Dropbox Sync Question

Mr. K.

How often does 1Password Mac sync with Dropbox? Is there a way to force a sync?

rickfillion

Hi @Mr. K.

1Password for Mac will sync with Dropbox when one of three things happen:

1. It detects a change in the dropbox (i.e. another device has written to it, and it should pick up those changes)
2. An edit has happened locally that needs to be synced to dropbox (we know of some bugs here that we've fixed and will be out in 5.1)
3. The user has unlocked the vault.

If you're looking for a way to force it, #3 is your best bet. Simply lock/unlock it.

Hope this helps.

Rick

Mr. K.

I think my problem is related to your #2 answer. Things do eventually sync. I have used your #3 suggestion to force a sync. Thanks.

Ben

Thanks for the update. The v5.1 update should resolve much of that, as @rickfillion‌ mentioned. :)

willard

@rickfillion, Perhaps it should, but it's not guaranteed. After using 1P for years I've found you cannot rely on the sync. Give it twenty-four hours and you're usually safe. But if you want it immediately you will, on occasion, not always, be frustrated.

@bwoodruff‌, I hope the 5.1 update finally does fix it as it is a persistent and annoying flaw in 1P. But I won't hold my breath as the behavior can also be experienced in other uses of Dropbox, not just 1P, suggesting a deeper Dropbox problem.

rickfillion

Hi @willard,

You're right... we're at the mercy of the sync service providers. Dropbox makes no guarantee about when changes will be synced to other devices. For typical usage it's "really quickly". With the old iCloud sync it could take up to 30 minutes for changes to appear on a device. With the new iCloud/CloudKit sync we're seeing much better times since it's not having to actually transfer the data but just notify devices that there are changes.

We'll try to make our side of the equation as good as possible to minimize these kinds of problems.

Rick

willard

@rickfillion‌, Thanks for the details. On this occasion, after eighteen hours mine still hasn't synced. Although as soon as I manually updated on the second machine, it re-update on the original.

So, to the original post, no service will offer the option to force sync. But given that, are you now, or will you be in the future, recommending iCloud/CloudKit over Dropbox sync?

Drew_AG

Hi @willard,

Good question! :) We don't recommend one over the other. We offer both iCloud and Dropbox syncing because we want to give our users options. If we thought one sync solution held all of the answers, that would be the only solution we offered. It's more a matter of personal preference.

There are a few differences between iCloud and Dropbox sync, and those differences may or may not make a difference for you. The main benefit of iCloud sync is that it's built-in to Macs and iOS devices with no need to download additional apps or sign up for a new account. For many users, iCloud sync is an easier option.

Dropbox is a great solution for users who also want to sync 1Password with Windows or Android, or who would like to take advantage of 1PasswordAnywhere. Dropbox sync is also backwards compatible with earlier versions of 1Password, works with multiple vaults, and can be used to share vaults with others.

So as I said, it really comes down to personal preference and what works best for your needs.

If you have more questions about that, please let us know!

willard

Hi @Drew_AG‌, Thanks for the details on both systems. I'll stick with Dropbox then for the backwards compatibility etc.

What I'd like is to be able to do is force a sync. Some thoughts on how to mimic such a function when a particular entry is refusing to update would be helpful.
Thanks.

rickfillion

Hi @willard,

On the Mac you can force a sync by locking and unlocking the app. On iOS there's a Sync Now button in sync settings.

Rick

willard

Hi @rickfillion‌, Cool. I've seen that tip and perhaps it works in certain configurations. That doesn't work in stubborn situations that refuse sync, regardless of how many times one locks, quits and even restarts on both devices. I have also been finding recently that 1p5 doesn't sync immediately with 1p3, but 1p3 does sync immediately with 1p5. But that's for another thread and another day ...
Thanks.

littlebobbytables

Hi @willard‌

Can I just ask, when you mention 1Password 3 and 1Password 5 are these both for the Mac or is one iOS and one Mac?

In the older 1Password 3 the agilekeychain was your vault. Syncing involved the only copy being moved to your Dropbox folder. With 1Password 4/5 we use an sqlite database file for the locally stored vault and then sync to the agilekeychain as required. I just wonder if this is partly why you're seeing what you're seeing given rick's post on some bugs he's eliminated.

willard

Hi @littlebobbytables‌, I think this is taking the post in a different direction, but as you asked ... You could also start a new thread with the following.

I have 1p3 (mac 10.7.4), 1p5.02 (mac 10.10.1), 1p3.7.2 (iPad iOS 5.1.1 via wif-fi) and 1p5.1.2 (iPhone 5s iOS 8.1.2).

I didn't realize there was such a drastic change between 1p 3 and 4/5. If I need to restructure my database environment. The most critical devices to stay in sync are the 1p5 ones, mac and iOS, which they currently are not doing.

Thanks.

littlebobbytables

Hi @willard‌

1Password 4 was a complete re-write from 1Password 3. The guys here felt the current codebase wasn't going to meet their needs so they started again. Now despite the massive differences there is no reason why 1Password 3 and 1Password 4/5 can't be kept in sync - certainly lots of people still use 1Password 3.

I can think of a few things we can do to test your setup but given rick's statement it might be best to wait for 5.1 before we proceed, what do you think?

willard

Hi @littlebobbytables‌, I can certainly wait for the 5.1 update, but in the meantime I'd like to do some testing to at least flush out any other problems. Might give me a better handle if 5.1 does indeed cure it, when it arrives.
Thanks.

littlebobbytables

Hi @willard‌

Fair enough :smile:

Given what you're experiencing I was going to suggest we watch the progression of a new item. Let's start with your Macs. If you enter Safari's preferences, in the Advanced tab you should see a checkbox at the bottom titled Show Develop menu in menu bar. If you check that then you will hopefully see an option in this now visible Develop menu called Disable Local File Restrictions.

What this does is allow you to open up an agilekeychain that is stored on your hard drive. If you then use Finder to navigate to your agilekeychain you can right click on it, select the Show Package Contents option and then be presented with a Finder window inside the agilekeychain (see the image below). Double clicking on the 1Password.html should allow you to use 1PasswordAnywhere just as you can from within Dropbox's web interface.

What this means is you can view the agilekeychain stored locally on your computers and view the agilekeychain as it is on Dropbox's servers.

Then going from the Lion to to Yosemite machine (and the reverse) you can add an item and see when it makes its way into first the local agilekeychain, then onto Dropbox and finally onto the the other machine. When you know it has definitely arrived on your Yosemite machine you know 1Password 5 should be picking it up.

Knowing where it isn't being picked up should hopefully give some insight (in theory).

If through your observations we can say, for example, that 1Password 5 isn't writing the new item to the local agilekeychain promptly (and when you expect it to) on your Yosemite machine we've narrowed the search. If we can see it's written but Dropbox is dragging its heels that tells us something too.

Troubleshooting aside, have you considered wiping the agilekeychain?

Given your mixture of 1Password 3 and 1Password 5 you'd need to be careful, ensuring both copies of 1Password 3 were not running. You'd then disable sync on the 1Password 5 devices, move the agilekeychain somewhere safe e.g. Desktop and then create a fresh one from within either 1Password 5 instance. If created in the exact same location your 1Password 3 should pick up the new agilekeychain, unaware that it isn't the precise one it was looking at before. The reason for being careful is as far as 1Password 3 is concerned the agilekeychain is the vault while for 1Password 4/5 it's merely the sync data.

willard

Hi @littlebobbytables‌, Thanks for the detailed instructions. That all seems very straight forward and logical to me. I had considered wiping the agilekeychain. I'll probably do that as I intend to wipe my main Yosemite and do a clean install over the holidays (holidays are for clean installs, aren't they?). I'll report back in a few weeks and let you know.

Do I take it then, in regards to the original post, you shouldn't have to force a sync, but if you feel you need to then there's likely something amiss in your agilekeychain?

Drew_AG

Hi @willard‌,

On behalf of @littlebobbytables‌, you're very welcome! Let us know how it all goes for you, hopefully that will help.

To answer your question, you're correct - you shouldn't normally have to force a sync. It occasionally helps to do so if you notice a recent change hasn't synced, but under normal circumstances it should take care of things on its own. Keep in mind that a lot of this depends on the sync service being used (in this case, Dropbox), but in general that should be fine. If you notice the sync isn't working as expected, it doesn't necessarily mean there's a problem in your .agilekeychain file - it's a possibility of course, but there are a lot of factors involved.

I hope your clean install goes well! :wink:

willard

Hi @Drew_AG‌ , Thanks. That helps make things clear for myself and the OP.

Jasper

On behalf of Drew, you're welcome. Please let us know if you have any other questions! :)

willard

@littlebobbytables‌. As you said "Given your mixture of 1Password 3 and 1Password 5 you'd need to be careful, ensuring both copies of 1Password 3 were not running. You'd then disable sync on the 1Password 5 devices, move the agilekeychain somewhere safe e.g. Desktop and then create a fresh one from within either 1Password 5 instance. If created in the exact same location your 1Password 3 should pick up the new agilekeychain, unaware that it isn't the precise one it was looking at before. The reason for being careful is as far as 1Password 3 is concerned the agilekeychain is the vault while for 1Password 4/5 it's merely the sync data."

So I've now wiped my Yosemite machine and done a fresh OS install and a manual port of the old data. I 'd backed up my 1Password 5 data and then restored it to this machine, without syncing to the outside world. Regarding the two iPads running 1Password 3, they don't contribute new password records and have sort of become "read only" machines, so I can just take them out of the equation.

So my question is, redundant 1P3 iPads aside, how do I have the fresh Yosemite machine rejoin the rest (i.e. the iPhones and other laptops, all running 1Password 5)? It has some unique records that don't exist elsewhere so needs to play nice. I'm not assuming anything at this point and want to be very careful not to mess it up.

Thanks.

littlebobbytables

Hi @willard

So just to confirm your position. Prior to wiping the Yosemite machine it was syncing with the other machines and devices. Having performed the wipe you moved the old 1Password support files back but you didn't set up sync at that point and you've now added a few more items that you want to ensure are not lost when you restart syncing. I'm also assuming all the other devices and machines have continued to remain in sync during this period.

This particular situation should be pretty easy. What I suggest is performing a backup on this fresh Yosemite machine and also on one of your other machines. Given all of them are in sync it won't actually matter which. To perform a manual backup you want to enter 1Password's preferences, switch to the Backup tab and click the Backup Now button. This is your safety net, so you can feel safe no matter what happens next. You probably don't need to do this at all but I like to air on the side of caution and it gives you a level of reassurance.

All you should need to do is enable Dropbox sync on the fresh Yosemite machine and point it to the existing .agilekeychain. Given most of the data is identical the result should be precisely as you would predict. The new items on the fresh Yosemite machine should be added to the .agilekeychain and the other machines simply pick them up - all without issue. Worst case scenario though and something completely unpredictable occurs you know we have backups to work with.

Let us know how you get along.

willard

Hi @littlebobbytables‌, no, the situation is more complicated than that. The laptops and at least one of the phones are in sync. The iPads, I'll not worry about. But the "fresh" machine was not syncing before, and I have not set it to sync now. So is at odds with everyone but itself. Essentially I'm introducing a wildcard into play. Given that, I will make backups on every device and await your thoughts.
Thanks!

littlebobbytables

Hi @willard‌

Okay, so we're on the same wavelength regarding your your laptops and phones. I think what we need to do is clarify the fresh machine and specifically the vault. When we add items to a vault each is assigned an UUID (Universally Unique ID).

Now if this copy of 1Password started off with a copy of a vault that had once been in sync (say if it had been copied from the previous installation and that had been in sync) then many of the UUIDs are the same and that's good. What might not be good is if you know/think you've been changing the same item in more than one vault. In that situation 1Password should record conflicts because it can't tell which it should be keeping.

If however you started off with a clean vault and you've been manually creating new items to replicate existing ones then things get a little messier. When you try to sync they'll be seen as different (thanks to the UUID) and then you'll have to manually merge items. On the plus side there should be zero chance of anything being lost.

So unless you have an even funkier situation the backups you've made should be sufficient to undo any damage that could potentially arise.

willard

Hi @littlebobbytables‌, thanks. This has been the main vault, until it fell out of sync. I might well have done some updates elsewhere. But being mindful of the risk of conflicts, I could deal with those fairly easily as they will likely be few.

As for the worst case scenario, no this was not a new vault and no I was not trying to manually recreate the records.

I'll let you know how I get on.

littlebobbytables

@willard‌ I believe 1Password should be able to cope with your situation by the sounds of it. Something you can do is after you've performed the sync is use the keyboard shortcut '⌃⌥⌘F' to perform a search on your vault. You can then search for conflicts using the following search parameters

Search: All Items

Conflict Fields are present

Given everything you've said so far this should be more about reassurance than damage control and yes, please do keep us informed! I'm betting on good news :smile:

willard

@littlebobbytables‌ All does indeed seem well. Thanks for the tip, the "conflicts" query is actually bringing up the records that I recognise as edited when/on the machine which was out of sync. It's a simple process to reconcile those. Thanks again.

littlebobbytables

That's great to hear @willard‌ If you have any further questions or issues please do ask! :smile: