Problem loading 1PasswordAnywhere on Dropbox.com

JOeMTC

Since trying out some features on the newest iOS update, I’m having trouble accessing 1PasswordAnywhere via Dropbox’s web interface (i.e. not loading it locally).

I’m using FireFox 28.0 and Chrome 34.0.1847.131 m
In both cases I’m getting the “A problem occurred when loading the "https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/1Password.agilekeychain/data/default/encryptionKeys.js" file” error.

Here are the steps leading up to this error.
1. Update iOS app to 4.5 on April 22. (1PasswordAnyWhere worked after that through April 24).
2. Last night, 24th, I turned on the demo vault just to see it and then removed it from iOS app.
3. This morning, 25th, on opening Dropbox on iOS it suddenly asked for 1Password to access Dropbox. I had already done this a while ago on the first install 1Password on iOS.
4. I confirmed it to access.
5. I logged into Dropbox on a PC on Firefox and tried opening the 1Password.html and then got the error.

Notes:
I haven’t renamed the 1Password.agilekeychain file.
I only have one vault.
I’ve tried optimizing the vault on 1Password 4 (Mac), but it didn’t affect 1PasswordAnywhere.
I’ve cleared my browser cache.
In the past in similar situations, I would repair the database, but I don’t see that anymore as an option.

Thank you so much.

Megan

Hi @JOeMTC‌

Thanks so much for writing such detailed feedback here! Our developers are currently investigating this and are in talks with Dropbox to see if we can't get things behaving properly. We'll do our best to have this feature up and running again soon!

:)

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Chris_in_Renton

I am having the same issues that began as well on the 24th.

hatakeda

I've also had same issue maybe after I upgrade 1Password on IPhone. I'm using 1Password on IPhone and Dropbox on Firefox ( Windows ).

Jasper

Thank you all for the reports!

We've talked with the awesome team at Dropbox, and they are working on a fix for 1PasswordAnywhere.

Thank you all for your patience! It's greatly appreciated. :)

FA1LURE

Having the same issue.

A problem occurred when loading the "https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/1Password.agilekeychain/data/default/encryptionKeys.js" file.

I get this via Dropbox on Mac OSX Chrome Version 29.0.1547.65.
I also get an error on my iPhone iOS.

Please fix this. Thanks.

hawkmoth

@FA1LURE‌ - That, of course, is what this entire thread is about. And, as @JasperP‌ noted in the post above yours, they are in communication with Dropbox who are working on fixing this.

FA1LURE

@hawkmoth - Luckily I didn't make a whole new thread about it. I just, as a paying customer, wanted to let the team know that this is an issue for me too. I am glad they are aware, but it doesn't hurt to let them know either. Hopefully this will be resolved asap for a million reasons. Thanks. woot.

lucasd

I'm not sure if this should be taken up in a separate thread, but for me this current problem raises the question of whether an alternative to Dropbox is needed. I have always relied on the 1Password + Dropbox set-up, and therefore the 1Password approach of having long, complex, and difficult-to-remember passwords has worked flawlessly for me. However, now that I cannot get 1PasswordAnywhere to work via Dropbox, the situation has become exceedingly cumbersome. I am currently in a foreign country using an internet café, so I am faced with having to manually type each password on a foreign keyboard. Very time-consuming.

So, I'm grateful that a fix is on the way, but I'm just wondering, is there any good alternative approach to accessing 1Password on the go that would be more foolproof in terms of these sorts of issues? Can I store my data file on a different online service than Dropbox (that is, one that would be more reliable)?

Megan

Hi @lucasd,

The topic of alternative sync solutions is certainly a popular one! Our developers are constantly on the lookout for sync options that are both versatile enough for all the platforms that 1Password is offered on, as well as secure. Of course, once alternative sync solutions are implemented, creating a matching 1PasswordAnywhere is not an automatic feat, but I'm happy to mention to our developers that you're interested in such a feature! :)

firstadopter3732

Hi @‌Megan -

Curious if there is an update on when 1PasswordAnywhere will work again? Being a paying 1Password customer issues like this need to be resolved ASAP or you give everyone access to other versions of your app. I use a Mac and PC and currently have the Mac and iOS apps but do not need to purchase the Windows version (or assumed I did not need to) with the use of 1PasswordAnywhere, but with it being broken for over a week now I have been unable to access my passwords on my PC. I have been reading them from my iPhone and manually typing them in. I have passwords that are more than 20 characters this takes some time especially with special characters and making sure you type it in correctly!

I understand that the issue lies with Dropbox, however your company should not have to rely on someone else's platform which causes your customers to loose trust in your company. There needs to be another way for users to access their passwords and account information without having to pay to access another version of the same software and to prevent issues like this where 1PasswordAnywhere becomes completely inaccessible. I guess we should call it 1PasswordNowhere?

MrRooni

Hello @firstadopter3732. At this time we don't have an ETA on when 1PasswordAnywhere functionality will be restored. I fully understand your point of view here. Unfortunately the situation is a bit out of our hands. It does put another vote in the column for us to provide our own sync service. As Megan mentioned above, we are constantly on the lookout for new sync solutions and the topic of our sync service does come up regularly.

ozarkcanoer

MrRooni,
I too am experiencing the inability to use 1PasswordAnywhere using Dropbox for sync between Mac and iPad. If I change over to using iCloud for syncing my vault (just the default vault so far) will 1PasswordAnywhere work as before? Any reason I would not want to use iCloud for syncing my two devices?

MrRooni

Hello @ozarkcanoer‌. Unfortunately 1PasswordAnywhere only works with Dropbox sync, not iCloud. Beyond that there is no reason not to use iCloud for syncing your two devices. We have heard from Dropbox that they have a fix in place and are testing it internally before releasing it into the wild.

Daan

Got some more technical information if you guys are interested (even though the Dropbox guys are working on a fix).

The 1Password.html file does a request for the encryptionKeys.js file, to which Dropbox replies with a HTTP 403 forbidden error. If you go to the URL directly (https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/1Password.agilekeychain/data/default/encryptionKeys.js) you will indeed see a Dropbox forbidden error.

Looking at how the 1Password.html file is requested from Dropbox, I see a URL like https://dl-web.dropbox.com/get/1Password.agilekeychain/1Password.html?_subject_uid=392xxxx&w=AAxxx... where I replaced the _subject_uid and w query parameters with non-working values for security reasons (wouldn't want to give out my credentials publicly now would I ;) )
If I copy-paste that same _subject_uid=392xxxx&w=AAxxx... values after the URL for the encryptionKeys.js file... It simply works downloads the file.

Art Levit

Please notify users!!
I'm another user who is dependent on the Dropbox sync feature to allow for international use of my 1Password datafile at internet cafés when I travel, which is frequently. It was by accident that I discovered the problem a few days ago. I worked on the issue myself for a couple of hours, thinking that it was a problem with just my systems. Finally, sent an email for support, but after >48 hrs, heard nothing, so went onto the forum and discovered that this is a global problem. MY post is simply to recommend to AgileBits that when something like this happens (I would call it a significant breakdown that could very adversely affect someone's use of the software at a time when it is really needed), they should NOTIFY users that it is a problem and it is being worked on. I have the greatest confidence in the AB team that they are directing appropriate energy toward fixing the issue. I just wish I hadn't wasted >2 hrs working on it when it was a known problem--and I wish I had KNOWN about it from AB rather than discovering it myself. (Also, I should talk to a shrink: I've gotten so dependent on 1Password.)

Jasper

Very sorry for any inconvenience, Art! Dropbox is currently testing a fix, and we hope it will be available soon. :)

firstadopter3732

@JasperP‌ Agilebits still needs to PUBLICLY acknowledge there is an issue with 1PasswordAnywhere as that is a major service in todays multi-device world. Until you start bundling different platforms of your application together your users cannot suffer the type of outage that is currently plaguing 1PasswordAnywhere. I have just switched from Passpack as I was wanting a solution with a desktop app and web browser access, but now I might be rethinking that because your solution is only half working!

Agilebits needs to PUBLICLY come out and acknowledge a severe disruption in service for users with multi-devices (mainly multiple computers that run on different operating systems).

Jasper

Sorry if it wasn't clear from above, we completely acknowledge that there is an issue with 1PasswordAnywhere at the moment. A change made by Dropbox broke 1PasswordAnywhere, and it can not currently be accessed via Dropbox.com. Since this issue came up, we've been in contact with the Dropbox team to try and get this fixed.

Yesterday, Dropbox told us that they are currently testing a fix, and we hope it will be available soon.

I fully understand that this is causing a disruption for you. Unfortunately, the situation is a bit out of our hands. We are truly sorry for any inconvenience!

firstadopter3732

@JasperP posting on here is not publicly acknowledging there is an issue. There needs to be a post here: http://blog.agilebits.com/ and it needs to be tweeted by @1Password and @Agilebits on Twitter. As a paying customer I should not of have to search the forums to realize there is an issue just as Art Levit said.

Another1

While I understand that the Dropbox issue was not caused by agilebits, I agree that agilebits has done a terribly poor job of communicating the issue to its user base. The issue is buried in at least 4 different forum threads. Agilebits should be publishing this in their blog, newsletter, twitter feed and sticky header in forums so that many more users don't waste hours of their time trying to troubleshoot, create new topics, etc.

I strongly recommend user Gyran's 1passwordanywhere extension.
Not only does it still work despite Dropbox issues when agilebits extensions do not work, it also works great when 1password is not installed due to incompatible OS or power crazy windows administrator IT policies prohibiting unauthorized applicaitons.

http://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/22961/1passwordanywhere-extension

Great author support too.

panoz7

I want to echo the sentiment of Art and firstadopter. I work in the software industry and completely understand that occasionally things break, and it takes time to fix them. I also know that how an issue like this is communicated to users is almost as important as the fix itself.

I spent about an hour and a half attempting to diagnose what went wrong before I stumbled on a support thread earlier this week. I've been checking back every day to see if there was a solution, and I'm glad to see one is coming. That said, I shouldn't have had to stumble upon a thread in the forum – it should have been tweeted and posted on your blog.

This is doubly frustrating for me because I'm currently trying to convince family members to migrate to 1password. They are understandably concerned with trusting access to all their online accounts to a single app. Something like this happening isn't doing me any favors when it comes to convincing them. Your product requires more trust on the behalf of the user than almost any other. Something like this (the communication, not the failure) erodes that trust, and I hope it is handled better in the future.

For what it's worth, I found this article on alistapart by the typekit team on disaster communication to be spot on: http://alistapart.com/article/fire-drills-communications-strategy-in-a-crisis

JOeMTC

Please let your users know via your blog, social media outlets, and email blast of this outage. It is only good customer service. It is now 5 days since this issue was reported. It is long over due for a notice. Users who have bought into the 1Password ecosystem should be rightly notified.

Maybe there should be another means to use 1PasswordAnywhere if this problem is persistent in future updates and releases of 1Password/Dropbox.

mtakacs

just chipping in with a me too being effected.

panoz7

Just checked the twitter and noticed you guys tweeted about the outage this morning. I appreciate the team stepping up and look forward to the eventual resolution. I think it's telling how much we love the product by how difficult it is for us to live without it.

ozarkcanoer

Keep up the practice of notifications about issues that can impact major groups of your users like the 1PasswordAnywhere issue and the DropBox sync problems. Maybe have a Current Issue dashboard in addition to Tweets?

MrRooni

Good morning everyone,

We are sorry about our lack of a proactive response to the trouble with 1PasswordAnywhere. When this issue originally came to light we immediately focused our energies on responding to reports from you, our customers, as well as working closely with Dropbox to figure out what had changed and what we could do to restore its behavior. What we neglected to do was get out in front of the problem and keep you informed of what we knew and what we were doing about it.

By the time you read this message our Twitter account will have posted an update about the situation. We have also added a sticky post to the top of the forums here: http://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/24341/1passwordanywhere

We hold ourselves to a high standard of customer care and we appreciate that we have such a vocal and passionate user base that holds us to that standard as well. Thank you.

amswitzer

Suggestion: When you get this error after attempting to logon to 1PasswordAnywhere, you get a link to help text. The information here (i.e. Dropbox working on a fix) needs to be there too. If I wouldn't have made the effort to check these forums for a solution I wouldn't have known that it's not something users can fix.

MrRooni

That's a great suggestion, @amswitzer‌, and one that we would probably implement. The trouble is that we don't have any access to your data stored on Dropbox so we have no way of updating your 1Password.html directly.

panoz7

@MrRooni‌ : I think @amswitzer might be referring to this page: http://help.agilebits.com/1Password3/1passwordanywhere_troubleshooting.html

It is linked to from the error message in dropbox and it's the first page I visited when I attempted to diagnose the problem.