1Password might be causing sound hiccups in Windows 8.1 [Caused by Norton's recent update]

pbryanw

Hi,

I've noticed a strange problem in Windows that might be related to 1Password. When I click on a login in the 1Password browser extension on Chrome, to fill the username and password fields on a web-site, I get a small hiccup in any sound that's being played back on my PC. I get another hiccup when I click the login button on the web-site. I only get the sound hiccups during these two cases. And by sound playback, I mean music being played in the background in either Media Monkey, Spotify or RadioSure (an internet radio app).

The problem seems to be browser agnostic, with the same problem in Firefox. Also, it seems to be OS specific, because I run 1Password on a hackintosh on the same machine without any problems.

I'm using an Audioengine D3 USB DAC for sound, with a wireless connection. Connecting by ethernet doesn't make a difference. I've also tried ending any 1Password processes in task manager and that seems to fix things but as the problem is intermittent, and I haven't tested with 1Password closed for very long, I still don't know if it's 1Password that's the problem and why it would be interfering with the sound?

Any help appreciated.

---

1Password Version: 4.6.0.583
Extension Version: 4.4.1.90
OS Version: Windows 8.1 x64
Sync Type: Dropbox

AGAlumB

I've noticed a strange problem in Windows that might be related to 1Password. When I click on a login in the 1Password browser extension on Chrome, to fill the username and password fields on a web-site, I get a small hiccup in any sound that's being played back on my PC. I get another hiccup when I click the login button on the web-site. I only get the sound hiccups during these two cases.

@pbryanw: Indeed. 1Password doesn't let your data sit there, unencrypted, in memory. When you take these actions it must decrypt it so you can get something usable.

If you've got onboard audio or a dongle, it's certainly possible — even probably — that cryptography would cause a brief resource drain. After all, that's the point! Anything IO intensive (such as 1Password decrypting or encrypting data) is going to pull resources from the CPU...which is what's doing much (if not all) of the sound processing when you don't have dedicated audio hardware to accelerate it, offloading it from the CPU. I struggled with issues like this in Windows for years, and unfortunately they are still with us.

I'm using an Audioengine D3 USB DAC for sound, with a wireless connection. Connecting by ethernet doesn't make a difference. I've also tried ending any 1Password processes in task manager and that seems to fix things but as the problem is intermittent, and I haven't tested with 1Password closed for very long, I still don't know if it's 1Password that's the problem and why it would be interfering with the sound?

It sounds like the driver (software) is doing most of the work here, or it wouldn't make any difference if the CPU was under load. It may be that this does not happen every time you unlock 1Password, since it may be that another process has to be stressing the CPU at the same time to produce skipping.

Since 1Password isn't directly accessing your audio hardware/software (it doesn't access your devices at all, Windows handles all of that), there really isn't anything we can do about that. Simply updating your drivers may help though (if they've gotten reliability or efficiency fixes). Otherwise you won't have any trouble so long as you're not taxing the CPU when something else (such as internet radio) needs it. But why these apps aren't buffering audio to prevent skips, even in the case of a network spike, is beyond me.

pbryanw

Hi, thanks for your help on this. I'm currently running an i5 3470 quad core processor - I'm just wondering - shouldn't this be powerful enough to handle decrypting by 1Password & background audio? I've also looked for updated drivers but Windows built-in drivers are the latest, and only ones, available.

I don't think I had this problem with my previous USB DAC (however that had other problems).

So, if I understand correctly, even just clicking a login in the 1Password browser extension causes a brief spike of CPU activity that's probably causing the hiccup. The same when I press the logon button on a web-site. The internet radio app does buffer from what I gather, but it's buffering the internet source and not the audio I think.

I think I'll give my onboard audio a go (it's currently disabled) and see if I can isolate the problem to my DAC, then maybe contact the DAC manufacturer to see if they can also offer any help. Thanks again for your feedback.

pbryanw

My apologies. I was looking into the causes of sound stuttering with USB DACs and another forum thread mentioned uninstalling your anti-virus or security software.

I have Norton Security 2015 on my PC, so I ran the uninstaller tool, rebooted and I've experienced no more sound hiccups. The Norton software comes with its own password manager (which I thought I had disabled) so I wonder if that's the cause of the problem not 1Password?

It also explains why I've just started noticing this problem as it's probably due to an update in Norton Security.

Anyway, I'll see if I can bring this problem up with Norton, and again thanks for Agile's support with this.

MikeT

Hi pbryanw,

Thanks for letting us know what you found, that does make sense. We've started to see some issues from Norton's recent updates but not audio issues.

Hopefully, Norton will get you sorted out soon.

pbryanw

@MikeT - Hi, thanks for your reply - I've never really had any problems with Norton up till now, so it makes me wonder if some of their recent updates needed more testing? In the end, I narrowed my problem down to Norton's Intrusion Detection module. I could disable the entire Intrusion Detection module as a fix, but because it's a integral part of Norton, I wasn't prepared to do this.

So, I started a 30-day trial of Kaspersky, and this solved my sound issues. I have to say it was an odd problem, and probably wouldn't have affected me so badly if I wasn't so particular about things :) Thanks for yours & brenty's help & feedback on this thread.

MikeT

Hi @pbryanw,

It is probably just a bug in their Intrusion Detection module, we had some experience in this area and they usually do fix issues once you report it with them.

Let us know if everything goes well with Kaspersky, we're working with them to ensure their products and 1Password are compatible. They have some ideas we like to try and hopefully, it will work to prevent future false positives in 1Password.