Troubleshooting iCloud Issues

justinparker81

Hey! I recently moved over to a new iPhone 6s Plus from an iPhone 5 using an encrypted backup to 'Restore from a Backup'. Once opening 1Password, my data was gone. I tried to set up iCloud sync again as I had before but it did not pick up any existing data. After some time and starting from scratch, I found that they're were now two vaults in my iCloud under 'Manage Storage' - one bigger than the other. Presumably the bigger one is my old password sync file, but after deleting the smaller and newer one, I still can't get 1Password to recognize my original data. Is there anything I can do?

---

1Password Version: 6.2.2
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: iOS 9.2.1
Sync Type: iCloud
Referrer: kb:icloud-troubleshooting

littlebobbytables

Hello @justinparker81,

The timelines get a little blurry for me so I'm wondering if you remember at all, what version of iOS were you running on the old iPhone 5, was it iOS 7 by any chance?

The reason I ask is when Apple released iOS 8 they made a significant change to iCloud. They released the newer iCloud Drive and migration was a one way process and how apps were to sync to iCloud changed a lot. iCloud Drive was also limited to iOS 8 and newer meaning for those that made the leap from 1Password 4 for iOS to 1Password 5/6 for iOS at the same time as moving from an older iOS device to a newer one and they relied on iCloud the combination could make for a stressful time. 1Password 4 for iOS synced to the older iCloud using the correct approach for that version while 1Password 5/6 use the newer iCloud Drive and cannot access the files in the older way.

It doesn't have to mean all is lost though.

1. Do you still have access to the old iPhone 5 and a working copy of 1Password on it with full access to your vault?
2. When you say you restored from an encrypted backup do you mean you restored from a backup stored in iCloud or did you restore from a backup that was in iTunes in either a Mac or Windows machine?
3. If the answer to question 1 was iTunes, do you still have this encrypted backup? If you do we can pull the relevant file from the backup.
4. If the answer to question 1 was iCloud, how long has it been since you restored the backup and have you done anything that you would be unwilling to lose? The reason I ask is we have seen it where restoring a backup fails to restore the 1Password for iOS vault but then a second restoration of the exact same backup works. In other words restoring has been seen to be a little quirky sometimes and doesn't always fully restore everything in the backup. We don't know the exact whys sadly.
5. If the answer to question 2 was you don't still have the encrypted backup, do you own a Mac that accesses this same iCloud account?

So there are possibilities for recovering the vault, the best way forward will depend on these answers :smile:

justinparker81

Hi!

So unfortunately I no longer have that iPhone, but it was running iOS 9.2 I believe. I did restore from an encrypted backup from iTunes and I think I still have a copy of that. In addition, I have access to a Mac I can set up the iCloud account on and a copy of 1Password as well. Just haven't set it up yet.

Ben

It may help, as we've heard other reports that it does, to restore that same backup a second time. For some reason sometimes restoring from a device backup does not restore 1Password's data, but restoring a second time may.

For the future we highly recommend making periodic backups with 1Password's built-in backup utility:

Creating and restoring 1Password backups in iTunes (iOS)

Thanks!

Ben

justinparker81

I have a Mac signed into the same iCloud address with 1Password and I can see the old data file in the iCloud settings panel under 'Manage Storage'. Is there any way to point the app to that file or extract it to do so?

Ben

Hi @justinparker81,

Unfortunatly not that I'm aware of. It seems any data that was stored in the "old iCloud" when upgrading to iOS 8 / OS X 10.10 and opting to upgrade to iCloud Drive is no longer accessible, if it was not migrated at that time. 1Password 5 and later cannot detect iCloud vaults created on older versions of iOS or OS X. You'll receive this message when trying to access it:

Did you get a chance to attempt the restore again? If so how did it turn out?

Please let us know.

Ben

justinparker81

I figured it out! Luckily I had an extra iPhone 5s lying around so I took that and restored the backup onto that - which I had to retrieve from a Time Machine backup since it had been deleted in the last month or so. I backed up and got the file from iTunes, moved it into new phone, and everything worked out. Thanks!

Ben

Excellent news!! Thanks so much for the update, @justinparker81. I'm so glad to hear you were able to get this working! It is great hearing success stories.

To prevent this kind of thing in the future I'd recommend setting up not only syncing, but also periodically backing up 1Password using iTunes:

Creating and restoring 1Password backups in iTunes (iOS)

I hope that helps. Should you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to ask.

Ben

justinparker81

Thanks! I will definitely do that going forward.

Ben

Excellent. If we can be of further assistance, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Ben