Attachments are not getting in sync - a bug or an expected behaviour?

Mr_Zaggy
Mr_Zaggy
Community Member

Hello...

In addition to storing logins, I am using 1Password also to store electronic scans of documents (PDFs and few JPGs). As a result, my vault size (according to iCloud) is ~78mb. I am observing a certain behaviour when iCloud syncing between my iPhone and Mac desktop and not sure if this is a bug or an expected behaviour:

Scenario:
In my vault, I have two secure notes (let's call them "A" and "B") with N and M attachments in each secure note respectively. What I did was - on my iPhone, I updated a login and deleted two attachments from the secure note "A" and exited the app. On my Mac, I locked and unlocked 1Password in order to trigger sync with iCloud and was able to verify that the login updates got synced onto the Mac. Interestingly, the secure note "A" still contained the attachments that I deleted on my phone. I was expecting those attachments to disappear from my Mac's vault after syncing (is this a wrong expectation on my end?).

Alright, fine. On my Mac, I made updates to some other login and then unlocked the iPhone app to verify the updates. The latest login updates was synced as expected on my phone, but I also received the two deleted attachments via sync from my Mac. Those were the attachments that I previously deleted from my phone. In other words, they have reappeared again, because they never got deleted from the Mac.

Could you please advise?

Thank you

System information

  • iPhone 6, iOS v9.3.4
  • Mac OS X 10.11.3 (El Capitan).
  • iOS 1Password app v6.5.4 with Pro features enabled

1Password Version: 1Password 6 Version 6.6.4 (664001)
Extension Version: 4.6.3.90 (Chrome)
OS Version: OS X 10.11.3 (El Capitan)
Sync Type: iCloud

Comments

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @Mr_Zaggy,

    That doesn't sound like expected behavior - changes you make to items on your iPhone (including deleting attachments) should sync to your Mac. Is there any chance you forgot to save changes to that Secure Note on your iPhone after deleting the attachments?

    Has this same problem happened to multiple items? Or multiple times for the same item? If this just happened the one time after deleting those attachments on your iPhone, my best guess is that there could have been a sync conflict for some reason. Try deleting those attachments from that item on your iPhone again (making sure to tap 'Done' to save the changes). If 1Password is unlocked on your Mac, it should automatically sync the changes from iCloud - but if sync doesn't work after a minute or two, you can manually trigger it again. This time, are the attachments deleted from that Secure Note on your Mac as well?

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @Mr_Zaggy,

    Thank you for all the details! One thing I noticed is that after you erased your iCloud data (from the Advanced settings in 1Password on your iPhone), you said it disabled the sync settings on your iPhone (which is correct behavior), but you didn't say anything about the sync settings being disabled on your Mac. Instead, it sounds like 1Password on your Mac kept trying to sync with your iCloud account even though you had deleted the sync data from iCloud. If so, that's strange because sync should also have been disabled in 1Password on your Mac.

    Between that and the attachment issue, I'd like you to try resetting the 1Password sync data in iCloud again, but this time by following these steps:

    On your Mac:

    • Open the 1Password app and go to Help > Troubleshooting > Reset iCloud Data.
    • Confirm you want to reset it by clicking "Yes, Remove Remote Data".
    • After a moment you should see a message that confirms the data was reset and sync was disabled (click OK).

    On your iPhone:

    • Open 1Password and go to Settings > Sync > Primary.
    • Confirm that sync has been disabled - it should say Start Syncing (you might also see an error message about that).

    On your Mac:

    • Go to 1Password > Preferences > Sync.
    • Change the sync setting for your Primary vault from None to iCloud.
    • If a sign-in page opens on Apple.com, sign in using your Apple ID.
    • Click Start Syncing (the initial sync may take a few minutes - make sure you allow it to complete).

    On your iPhone:

    • Open 1Password and go to Settings > Sync > Primary > Start Syncing > Sync with iCloud.
    • You should see a message saying 1Password found data on iCloud - tap Merge to start syncing.

    Let us know how it all goes and if that helps solve the sync/attachment issue. Thanks!

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni
    edited April 2017

    Thanks @Mr_Zaggy! Just to summarize & make sure I understand: After deleting the sync data from iCloud and then re-enabling sync on your Mac desktop and iPhone (and later on your Mac laptop), all devices have the same 1Password data, and the Identity item you tested now has the same attachments on each device (A, A, B, B, C, D, E, F and G). However, you were expecting different results:

    Since I synced the state of 1Password Mac to iCloud first by following your steps and then made the 1Password iPhone to merge it, the expected result was to see on iPhone app only the attachments A and B, right?

    Not necessarily: Re-enabling sync on your Mac first doesn't mean it will overwrite all the data on your iPhone. Regardless of which device syncs first, when you enable sync on the other device, it will merge the local vault with the copy of the vault in iCloud. Merging the vaults at that point is a little different than a normal sync because 1Password will go through full conflict resolution (every field of every item has to be verified in order to figure out what to keep and what changes need to be made). Any items that are exactly the same in both copies of the vault are left alone. And under normal circumstances, if an item was updated in one copy, those changes will be made to the other copy.

    However, the Identity item in question wasn't syncing properly before resetting the sync data, and due to that problem, 1Password was probably unable to determine which copy of the item was the "correct" one or which attachments it was supposed to keep/delete. Instead of guessing what to keep and what to delete (and potentially guessing incorrectly), 1Password keeps the conflicting data from both items so you can decide for yourself. In this case, that meant you ended up with all the attachments from your iPhone (A, B, C, D, E, F, G) as well as all the attachments from your Mac (A, B ).

    The fact that all devices now match is a good sign. The question now is: What happens when you delete some of those attachments from one of the devices? Are they also removed from the other devices after the sync completes?

    To address some other things you mentioned:

    ...how feasible is to get your engineers to try to reproduce this issue on your end? I would be interested to know if this is specific to me or there is indeed a bug lurking somewhere

    I'm not a developer, but I've been trying to reproduce the same problem on my Mac & iPhone. So far, it's working correctly for me. That doesn't necessarily mean there's not a bug, but my guess is that there was a problem with that specific item.

    ...in this case I was not navigated to a sign-in page on Apple.com to enter my Apple ID.

    Are you perhaps using the Mac App Store version of 1Password on that Mac? The version of 1Password from the Mac App Store doesn't open a sign-in page for your Apple ID when enabling sync with iCloud. Instead, it uses your Apple ID information from System Preferences > iCloud.

    What I was expecting to happen after unlocking 1Password on the 2nd Mac is that the main identity would be synced (which it was), but the second identity would be gone, since the vault in iCloud did not have it.

    The vault in iCloud doesn't automatically overwrite the vault on all other devices. Did you previously have that second Identity item on the 1st Mac and/or your iPhone, but you deleted it at some point? If so, it would normally also be deleted from the 2nd Mac after the sync, but similar to the situation with the attachments, it's possible 1Password wasn't able to determine for sure that the item was supposed to be deleted during the merge, so it kept it.

    Let us know how it goes when you try deleting some of the attachments again. Thanks! :)

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Awesome! You're very welcome @Mr_Zaggy, I'm really happy to hear it's working correctly now! And no need to apologize, I know you weren't implying that. :)

    Hopefully it continues to work correctly now, but if for some reason the problem comes back or you need anything else, please let us know. Have a great weekend! :)

This discussion has been closed.