Database disk malformed, and Dropbox synch problems.

MarkWieczorek
MarkWieczorek
Community Member
in Mac

I am synching passwords between my computer and my wife's using Dropbox, and I just realized that 1password was no longer synching on her computer. Synching of her vault works fine.

First, under the preferences, I saw that there was no longer a path specified for my password files on dropbox. I tried to specify the path, I was asked to merge with existing data, I typed in the master password and then received the error

"1password synch problem detected - update preferences"

I clicked on "fix", and then found my self back in the preference pane in an infinite loop.

Second, I thought that I should try to delete the vault and then re-add it. However, after "delete value" I got the error

"database disk image is malformed"

At this point the vault no longer appeared, however, when I exited 1password and restarted, it was magically there again....

So, my question is, how should I go about repairing this vault?

Thanks for the help,

Comments

  • rickfillion
    rickfillion
    edited March 2016

    Hi @MarkWieczorek,

    I'm sorry that you're having to go through this. It sounds like your database got corrupted somehow. Unfortunately there's no way to automatically recover from this, once it's in the "disk image is malformed" state it's effectively no longer safe to use. Here is what I recommend:

    • Start by creating a backup under Preferences > Backup, then Show Files, and copy the most recent backup to your desktop. In the event that something goes wrong this will give us a backup that at least gets us back to this point.
    • Use the File > Export > All Items... menu item to export your vault into 1pif format. Usually when the disk image is malformed we can still read from it, it's just writing that stops working.
    • If that works without errors, then follow our Starting over guide to remove the old database
    • Run 1Password again, it'll treat you like a new user. Create a new vault.
    • Use the File > Import... menu item to import the 1pif.

    In theory you should now have a new database with all of your old items. You can then set up sync again and be up and running.

    Let us know how this goes.

    Rick

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