Password generator creates unnecessary new logins

MGS

Dear 1Password-team and users,

For more than a year I've been using 1Password on my Mac and Windows PC, and although Owncloud isn't integratied (hint hint ;-) yet, I'm a very satisfied customer/user of the program. There is no way I'm switching back to something else, so kudos for everyone at Agilebits!

But there is something that's annoying me for some time now, and that's the behaviour of the "Password Generator"-feature in 1Password Mini. Every time I'm using the "Password Generator"-function, 1Password creates a new login for the page that I'm on. Even if that page is a blank tab in Chrome...

So it seems (to me) that whenever there's a textbox present and the (mouse)focus appears to be on a textbox, 1Password creates a new login for every time you use the "Password Generator"-function.

To reproduce the problem I'm experiencing;
1. Start Chrome on your Mac/Windows PC
2. Open a new blank tab (there should be a blinking cursor in the URL-field)
3. Use the "Password Generator"-function for a couple of time

The results should be something like:

Although the "Password Generator"-function is something marvellous, I would also like it if I just could generate and copy a new password from 1Password to a different program, without 1Password always creating a new login.

Please let me know if there's something that I'm doing wrong.

My specs:
1Password 5
Version 5.4.BETA-14 (540014)
Agile Beta
1Password Beta 4.4.0.5
OSX X Yosemite (10.10.3)

littlebobbytables

Hi @MGS,

You're not doing anything wrong. Any time you use the Password Generator from 1Password mini we always create a Password item as a safety net. Given the whole point of the Password Generator are passwords complex enough that typical person could ever remember them we need to make sure there is a record until we're sure the password has been correctly recorded.

Now if you were using Password Generator on a website, say as part of creating new account, then when 1Password's Save Login springs into action it would notice that a Password item exists for this domain and as the passwords match it would use the Password item to create the Login item. The Password item is no more but what you as the user really wanted all along was a Login item so it's all good.

Now both Firefox and Google Chrome handle their tabs slightly differently from Safari and so we see a slightly different behaviour here. When you have a blank tab open in Safari and we request the URL it reports chrome://newtab/, when we ask Firefox it reports about:blank. This is important because we use the URL to determine where this password applies. When we don't find any applicable Login items we then check the Password items and we find URL matches so we show them.

If you were to edit these items and remove the website field they would stop showing because URL matching can no longer occur.

Now when you use Password Generator what it's actually doing is recording the application that is in the foreground and simply behaving in a more precise manner when called from a browser. I'm guessing you are using Chrome and a blank tab because all you really need to do is click on the 1Password Chrome Extension icon, would that be a fair assessment?

If it is then you might be interested to know you can access the 1Password mini menu from the 1Password icon in the menu bar but also using the keyboard shortcut ⌥⌘\. I mention this because both of those options are invokable no matter what application is in focus. So say I'm in my favourite email client and I use the ⌥⌘\ shortcut. I can make use of the Password Generator and when I look in my vault there is a new Password item titled Thunderbird. That way I can more easily remember what I created the Password item for.

Does that help at all? Now if you have any follow up questions or I've misunderstood something please do let us know :smile:

MGS

Hi @littlebobbytables

Thank you so much for helping me out and also thanks to you I've found the solution to my problem.

The whole time I was using the "Password Generator"-function in 1Password Mini (browser extension), when I should be using 1Password in the OS X menubar. That way 1Password Mini does not "remember" generated passwords.

I hope I've contributed this way back to the 1Password-community :)

littlebobbytables

Hi @MGS,

You piqued my interest so I tried this to see what was being recorded. When you access 1Password mini via the browser extension icon it grabs the URL from the active tab. If you use the 1Password icon in the menu bar it just records the name of the application in focus which is Firefox.

So your suggestion would stop the behaviour you wrote in about. Now if you intend to use this generated password in a particular application then having that application in focus it ensure you can locate that password easier later if needed.

Anyway, thank you for posting and I'm glad we've helped you find a small adjustment to the workflow that works for you :smile: