Windows slow, possibly due to too many items in data folder?

vj11

I have used roboform for many years on my windows machine, but bought 1password for my iphone and ipad with dropbox sync. Over the years I would export roboform data, and import that into 1password, while erasing most of the previous logins in 1password. Roboform was the primary way I saved and created logins, while 1password allowed me to access those logins on the iphone/ipad.

I had never made the switch to 1password as I found the trial version not as smooth as roboform.

Recently I bought a mac and needed 1password for the mac, so I decided to purchase your combo package and installed it on both the mac and my windows 8 laptop (I used an old windows computer to do the exchange between roboform/1password probably 8 months ago I think. I did this process about once a year as roboform is a pain to extract data from).

I still find 1password very slow in my win8 laptop, to the point I want to continue to use roboform. There must be something wrong. I have about 800 logins currently in 1password. I am not using dropbox for the windows laptop. (I copied that folder onto my c: drive) and connected that folder with 1password. I noticed that there are 17517 items in the agilekeychain -> data -> default folder. Is that normal for only 800 logins? Could that by why the windows version is so slow?

I have installed 1pass on my mac, but I haven't really used the mac much yet and haven't tested how fast 1pass is on the mac.

Please help me out, I really do want to drop roboform completely and use 1password for everything, but I can't possibly do it the way 1password exists on my windows laptop.

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1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

AGAlumB

@vj11: I'm sorry for the trouble! "Slow" is pretty subjective, but it can certainly take some effort for 1Password to read and write data because it is doing the decryption and encryption in real time.

17517 sounds about right, as I've got around 11k files in /default/. 1Password is generally faster on OS X due to platform and implementation differences. Ultimately it will depend on your hardware (an SSD sure helps), and also your expectation of speed. Keep in mind that most of the things you'll do on the computer won't be as computationally intensive as cryptography is. That said, definitely try File > Repair 1Password Vault, in case the database has become damaged over time.

If you can give some kind of benchmark I'll be happy to test on my own system (I have a few Windows 8 machines, including a rather crappy tablet). I believe I have about 600 items currently, but I know that @MikeT has more (probably in your ballpark) so he might be able to weigh in here. For instance, if there's a specific operation that you're referring to, any detail you can provide may be helpful. Thanks in advance! :)

P.S: For some reason, 1Password feels faster to me in Windows 10...

svondutch

I noticed that there are 17517 items in the agilekeychain. Is that normal for only 800 logins? Could that by why the windows version is so slow?

@vj11 Could be.

Let's start with repairing your vault, as this is known to clean up your tombstone'd items: File > Repair 1Password Vault

If this doesn't help, then my advice is to turn ON this setting: Help > Advanced > Tune 1Password for Max Performance

If none of the above helps, then you can export your vault to 1PIF, then create a new vault, then import your 1PIF. This is a last resort, but it will get rid of all the unnecessary noise in your vault.

vj11

@brenty Thanks for your reply. I have a lenovo yoga 13 with 128 GB SSD and i5 processor. The reason I call it slow it that I have both the roboform toolbar as well as the 1pass toolbar installed on my browsers. In chrome, the roboform toolbar is almost instantaneous, however for 1password it takes 5 seconds to open the submenu which lets me click on the password login information.

Good to know windows 10 feels faster. I do plan on upgrading.

@svondutch So far I have tried repair 1password vault, which didn't help. I have also turned on Tune 1password for max performance, which hasn't helped either.

I'll do the last resort next and report back.

Thank you both for your assistance.

EDIT: I just completed the export 1pif file/create a new vault/import 1pif file process. The agilekeychain for the new vault now only has 757 items instead of 17,000 +. The browser login is so much faster now, too! Saving a new login (for this forum) was near instantaneous. This is truly great!

So my final question is how should I proceed to share this new agilekeychain with dropbox (which syncs to the mac/iphone/ipad). Do I just delete the old and corruped dropbox chain and copy over the new windows agilechain folder into dropbox and then have all other devices point to this new chain? Is that the best process?

Thanks again

AGAlumB

@vj11: Just to clarify, I made a typo in my original response which led me to confuse myself and perhaps you as well. I'm really sorry about this.

I have 1192 items in /default/, not 11k... MikeT questioned me on this, which led me to double-check. I had also meant to mention that items in Trash will be included in this count, but of course there's no accounting for you having exponentially more items in Trash than you do in your vault.

Have you used Dropbox? Perhaps there are many "conflict" copies in there? Again, I apologize for my mistake.

In chrome, the roboform toolbar is almost instantaneous, however for 1password it takes 5 seconds to open the submenu which lets me click on the password login information.

This is what I was referring to in my previous post when I said that 1Password decrypts on the fly. It isn't instantaneous because of that.

Thanks for the update! It definitely makes sense that it would be faster with so many fewer items to search in the browser! Although it isn't clear where they all came from originally.

MikeT

Hi @vj11,

The agilekeychain for the new vault now only has 757 items instead of 17,000 +. The browser login is so much faster now, too! Saving a new login (for this forum) was near instantaneous. This is truly great!

That's great to hear. It definitely isn't normal to have 17K files in your data file for ~800 item, so I'm glad to hear you got it cleaned up via the import.

I do wonder how it managed to pile up over time. My theory is based on what you were doing in 1Password before with Roboform:

Over the years I would export roboform data, and import that into 1password, while erasing most of the previous logins in 1password.

I suspect all of your trashed items are retained in your data file, that's why it piled up over time. Do you recall emptying your trash? If yes, 1Password would've cleaned it up after a few months.

So my final question is how should I proceed to share this new agilekeychain with dropbox (which syncs to the mac/iphone/ipad). Do I just delete the old and corruped dropbox chain and copy over the new windows agilechain folder into dropbox and then have all other devices point to this new chain? Is that the best process?

To do this cleanly, we should push the clean data folder to all of your devices. Before we proceed, we should get more information about your iOS devices and Mac first.

Can you email us at support+windows@agilebits.com with the following information:

1. 1Password and OS versions of your iOS devices, Macs and PCs.
2. In addition, include the diagnostic reports from your Mac and PC as well. Please use this guide to generate a diagnostic report.
3. Include the link to this thread, so that we can connect the dots, and also include your forum username.

Thanks!

vj11

Have you used Dropbox? Perhaps there are many "conflict" copies in there?

@brenty No problems! I'm glad several options were given for me to try and the last worked. Yes, I've always used dropbox to sync 1password over the years. It is clearly containing many conflict copies

I suspect all of your trashed items are retained in your data file, that's why it piled up over time. Do you recall emptying your trash? If yes, 1Password would've cleaned it up after a few months.

@MikeT I would empty the trash after each update from roboform (again about once a year). I wonder if it never cleaned up because I was using the ipad/iphone to connect to the dropbox? Not really sure.

I'll email you the information to get a clean copy for dropbox.

Many thanks to all of you for your assistance!

MikeT

Hi @vj11,

On behalf of the team here, you're welcome. We'll reply to your email as soon as possible.

Email ID #: LYB-23355-682

Grishkaone

Hello team !

I'm using 1Password on many device and systems, and of course on Windows. The app feels indeed slow. Or maybe the right word would be heavy ? That's not a real problem on day to day (except when switching from the mac version).

But it feel à little worse since I'm using the .opvault format. Could it be because more data is decrypted at a given time ? Pure guess, but since there is less files in this format, maybe the work is... heavier ?

The interesting point is the modern app feel really smooth by contrast.

Have a nice day ;-)

AGAlumB

@Grishkaone: Thanks for the feedback! Indeed, I haven't noticed this myself, but it will depend on your system. There shouldn't be too much more overhead with the new OPVault format, but I think there may be another less obvious cause of the difference you're seeing.

When creating a new vault (which you would have done to switch to OPVault), 1Password recalibrates the PBKDF2 iterations used to strengthen the Master Password. So if you had previously been using a very old AgileKeychain, this could actually be a big jump for you in computational complexity! For example, if you had created your original vault prior to September 2011 and created the new one after November 2014, the increase would be 40-fold.

Another thing to keep in mind is that 1Password for Windows has always worked directly with the vault on disk, whereas other versions of 1Password maintain an internal database which is a bit more efficient to work with, but does result in an extra 'step' for working with your data in some situations (most notably, syncing). So this accounts for the difference there. It may be something that we change in a future version, but both have pros and cons. I hope this helps! :)

svondutch

@Grishkaone What @brenty says. opvault is known to be slower on initial unlock because it includes hardened encryption (up to 400K PBKDF2 iterations vs. 10K PBKDF2 iterations, HMAC-SHA-512 vs. HMAC-SHA-256, AES-256 vs. AES-128, authenticated encryption, etc). That being said, consequent unlocks should perform a lot better because we do try and cache things where possible. In addition to these steps that are known to speed up 1Password, we recommend storing your vault on a local drive (not a network share) because 1Password for Windows is very File I/O intensive. Thanks!

Grishkaone

Hi

@brenty and @svondutch, thank you both for those details. After some reading, I know that the Windows version is quite hungry for data I/O. I've already followed the steps to optimise the software, and my vault is currently in my Dropbox folder, on my SSD, so it seems there is nothing more I could do right now.

I hope that you will some day found a way to deliver a speedy version of 1Password for Windows, and my favorite app will increase from exceptional to very exceptional :p

MikeT

Hi @Grishkaone,

On behalf of the team, you're welcome.

so it seems there is nothing more I could do right now.

One more thing is to lock the program while you're in the category that doesn't have a lot of items, this would speed up the unlocking process in the program when it doesn't have to read all of the items in the category at once.

I hope that you will some day found a way to deliver a speedy version of 1Password for Windows, and my favorite app will increase from exceptional to very exceptional :pirate:

We certainly will keep optimizing the software to make it faster and get it to the very exceptional level for you. We do want to get to the same performance as the Windows Modern app as much as possible.