Antivirus / Firewall seems to be the cause of the Red Badge 1Password Helper Issue

aprescod

The 1P extension stopped working a few months ago on my work Windows 7 laptop running Firefox 26 (and counting). I always see a red badge on the extension, and the 1P database is no longer synced between Firefox and the main 1P app. So the logins in Firefox are now months old. After hours spent reading the Agile forums and Googling the issue, I had tried the following:

1. Checked for updates to the main application, and updated it. Still get the red badge.
2. Uninstalled the extension and reinstalled it. Still get the red badge.
3. Created a new empty test Firefox profile and installed only the 1P extension. Still get the red badge.
4. Cleared the 1P database by moving the OnePassword.sqlite file to desktop and restarting Firefox. Now I get the "Connecting: ###" message.
5. Moved the old 1P database back to its original location, and the "Connecting: ###" message went away. But I still get the red badge.

Finally, I saw something online about localhost and 127.0.0.1. My work laptop has McAfee Enterprise Anti-virus and Firewall installed which is mostly locked down and I can't access most of the screens to see available options. I don't see any place to whitelist anything though. However I did see an option to disable the firewall in McAfee's system tray icon's popup. So I disabled the firewall, restarted Firefox, and the red badge went away in the test profile. Unfortunately, the firewall automatically re-enables itself after 20 seconds or so. But at least the 1P database got synced between Firefox and the main app in that time.

I'm reluctant to approach our IT folks to configure McAfee since they view everything with suspicion and it will be a major hassle, especially if I'm shooting in the dark with unconfirmed solutions . If someone knows about McAfee Enterprise's ability to Whitelist, or can confirm that whitelisting 127.0.0.1 will resolve the problem, that would give me some basis to approach my IT. Also, would whitelisting 127.0.0.1 create any other security risks that would give IT reason to deny the request?

DBrown

Thanks so much for this information, @aprescod. I'll make sure Development sees it, and I'll ask them for information and advice about whitelisting that IP address.

svondutch

@aprescod anti-virus "solutions" are a nuisance. they detect lots of false positives.

svondutch

would whitelisting 127.0.0.1 create any other security risks that would give IT reason to deny the request?

I don't think so. 127.0.0.1 (localhost) is usually allowed to run in a different security zone having more privileges (compared to the Internet zone)