal and are looking for ways to make it more automatic, while still keeping it secure.

Thanks for your patience here, and if there is any other areas we need to look at with Wi-Fi sync, please let us know!

Hessijames

Hi @Megan,

thank you for forwarding our problems to the developers. A feedback, especially the planned changes to the wi-fi sync would both underline your promise to fix the functionality and - considering our invaluable opinions - make sure that the fixes will not head in the wrong direction (again).

Hessi

Megan

Hi @Hessijames,

While I can promise you that the developers are hard at work, I can't say much more. We try not to comment much on unreleased features or product changes, as there are too many factors that could affect implementation, and we certainly don't want to promise something that we can't deliver on.

I can promise you though that we are listening to all of your feedback. It sounds hokey, but it's true. :)

Hessijames

Hi Megan,

I must admit that you are right, at least about the hokeyness.

Let's take a look at the history of wi-fi-sync (from my memory):

-1Password version 3 had a good and working implementation of wi-fi sync. It worked 100% flawlessly for me and did not have any of the limitations mentioned in my initial posting, obviously the result of good software engineering.

-AgileBits announced the removal of wi-fi sync because nobody (at AgileBits) used it, customers were having problems with it and because Dropbox and the AgileBits AES encryption were 100% secure. Even hints at security breaches at Dropbox were blocked pointing to the security of the AES implementation.

-A design flaw in the 1Password AES implementation was discovered leading to a significant speedup in brute force speed. (http://hashcat.net/forum/thread-2238-post-13402.html#pid13402)

-AgileBits "listened to the customers" and started implementing a USB sync solution. A beta sync tool was released that produced duplicate entries. It used aprivate APIs reserved for iTunes thus conflicting with running iTunes or even iTunesHelper (http://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/15965/status-of-the-usb-sync-tool#latest). In addition - in contrast to wi-fi sync - changes to the proprietary sync protocol would have made a 1Password update necessary. I will skip the rest of the painful implementation details. The USB sync tool was never updated.

-1Password 4 for Mac was released, AgileBits announced the re-implementation of wi-fi sync. I updated it (thus rendering USB sync unusable) and learned that the tutorials on syncing wouldn't be of any help since they required a "soon" to be released iOS update. There was no single mention of this requirement before.

-1Password for iOS was released and showed the problems mentioned in my initial posting. Being a computer scientist I fail to understand why the same team that implemented a solid wi-fi sync solution in 1Password3 re-implemented wi-fi sync in such a crude manner.

Considering this experience and being used to the omnipresent and airy tech support rhetorics I fail to accept the absence of any conclusive statements about future improvements.

No offense!

Hessi

MikeT

Hi @Hessijames,

None taken, you have every rights to doubt us. All we can do is keep working on Wi-Fi sync and we'll prove we're serious about the Wi-Fi sync this time.

jhk

Mike, let's hope so. I'm amazed that people had a problem with the v3 wi-fi sync. It was easy to set up and then totally automatic, as soon as we opened 1P on the iPhone or iPad once the main program was open on our Mac - at home or in the office, but on our wireless network(s). No data floating out in the cloud, even though it is / was well encrypted. Even more surprising is the statement that few used it. How on earth did you know that? Satisfied users rarely write in! Anyway, we await the improvements with bated breath ;-)

Hessijames

@MikeT & @Megan
Could you please give an update on the next steps to fix wi-fi sync as promised above.

At the moment I encounter two problems:
-Folders deleted on 1Password Mac are not synced to the iOS devices correctly. Entries removed from the folders prior to deletion are synced correctly except for one that remained in a folder.

-The progress displayed during the sync alienates me. When syncing several times in a row (without any changes) it first displays 0/109 then 0/100 and 0/100 again. I would expect it to jump to 0/0 on the second sync. Since in contrast to the prior sync solutions (wi-fi sync "classic" and usb sync) there is no clear output indicating which items are actually synced and how (especially the direction).

Syncing is a critical operation the user has to trust in (especially when there is no clear output) since data corruption might get unnoticed for some time.

Is there a wi-fi sync log somewhere that I can have a look into?

Hessijames

Megan

Hi @Hessijames,

Thanks for checking in on us!

-Folders deleted on 1Password Mac are not synced to the iOS devices correctly. Entries removed from the folders prior to deletion are synced correctly except for one that remained in a folder.

We're currently tracking a bug where Folders don't always sync correctly via Wi-Fi. I've added what you are seeing to the report in the hopes that it will help our tech gurus track things down.

-The progress displayed during the sync alienates me. When syncing several times in a row (without any changes) it first displays 0/109 then 0/100 and 0/100 again.

Your feedback here is much appreciated, I've passed your thoughts along to our development team. You're right, syncing is so critical, and having clear output is a great way to build trust.

Is there a wi-fi sync log somewhere that I can have a look into?

On your iOS app, please go to Settings > Advanced > Troubleshooting > Sync History to see the sync logs. :) If that's not enough detail for you, we can get more detailed logs from a Diagnostics Report if you enable 'Sync' in the Log Settings (under Troubleshooting as well).

I hope this helps, but we're always here if you have further questions!

Hessijames

@Megan

-The progress displayed during the sync alienates me. When syncing several times in a row (without any changes) it first displays 0/109 then 0/100 and 0/100 again.

Your feedback here is much appreciated, I've passed your thoughts along to our development team. You're right, syncing is so critical, and having clear output is a great way to build trust.

I have to make sure that you understood me correctly: The 0/100 issue is clearly a bug and no request for improvement. There is no reason for displaying "syncing 0/100" when there are no changes. 100 does not even match the total number of objects in 1Password which is >500.

On your iOS app, please go to Settings > Advanced > Troubleshooting > Sync History to see the sync logs. If that's not enough detail for you, we can get more detailed logs from a Diagnostics Report if you enable 'Sync' in the Log Settings (under Troubleshooting as well).

The sync log contains one empty(both in "Alle" and "Nur Änderungen") entry "WiFi-B8B..." even after syncing several times and adding a change on the Mac.

I hope this helps, but we're always here if you have further questions!

What I actually need is a fix for the wi-fi sync problems and the direct involvement of someone familiar with the sync implementation, i. e. a developer. I will be more than happy to submit any logs necessary to track down the problem. I will, however, not submit the full diagnostics package created by the 1Pasword troubleshooting tool on the mac containing a whole bunch of data I consider private (the complete system log, running processes etc.).

/Edit:
I reviewed the (hidden) sync logs in your iOS diagnostics report. I can clearly see 1Password iterating over a large number of items (without counting: probably the 100 mentioned in the GUI output.) and checking one by one for changes. This is highly suspicious because when syncing you either iterate over all items and compare them one by one for changes (which is highly inefficient) or you use hashes and/or timestamps to detect changes efficiently. None of these two procedures would result in a subset of the entries (100 of a total >500) to be compared one by one.

Hessi

Megan

Hi @Hessijames,

I'm so sorry if I misunderstood your earlier post. It sounds like you're looking for a bit more detailed help than we can provide in a public forum. Please send an email in to support+forum@ agilebits .com with the version numbers of all copies of 1Password and the operating systems that you're using them on.

logopk

Let me add a "me too" to the automatic WiFi Sync as prior to Version 3.9. PLEEEEEASE!