How is the Quick Unlock code supposed to work?

[Deleted User]

My settings: Quick Unlock Code is On, Lock on Exist is Off, Autolock Interval is Never

Very rarely (seemingly randomly) am I allowed to unlock using the Quick Code; most times the app asks me for the Master Password. My Master Password is long (for good reason) and it is really a pain in the butt to type it in.

From a complete reboot of the phone, launching the app asks for the Master Password. This seems wrong to me - is this the intended behavior or a bug? Same thing happens if I use the back button to exit the app - I have to re-enter Master Password.

If I enter the master password and then manually pick Lock from the Actionbar menu, then I can use the Quick Unlock code - but that is the only way I can reliably reproduce.

To me, the Quick Unlock Code is pretty worthless if I still have to enter my long Master Password every time I close the app (or Android kills it or I shutdown my phone).

mverde

Hi @_swanson,

Thank you for posting your question here as there may be other beta users who are wondering the same thing. I'll do my best to answer without writing an essay.

Like you, many of our users find it cumbersome to have to enter their master password each time they interact with 1Password. If you are switching back and forth between 1Password and another app in order to copy and paste information, having to re-enter you master password each time can slow down the process quite a bit. In order to make this less cumbersome, we provide the quick unlock code option to allow users to trade a little bit of security for more convenience. It's easier for someone else to guess the four digit quick unlock code, but it's also much quicker for you to type in.

The quick unlock code is meant to facilitate quicker switching between 1Password and other apps, but it is not intended to replace the need for the master password. Ultimately, your 1Password keychain is still secured by your master password which is why we ask for the master password whenever the app is launched. Once the app is launched and the keychain has been unlocked with the master password, then we secure the app with the quick unlock code according to the autolock interval that you set. If you use the back button to exit the app or the system shuts down the app, then the app will need to launch again and it will ask you for your master password once more. You should be able to avoid this by using the task switcher or the home button to switch to different apps.

With all of that in mind, there does appear to be at lease one bug with the quick unlock code and lock on exit settings (hence my use of "should" in the previous sentence). Turning off lock on exit, tapping the home button, and tapping the 1Password icon still requires a password despite the fact that the app shouldn't need to relaunch and lock on exit is turned off. The app also insists on the master password in this case, even though the quick unlock code option is selected.

I will bring this to the attention of our development team. I hope my explanation was helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions.

daveonkels

I suspected it was just a bug when I noticed the master pw in use after launching versus switching apps. Thanks @mverde for checking on it.

mverde

You're welcome! Let me know if you have any other questions.

aroneous

I too found the behavior to be very confusing - I was convinced there were bugs, but it's probably all covered by your explanation.
However, I don't know that I find the distinction between leaving the app via the app switcher and leaving it by using the 'home' button to be useful. My expectation would be that I could use the quick unlock code until I hit the 'autolock' interval, no matter what.

Nicholas Pufal

I used to find this pretty confusing, but with the new app this seems way better. If I'm not wrong, the old one (the reader app) had a time window for the quick unlock code to be useable. This behavior changed now, as the time that we set under settings is going to lock the app with the quick unlock code - not the master password anymore.

Unless I'm missing something, the way it's now is that it will lock with the master password only if you exit the app - and that means, clicking on the "Exit" option, or pressing the back button several times, or you close it using the app switcher. For the first two, it will explicitly ask you if you want to exit the app, so it's not that the user won't get feedback. For all of the other scenarios, e.g. press the home button, lock the screen, use the app switcher, it will keep using the quick unlock code.

IMO, it's pretty well calibrated now. It has a nice balance of safety vs usability.

aroneous

I've seen cases where it asks for the master password other than the times you describe. A couple of times I've gone into Settings and turned off/on the quick unlock code (having to set the code again when doing so), after which I see different behavior, so perhaps there's an issue around applying the settings sometimes? I'm not certain that really had an effect, but after that it started behaving 'better' again.

(I saw similar with the 'unlock on exit' option - even with it turned on, I was still having to type the master password immediately if I tapped the home button then got back into the app, and turning that off and on again seemed to 'fix' that.)

mverde

@Nicholas I think that you've got a good understanding of how we're intending locking and unlocking to work. Thank you for adding your explanation to the discussion.

@aroneous I think that there may be some confusion resulting from our use of the word 'exit' in two different contexts. I've brought this up with our development team for discussion. On the one hand, we are referring to 'exit' as terminating the app. This is what you are doing when you tap the Exit menu item in the overflow menu, or when you tap the back arrow and confirm that you want to exit. On the other hand, we present the 'Lock on Exit' switch in the settings. In this case, we are referring to 'exit' as leaving the app for another app without terminating it (via the home button or the recents button).

Confusion resulting from ambiguous wording aside, I'm not discounting the possibility that there may also be an issue with settings taking effect here. So please continue to report any odd behaviour with locking here so that I can look into it. Thank you!