1PW5 will not open when sync folder is not available
Should 1Password 5 be able to gracefully ignore a sync folder fail, but still offer to open its primary vault when launched?
Scenario: iMac launches 1PW but folder sync to home server is temporarily offline. 1PW5 will not open the primary vault located on iMac unless sync server comes back online. It sounds dangerous not to be able to open 1PW5 if a folder sync location is unavailable at the moment. I will just get repeat popup warnings about sync folder being unavailable and 1PW5 will not allow opening the primary vault.
What happens if the sync folder is never available? What about a laptop away from home? 1PW5 works fine with iCloud/Dropbox sync but I would prefer not to have info synced via cloud services.
I would like the safety of being able to open 1PW5 even if the sync folder is temporarily unavailable.
1Password Version: 5.3.2 - AWS
Extension Version: 4.3.1
OS Version: OS X 10.10.3
Sync Type: folder sync to home server.
Comments
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Hi @BytesU,
I'm sorry you're having trouble using 1Password when your home server is offline!
Normally, 1Password should still work even if something is wrong with the sync setup. However, it sounds like you have Folder sync set up in 1Password to point directly to your home server. That can cause problems because 1Password gets upset if it encounters latency or other network issues when it's trying to read/write to the sync folder there. We'd like to improve the way we handle that, but my understanding is that there's no Apple API to notify 1Password when a network drive is no longer available, so it's tricky.
As we mention in our user guide for Folder Sync, it should be configured to point to a folder on the local drive. Then you can use a tool such as rsync (or another file copy tool) to copy the contents of the folder to/from your home server. That way, if the home server goes offline, 1Password won't have a problem because it can still communicate with the local folder.
Hopefully this helps, but please let us know if you have more questions about that - we're always happy to help! :)
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Thanks Drew for the quick confirmation. It would have been very unfortunate if I folder sync to a 'home network only' server on a traveling laptop (result 1PW5 wouldn't open away from home). I'll use internal folders only now and let Chronosync do the sync duties amongst computers and home server.
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You're very welcome, I'm glad that was helpful! If you need anything else, just let us know. :)
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I second this issue. I have a synology network drive and an OS X notebook and desktop that share 1password vaults. Originally i tried doing exactly what Drew is suggesting. I was syncing each computer with a local folder and then I was syncing up the 2 local folders using sinology's sync app. This seemed to provide inconsistent results -- things would not always sync. I then started syncing both computers over the network drive, which seems to work way better. However when I leave my home network my my laptop - 1password turns into disaster. Both the mini and the full app, take forever to load, crash, and consistently complain about the sync issue. I wish there was a way to temporararly disable the sync, or for 1password to really ignore it, and not just for a second. But I will try switching back to the original solution, it's been a little while and maybe sinology app has improved. I do strongly suggest that 1password handle the missing sync drive in a more elegant matter, right now it's pulling my hair out frustrating!
R
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Hi @romych,
I used to face this issue with ChronoSync but I haven't been using it of late. That isn't because it didn't do a good job but the need for the syncing isn't there at the moment. I had several sync documents and if I was away it resulted in about 8 error messages about a network share not being available. Given the discussions that both Drew and I were part of it would seem they suffer the same issue that we have - the function calls don't easily allow a decent solution. What I had to do with ChronoSync was disable sync and then remember to re-enable on my return. Most of the time it took me a good couple of days to remember. Now I don't know if ChronoSync resolved this or decided that ChronoAgent is the only way to do so. If you're wondering, ChronoAgent acts as server for ChronoSync clients to communicate with, thus bypassing the need to connect to the share. We did look to see if there was something we had missed or something that had been recently improved on but nothing was found.
Now we genuinely have no idea of the real numbers for users with Synology NAS units but I do believe we have a few who have found their Cloud Station service (I think that's the correct name for it) useable. I believe part of the trick is the first sync is not fast so you have to be patient with it. Hopefully you find it more reliable than your first experimentation with it.
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Do you have any plans to implement a real working folder sync? Having to use other tools to sync 1PW5 data across laptop and desktop is at minimum annoying and in most scenarios extremely frustrating. For people that do not want to put all passwords and sensitive data into "the cloud", lack of proper sync is a desperately needed feature. Thanks.
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Hi @kuba,
I'm sorry you're frustrated with our current sync options in 1Password!
Wi-Fi sync is a great alternative to using a cloud sync service, but it is meant to work between one computer (Mac or Windows) and one or more iOS devices. It's not designed to work directly between multiple computers, so it sounds like that won't help you.
Now, the Folder sync option in 1Password is both real and working, and doesn't necessarily have to be used with a cloud sync service. Instead, you can configure Folder sync with a network volume. The best way to do this is to set up Folder sync to point to a local folder on the Mac, and then use a tool such as rsync (or another file copy tool) to copy the contents of the folder to/from the network volume (as mentioned in the Folder Sync guide).
You mentioned that you don't want to use "other tools" to sync your data, but I'm not sure if you're referring to just cloud sync services, or if you also mean file copy tools like rsync like I suggested above. Technically, 1Password can sync directly to a network volume without the use of a file copy tool. However, we generally discourage doing this because it can cause a problem if the network drive becomes unavailable. The problem is that there's no Apple API to notify 1Password when a network drive is no longer available like there is for removable (USB) drives. That's why we suggest pointing Folder sync to a local folder on the Mac, and using another tool to copy that to/from the network drive.
There's another option, which is to have Folder sync point to a sync file stored on a removable drive (like an external hard drive or USB flash drive). 1Password can detect when that drive is connected to the Mac, and will sync with it. This doesn't use a cloud sync service or other file copy tool at all, but you would need to remember to connect the drive to each Mac when you want to sync 1Password.
Please do let us know if you have more questions about that or need anything else - we're always happy to help!
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