Sync conflicts are resolved incorrectly, wrong passwords kept

frog

I just spent about 3 hours updating passwords today, post-heartbleed, on my Mac. After doing so, I checked my iPhone, which is synchronised via iCloud, and was able to use the synced passwords to log back into iPhone apps. Great.

Got home, pulled out the iPad to fix up app-logins on that too. Turns out I've not used 1Password on there for a while, so it wasn't syncing with iCloud. But it did have most of my old passwords already in there (it's been synced in the past, by Dropbox/WiFi). So I just enabled iCloud sync, assuming it would sync and figure things out. I never update passwords on my iPad, so there shouldn't have been any conflicts.

And yet...

Every password I changed has been set back to the previous password.

Every. Single. One.

All my new passwords are now in the "Conflicts" sections. All my old passwords are back in the "password" field. On all devices.

So I'm pretty angry.

1Password on the iPad has decided that it's incredibly old passwords (up to 3 years old, according to the dates in 1Password) are more correct than those in iCloud, which I just updated today. The data clearly has an update timestamp recorded. Why on earth would you prioritise the older data?!

Now I get to spend another hour or so going through 615 items to check if they've been overwritten by an old password and re-fix them.

And no, my last backup was a few hours before I started updating.

frog

Wow.

It gets worse.

I tried looking at the password history to see what password I set this afternoon. I stupidly assumed the sync would at least maintain that history. Nope.

The history is now incorrect, and has been broken beyond repair (since you cannot edit the history).

The new passwords, which I created today are in the history, with dates from 2012 and 2013... while the old passwords are dated today.

I can see why the sync doesn't work—1Password for iPad has looked at the passwords, figured out the dates, but then swapped all instances of the old and new passwords in the sync process.

My password history for all the items I changed is telling me that passwords I generated today were used in 2011–2013... and the old passwords were applied this afternoon.

This is #$!*ing. ridiculous.

Megan

Hi @frog,

I'm so sorry to hear that you've been having trouble with 1Password lately! Please check on your Mac to see if you have a recent update that you can restore to. (File > Restore)

If you're still having conflicts after a restore, let me know and we'll investigate further!

frog

Please read my first post:

And no, my last backup was a few hours before I started updating.

There is nothing to restore.

I've gone through and manually re-fixed all my passwords, so while frustrating and disappointing, that's no longer the issue.

The current issue (for me) is that right now 1Password on my iPad is unusable. Deleting the database (Settings / Advanced) and re-opening it causes it to immediately re-sync from iCloud without any prompt. But iCloud has incorrect data (even after I wiped it from 1Password on my Mac and disabled it on all devices), presumably because 1Password for iPad re-synced its own data back to iCloud after the wipe. I get no chance to choose another sync method instead, nor an option to manually wipe whatever data happens to be in iCloud, so I'm stuck with this data until I have the spare time to resolve this in some convoluted way.

I've switched to Dropbox syncing on my Mac + iPhone, since that at least will let me recover from any further serious screw ups (Dropbox allows me to revert files manually), but I cannot set up the iPad to sync to Dropbox without either risking further corruption (from the iCloud data that I cannot actually remove from the iPad, which will then get merged into Dropbox).

I know how to fix iCloud—it's going to involve either having all my devices in one place, setting the Mac to sync to iCloud (as the only one which can delete the iCloud database), getting them all in sync, wiping all local databases on iOS devices, then wiping the iCloud data from the Mac, waiting for the iOS devices to sync iCloud document data, then finally setting up 1Password on Mac + iOS devices with Dropbox syncing to restore from that database.

What I would like from AgileBits, is for you to do the following:

• Fix the bug in iCloud sync that causes old passwords to overwrite new ones (including the password history)
• After you've wiped the local database on an iPad and re-opened 1Password for iPad, prompt the user before loading from iCloud.
• Add an option to wipe the iCloud (or Dropbox) databases, either as well when wiping the local database on an iPad, or just a button (advanced settings) to forcibly wipe it at any time from any 1Password app (Mac & iOS).
• Fix iCloud sync when data is seriously out-of-date. When I previously used Dropbox sync in the past, it would actually disable itself and give an error if too much had changed, rather than risking a corruption—iCloud should perhaps do the same (and I hope Dropbox still offers this!)—none of this would have happened if I'd had the option to wipe the local iPad database and restore from iCloud.

Note that all but the first are very simple changes (especially the second one).

Alternatively, feel free to refund my various 1Password purchases and I'll use one of the cheaper other options that has working synchronisation.

Megan

Hi @frog,

Thanks so much for your feedback on iCloud, our developers are working on making this smoother for users, but I do apologize that this has been a difficult process for you.

Let's try reinstalling 1Password 4 for iOS on your iPad and properly removing that iCloud data. To start fresh, please try:

• Tap & hold on the 1Password icon on the home screen. It will begin to move slightly, and an x will appear on the corner.
• Tap the x on 1Password, and confirm the deletion.
• Press the Home button to stop the other apps on your screen from moving.
• Delete the Data on iCloud (if it exists): http://learn.agilebits.com/1Password4/iOS/Tutorials/ios-reset-data.html
• Restart your iOS device
• Now, visit the App Store on your device, and tap the Purchased section (on iPhone, Purchased is nested within Updates).

• Find 1Password in your purchase history and tap the cloud icon to re-download, free of charge.

• When you open 1Password 4 for the first time, select "I've Used 1Password Before" and sync via Dropbox

Please let me know if this reset gets your iPad properly synced up.

mikefj

Same/similar issue with me. I've been a long time user on my mac with 1password 3, but upgraded to 4 on my iphone. Tonight I bought and upgraded to 4 on the mac, and did a wifi sync: the conflict handling did what the original poster describes - it took the newer passwords and put them in a conflicts section, and all of the password history dates are wrong. The iphone items were all up to date so those should have taken precendence over the much older 1password 3 records,, right?

restore doesn't help because the old records were on the mac in the first place -- its the iphone i want to restore. Is that possible?

Manually trying to fix one login at a time in the ios app is painful but not quite working -- deleting the bad/old password does move the conflict into place but loses the username - so I am essentially rebuilding it and if I keep the old record, its previous passwords and dates are wrong.

Is my only option to erase and rebuild by hand?

Megan

Hi @mikefj‌

I'm so sorry that this bug is causing you trouble! You're right, the newer passwords should have taken precedence, and my developers have gotten this fixed already. An update soon should have this corrected.

However, automatic backups are not created on the iOS app the same way they are on the Mac, so you might have to manually clean up the conflicts here.

I really wish I had a better answer for you here - you have my sincere apologies for this!

frog

@Megan, I have followed your instructions and managed to completely wipe all the residual 1Password data from the iPad.

I have also switched to Dropbox syncing exclusively—despite the significant advantage of iCloud's OS-driven background sync, it's clearly not worth the risk of corruption and having to manually rebuild your 1Password database. Even if Dropbox syncing has a similarly catastrophic bug, I can at least rely on Dropbox's versioning system to provide me with a pre-sync backup, no matter what else goes wrong.

Megan

Hi @frog,

Thanks for letting me know that you're all sorted out! Again, I'm sorry it was such a process for you. You might be happy to know that 1Password 4 now supports background syncing for Dropbox, so you aren't losing much by switching. :)

I hope that things work smoothly for you from now on, but we're here if you hit any other snags!