Dropbox sync silently fails

neema

None of the logins I've added from my laptop are getting synced to Dropbox.

They won't show up on my phone, my desktop, or 1PasswordAnywhere. They only appear on my laptop, which claims it's syncing successfully:

OS X 10.9 (13A603)
1Password Version 4.0.8 (408001)

The laptop is running a fresh install of OS X. It took at least a week before I even noticed it wasn't working; it silently fails.

What is a man to do? :-?

Megan

Hi @neema,

I've got a few simple things that we'll try first.

• Make sure that you are using the same Dropbox account everywhere, so that sync isn't happening to the wrong spot. :)
• Make sure that Dropbox is running on all computers.

If Dropbox is set up nicely, then we'll try re-setting Dropbox sync:

• Disable Dropbox sync on all computers and devices.
• Quit 1Password on your laptop.
• Open a Finder window to Dropbox, locate and delete your 1Password.agilekeychain file.
• Open 1Password.
• Enable Dropbox syncing.
• Wait for Dropbox to sync (there will be a green checkmark on the blue box icon in your menu bar)
• Open 1Password Anywhere in the browser and see if all your Logins are present

Once this is confirmed, you can re-enable Dropbox sync on your other computers and devices.

Please let me know how this goes!

neema

Deleting stuff? Sounds dangerous.

Is this supposed to consolidate my unsynced passwords with the 1Password.agilekeychain in Dropbox? I don't want to lose any unsynced passwords from any of my machines.

neema

It worked! =D> ...but why did my 1Password.agilekeychain go from 18MB down to 3MB?

To answer my earlier question:

1. You can always do a manual backup on each computer first, for added safety.
2. When you re-enable Dropbox Sync, it tells you it will merge your data:
   

I also used this as an opportunity to move the agilekeychain to a new subfolder in Dropbox.

Thanks for your help!

slinberg

I have the direct-download / non-apple-store version of 1Password 4 for Mac. (iOS also, but I don't think that's relevant here).

I have dropbox syncing turned on, and use 1P from my macbook pro and my mac pro, both running OSX 10.9. I also sync it to my ios devices via dropbox. The mac pro and the ios devices successfully share the dropbox, but the macbook never receives or pushes changes, and now my machines are out of sync. The macbook says it's configured to dropbox successfully and even gives "last synced 30 seconds ago" messages when I check the prefs to make sure it's working, but the sync apparently never happens. The files in the Dropbox / 1Password / 1Password.agilekeychain bundle never get updated or touched by the macbook, as far as I can tell.

This is becoming a real problem for me and I haven't made any headway in figuring it out. Can anyone advise? Thanks.

sjk

Nice job, @neema. :-bd

On @Megan's behalf, you're most welcome.

If your original 1Password.agilekeychain started on 1P3 the web preview image cache in it (if any) was removed when rebuilding, which is the most likely explanation for the size reduction.

The default, preferred location for the first (if any) 1Password keychain used with Dropbox syncing is:

Dropbox/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain

That's 1Password.agilekeychain inside a 1Password folder inside your Dropbox root folder), but if all's working well where it's at now there's no reason to move it again. :)

And there may be additional 1Password keychains in Dropbox, e.g. being synced with secondary vaults in 1P4 on a Mac.

racemase

Hi, I use 1PW with 4 OS X devices and 2 iOS devices and sync via Dropbox. It works well BUT on my new rMBP (late 2013) syncing only works until I reboot the machine. After a reboot changes / new entries are not submitted or received. Changes on other machines sync well on all but the rMBP. Changes on the rMBP won't get uploaded. The Dropbox app does not show any activities on the rMBP. Normally, the upload indicator starts spinning right after saving an entry ... I've already started from scratch with no luck. Any ideas?

Marco

PS: MAS version and locking / unlocking does not help

slinberg

bump

I know you guys are busy, but I could use some help. The problem persists. I'm using 4.0.9 on both macs. My macbook pro says it's syncing to Dropbox successfully, but neither my mac pro nor my iOS devices ever get the changes. They do all get each others' changes, but it's like the macbook is off in its own little parallel universe, happy but disconnected from everything, believing everything is fine.

n7965w

same problem. Changes on my macbook air are not getting to my iphone but syncing is occuring- nothing is changing on the phone.

Jasper

Hey @slinberg,

As you said, AgileBits has been really busy since the launch of 1Password 4. But I'll tag @sjk and @Megan here so hopefully they'll take notice.

There's a good chance that they will ask you to email them a diagnostic report so they can pinpoint your issue easier. There's no harm in sending them one (from the MacBook having the issue) using the instructions below so they will already have it if they need it.

Sending us your Diagnostics Report to help us help you!

Please do not post your Diagnostics Report in the forum, but do include a link to this topic and your forum username in the email so we can "connect the dots" when we receive it. A quick comment here mentioning that you've sent it would also be helpful. Thanks in advance!

thightower

@slingberg

I know some of these sound simple, so please take no offense with me mentioning them. We (Dropbox Moderators / myself being one) see these things often over at the Dropbox forums.

1. Make sure the Dropbox app is running. Sounds like this is true by your comments.
2. Make sure the Dropbox app is linked to the same account on all devices.
3. Does the Dropbox app sync other changes or has it stopped everything.

As to 1Password

1. open the preferences and make sure all the problematic Mac is set to use the keychain in the same location as the others.
2. Is this is a secondary vault ? Each vault has its own sync settings. This is a common issue.

As @JasperP mentioned the diagnostic report will help the staff. But these are just some common things you may wish to look at while waiting.

slinberg

No offense taken. The app is running, it's using the same account, and it's the only thing I'm using it for, so there's nothing else for me to measure against. I do have photos taken from my phone visible from the macbook, so it's looking in the right place.

This is a single vault (I was originally using two, but once I realized I couldn't use the secondary one on my iOS devices I went back to one), and the prefs are identical on the macbook and mac pro. The only difference is the location of the dropbox folder itself; on the mac pro, it's in ~/Documents, but on the macbook, it's in ~/docs, a different directory that I maintain. Each prefs knows the correct location of its own dropbox folder. Would that matter?

neema

You're not gonna believe this: I'm having roughly the same problem again, this time from my desktop instead of my laptop. #-o Strange that it was working in both directions a few days ago.

Now, the passwords saved on my desktop don't make it to Dropbox at all. They do not show up on my laptop nor in 1PasswordAnywhere.
Conversely, passwords saved on my laptop do make it to 1PasswordAnywhere, but not to my desktop.

When I create a new password on my desktop, save it, then quickly lock 1Password, the Dropbox menubar icon shows no sync activity. If I do the same thing from my laptop, it shows immediate sync activity. This leads me to believe that 1Password on my desktop isn't writing to the agilekeychain in my Dropbox folder.

The only other detail I can think of is that I have a secondary vault I don't use as often. Both vaults exhibit the same behavior.

racemase

JFYI I have the same problem and it's a MacBook Pro as well that does not sync. It seems to store its data somewhere but not in the custom Dropbox folder set in the preferences. All other documents outside 1PW sync fine via Dropbox but 1PW never uploads its changes. This renders my rMBP almost useless. BTW opening the .html fault in the CUSTOM Dropbox location shows the latest entries made with other machine. So, they are there but 1PW on my rMBP simply does not care.

racemase

So, same problem as described here and here. BTW No secondary fault here but a custom Dropbox location.

Megan

Hi @slinberg, @n7965w and @racemase,

I would like to apologize for the delay in responding to you here but (as @JasperP mentioned) we have been a bit overwhelmed since the launch of 1Password 4 for Mac. We're all working hard and putting in extra hours to get back to our usual snappy responses and we really appreciate your patience.

Once you have confirmed all of the simple things that @thightower mentioned are as they should be, we do want to see a Diagnostic Report from each Mac currently running 1Password. Please follow the instructions posted by @JasperP above.

If you haven't already sent in the Reports, it would help our tech gurus a lot to know just where sync is failing. To find this out, let's run a test on the sync: create a new entry on each device and name it something obvious like "test, device-name" and see which entries show up correctly on which devices. Please include your results in your email to our team. :)

Thanks so much for your patience as we work to sort this out - I know how important sync is!

slinberg

Thanks for the reply, Megan.

What I did was give up on the custom location, unlink Dropbox from the machine, re-connect it and put it in the default ~/Documents/Dropbox path that the mac pro also uses, and then reset the 1p prefs to point it at the new location. When I did this, it started working and it merged with the other data.

I don't love that that's the solution - I did prefer to have the Dropbox folder outside of ~/Documents on my macbook - but it's not the end of the world, and the bottom line is that it's working. I don't think the diagnostic reports from me will do you any good now, and I don't want to go back to a broken state to generate them :) but maybe some other folks can kick theirs in.

Megan

Hi everyone,

I've merged several similar posts together so that we work through this together. :) Right now, our developers are aware of an issue for Mac App Store users (those on 1Password 4.0.8) where Dropbox can become unlinked after a reboot. This seems to be related to the MAS's sandboxing regulations and generally applies to users who have their 1Password.agilekeychain stored in a custom location. Moving your keychain to the standard location

Dropbox/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain will help until we find a proper solution.

If you do find that Dropbox has stopped syncing in this situation, disabling and then re-enabling Dropbox sync will refresh your permissions and syncing will resume.

For users on 4.0.9, we would love to see a Diagnostics Report to better track down where things are going wonky for you!

Thanks so much for your patience as we sort this out, and @slinberg, I'm so glad to hear that you were able to get things working. For iOS in particular, we do recommend the standard location (although as a particularly organized person myself, I understand wanting to put things in exactly the right place.)

slinberg

I'm afraid I've started having problems again. I just sent in a diagnostic report. What's weird is that changes made on the iOS device are now reaching / merged with the macbook, but changes made on the macbook never make it back to the iOS device, despite both devices reporting successful syncs.

Just to be clear: the dropbox path by default on my machine appears to be "/Users/xxx/Documents/Dropbox", not "/Dropbox". That's what mine currently is on both my macbook and mac pro. It's not a root-level Dropbox directory, it's contained in the user's Documents directory.

Your note above suggests not putting the Dropbox folder within the Documents folder. Did you mean "~/Dropbox/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain" rather than "/Dropbox/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain" or "~/Documents/Dropbox/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain"?

PS. This is now on 4.0.11, not 4.0.9, and the direct download version, not the app store version.

tbader

@Megan: I'm relatively new to 1Password, switched from SplashID and importing data already was horrible. Now it continues. Yesterday, I reworked a lot of items in 1Password on my MBP while I was traveling. Came home, connected to the internet, and started 1Password to sync with dropBox.

Today, back in my office, I launched 1Password on my MacPro to make my edits appear. All computers are running MAS version 4.0.8 btw.

Result: No sync at all. The MacPro kept all old versions, even if it told me that a sync was successful a few seconds ago.

I then followed you're advice to set the path like above, but unfortunately, I can't find that path on my computers. My dropbox folder is located on /Macintosh HD/users/timo/dropbox. Anyway, I guessed "/Dropbox" in your post means the root of the the dropbox folder, so I changed my sync folder to this location and did a sync. However, the result is a disaster! I have now all over double entries, the old ones and the reworked ones!

Additionally, the sync does work one time exactly, but then stops working.

Please would you be so kind and send a detailed description

• where the supposed dropbbox location is meant to be
• and how I can change the sync options without loosing hours of work?

Thanks in advance,
Timo

sjk

Hey guys,

I'm sorry you're both having Dropbox syncing issues now.

The default, preferred location for the first (if any) 1Password keychain used with Dropbox syncing is:

Dropbox/1Password/1Password.agilekeychain

That's 1Password.agilekeychain inside a 1Password subfolder inside your Dropbox root folder. There may be additional 1Password keychains in Dropbox, e.g. being synced with secondary vaults in 1P4 on a Mac.

For some hopefully helpful 1Password data definitions see: this post

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@slinberg,

The report you've sent is hiding from me. :) Can you please send a Private Message to me with the email address you sent it from? [Edit: Report received; thanks!]

@tbader,

It would be best if you'd also send a Diagnostics Report (see post #10 above) so we can help get your syncing issues sorted out through email. Thank you!