Recover from old keychain

VSM_D
VSM_D
Community Member
in Lounge

My 1Password software is in Dutch so I may use the wrong words in English for certain items described.

I have 3 questions;

Question 1

As a 1Password user I can open 1Password6 (6.1 - 610005) on my iMac (El Capitan 10.11.3) and restore to a previous version of my 1password.agilekeychain (I have only file with that name and it is stored in my personal Dropbox).
I have only one vault I use (called 'Primary').

I noticed that by restoring to an old keychain 1Password seems to switch of the sync mode.
When restoring the sync mode to the keychain in Dropbox the software 'replies' by stating it found another vault and will merge.
If I say 'OK' I go back to the 'wrong version' ( = latest version I replaced with older version via restore).
But if I reply with 'not OK' I presume it does not restore ?

Question 2

Problem with restoring based on a date and time value is that you can not see if it is the keychain where you made that specific change or addition.... I.E. is there a way to 'look' into a keychain to see which version it is so you can decide to which one you want to restore ........?

1Password Version: 6.1 (610005)
Extension Version: 4.5.4.90
OS Version: OS X 10.11.3
Sync Type: Dropbox (personal)

Comments

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    I noticed that by restoring to an old keychain 1Password seems to switch of the sync mode. When restoring the sync mode to the keychain in Dropbox the software 'replies' by stating it found another vault and will merge. If I say 'OK' I go back to the 'wrong version' ( = latest version I replaced with older version via restore). But if I reply with 'not OK' I presume it does not restore?

    @VSM_D: Sorry for the confusion! This actually ties into the next question/answer, but the short version is that if you select an existing vault in Dropbox, neither 1Password nor Dropbox can know which data is "correct" (from your perspective), so it will offer to merge what you have currently in 1Password with the vault you've selected.

    If you want to start over completely with the restored data, the best thing to do is disable Dropbox in Preferences > Sync first. When you do this, you'll be asked if you want to delete the vault. Confirm it, and then when you restore and setup sync again 1Password will simply create a new vault there with its current data.

    Problem with restoring based on a date and time value is that you can not see if it is the keychain where you made that specific change or addition.... I.E. is there a way to 'look' into a keychain to see which version it is so you can decide to which one you want to restore ........?

    This is precisely why 1Password disables sync when you restore: What if you've restored the wrong data? What if you did so by mistake? We don't want your "wrong" restored data syncing immediately and mixing things up for you when you're probably already having trouble.

    And in fact, this allows you to "look" into the restored data in your 1Password vault on your computer locally to determine if it's the data you want. If it isn't, no harm done: just choose a different restore point. And if the restored data was what you were looking for and you want it to go to your other devices too, then you can setup sync.

    We just don't want 1Password making these kinds of decisions for us. And in fact the only way for 1Password to display anything is for it to load your data and let you provide the Master Password to decrypt it. The date and time are the only information that 1Password has about your backups until then. After all, we're using 1Password because we want our sensitive data protected.

    I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions! :)

  • VSM_D
    VSM_D
    Community Member

    Thanks for your reply Brenty.

    Understand.

    Would be nice though if you could 'look into' the 'to be' restored data before going through the whole procedure of actually restoring.
    So by clicking on the date/time of backup > give my Masterpassword > look into it (separately - as in the print version) and then decide.

    But most importantly > thanks for the reply > get it.

    Based on your answer I started wondering > if a make a backup on iMac 1 and a few hours later I open up iMac 2 will that backup be available on number 2 or does 1Password make 'local' backups on each machine ?

    Probably connected somewhere/somehow I have a bigger issue that I probably posted wrong (as a comment somewhere)

    I have been struggling with 1Password the last few days and spent quite some hours.
    I started with two vaults and some other issues.
    Finally worked it out to one vault and no issues, but the I noticed I have the problem same vault different numbers.

    I use:

    2 iMacs (one at home + 1 at office) > both on El Capitan 10.11.3
    1 iPhone iOS 9.2.1
    i iPad iOS 9.2.1
    1 MacBook > El Capitan 10.11.3

    I have only one file named > 1Password.agilekeychain in my personal dropbox.
    I have only one file named > 1Password.agilekeychain available and that is the one in my personal dropbox (nowhere else can I find a file with same name on my iMacs and Macbook)

    All devices are 'instructed' to sync with that specific 1Password.agilekeychain file in my personal Dropbox.

    Still I end up with differences in the number of stored items.

    Question;

    (I have a Dutch version of your software so some words I use may not be the words used in your software package with English terms)

    If I restore 1Password to a version from let's say a day before - while logged into 1Password6 on one of my iMacs - I presume this changes the 1Password.agilekeychain and therefore the other iMac, iPhone etc. should then resync to that version as well..... ?
    But why then do I have different numbers (and I can see the differences, but no idea why).

    Any suggestions from here ...?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Based on your answer I started wondering > if a make a backup on iMac 1 and a few hours later I open up iMac 2 will that backup be available on number 2 or does 1Password make 'local' backups on each machine ?

    @VSM_D: Great question! 1Password for Mac (or Windows) will, by default, make local backups of the data on the computer. While you can transfer these to an external drive for safekeeping (or copy them to another machine to do a restore), 1Password will not send your data anywhere on its own.

    I have only one file named > 1Password.agilekeychain in my personal dropbox. I have only one file named > 1Password.agilekeychain available and that is the one in my personal dropbox (nowhere else can I find a file with same name on my iMacs and Macbook)

    Make sure that your devices are syncing with the exact same vault, because you could have multiple 1Password.agilekeychains in different locations in Dropbox.

    But why then do I have different numbers (and I can see the differences, but no idea why).
    Any suggestions from here ...?

    Without knowing the specifics, I can only speculate. But I suspect it may be related to what I mentioned above. For example, if you have two Macs using the same vault, they should have the same item counts; but it depends on where you're looking. Are you referring to Logins? All Items? Are you missing items? If so, what type are they? Perhaps there's a clue, but the first step is to make sure that the path and filename you're syncing with in Dropbox on each device matches exactly. Please let me know what you find!

  • VSM_D
    VSM_D
    Community Member
    edited March 2016

    AgileBits Update: same post added to multiple threads - please see https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/comment/293730/#Comment_293730

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    I see that Steve is working with you via email, so I'll close this conversation to avoid confusion. :)

    ref: VJJ-24716-229

This discussion has been closed.