safari plugin

hopseth
hopseth
Community Member

Hi.

I have a problem with the safari plugin/ extension of 1pass, its now taken over my start-page (which used to be google) and now just goes straight to: https://agilebits.com/browsers/welcome.html.
This is also an issue when safari isn't open, and i click a link in an email for example safari opens up, but https://agilebits.com/browsers/welcome.html launches, and I have to manually input the link i just clicked.

Tried to set the startpage, but it keeps going back to https://agilebits.com/browsers/welcome.html every time i restart my mac.

Comments

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @hopseth,

    It might not seem like it at the moment but that's definitely not us. We never touch your start page, the code to do so simply isn't in our product.

    Can I ask, what does the General tab of your Safari look like and what options have you tried besides resetting the start page? I assume you've set the homepage field in the General tab and you're saying when you close and re-open it's reverted, is that correct?

    Hopefully we can establish why, certainly this is the first report I've seen on this.

  • danco
    danco
    Volunteer Moderator

    There's various adware that hijacks part of Safari, sometimes including the start page. But I've never heard of one that tries to redirect you to agile bits page, and I can't see why one would do so. Downloading software from anything other than the developers' site, the App Store, or MacUpdate, often installs such adware.

    Still, you might want to try Adware Medic, downloadable from http://www.thesafemac.com. The site tells you how to remove adware manually if you don't trust their removal tool.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hopefully it isn't anything that bad (hopefully).

  • rafraf
    rafraf
    Community Member
    edited July 2015

    I have exactly the same (annoying) problem as the poster above. It is not adware. In my case, it is a brand new mac.

    Uninstalling the plugin fixes the problem. Reinstalling the plugin/extension, restores the problem (I used the desktop app to direct me to the page that installs the extension). It occurs every time safari is started (restart of Mac not required). The link the browser is redirected to is as per the original post. Safari preferences are not pointing at this page.

    The plugin is clearly coded to redirect to this page when the extension is first installed (I would guess very strongly that this "one time" redirect is something everyone gets), but I suppose there is a bug in some cases where it keeps pointing back to this page on every initialisation rather than recognising that it has already done so. The comment by the AgileBits team member that "it is definitely not us" is unlikely to be true, though I am sure it is true in so far as it reflects the fact that you definitely didn't intend to hijack the start page :)

  • rafraf
    rafraf
    Community Member
    edited July 2015

    Another thing worth adding is that prior to showing the "Welcome to the 1Password Extension" page, it first (quickly) shows a "Looking for the 1Password app" page.

    Tried 4.4.1.b1 hoping that it fixes the issue and no luck.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @rafraf,

    When I said "We never touch your start page" I was referring to the Homepage in Safari's preferences which is how I (mis)interpreted the original post. This we don't do although your findings and thoughts are interesting. To me that sounds like a damaged Safari profile though if the extension is stuck in some sort of loop. If this were the case then no update from us would fix it. So at the moment I am working on the assumption that it's localised damage of some kind rather than a bug in the extension. Partly this is based on the fact that the issue you're experiencing is so far extremely rare while damaged profiles are a bit more common. I do want to stress a bit there as while we've seen a few instances I'm not suggesting there's some massive issue with Safari. If it were the extension we would expect to see a larger number of users being afflicted.

    Depending on how many extensions you have the following might help.

    Wiping Safari's extensions

    To start make sure Safari is not opened.

    Preference plist

    1. Open a Finder window and use the keyboard shortcut ⇧⌘G to open a Go to the folder window.
    2. Use the following location ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.Safari.Extensions.plist and click the Go button.
    3. Drag the highlighted file to your Trash.

    Extension files

    1. Like above, open a Finder window and use the keyboard shortcut ⇧⌘G to open a Go to the folder window.
    2. Use the following location ~/Library/Safari/Extensions/ and click the Go button.
    3. Drag the highlighted folder to your Trash.

    Safari Extensions List

    1. Launch Keychain Access which you can find in /Applications/Utilities/.
    2. Search on the word safari and you should have 3 entries in the results.
    3. You want to right click on Safari Extensions List and select the Delete "Safari Extensions List" option.

    After all of that reboot your Mac and you'll need to go through the steps of installing your extensions again. With a little luck whatever got messed up was in there and the 1Password extension will now properly load and complete the installation.

    Let us know how you get along.

  • thightower
    thightower
    Community Member
    edited July 2015

    Hey folks,

    I wanted to say, I also had issue with this in the past. I never reported it, as it was with a beta OS (El Cap) from Apple. Typically beta's are in such a flux when they begin, I let the code calm down before I even start bug reporting. Like #4, #5 or even #6 into it.

    Anyway, I had to remove and re-download the extension as @littlebobbytables mentioned. Immediately after the reinstall. I launched Safari and the welcome page came up. I closed it and relaunched Safari. It came up again.

    I restarted my Mac and all has been well ever since.

    I would like to add after this occurring. I had some issues where the 1Password extension would disappear from Safari. No trace of it as ever being installed in preferences but it was in the folder mentioned above (huh ? weird). During those times, I reinstalled it to be safe and had no issue this go round (it would reappear in preferences). I have a couple of machines on 10.10.4 and one on 10.11.beta2 and have had some weird issues with Safari after updating my stable machine to 10.10.4

    I can say that there is no direct reason for 1Password to hijack your webpage and its not. If you look at your preferences it should still be set to your liking. Personally, I attributed this to a state restoration issue in Safari, you often see this when you restart your Mac at least I do. I find that webpages will reappear. So here are my thoughts on the extension. You installed the extension and it tries to tell you, hey you can now use me (the webpage you see). Safari brings this back up as it thinks the page was closed in error. You could also see this after an OS update. If something significant changed in Safari and its basically loading the extension a new.

    Now of course this could be an issue with the 1Password extension too. But if that were the case I would expect a lot more reports in the forums. But 10.10.4 has not been out that long, so its still possible it could be an issue that was introduced in it and that issue carries over to 10.11 where I saw it.
    Especially with the extension disappearing in preferences, I would lean to a OS issue but, I am not a developer, nor employee of AgileBit's and these are my own conclusions.

    Further note's:

    1. I was running the Beta 1Password and the beta 1Password extension as they are likely to be the most cutting edge and have fixed for beta OS's. I even run the betas on my stable machines.
    2. I had issues installing 10.10.4 and had to grab the combo updater like in the old days. The MAS could not install the update on 1 of my other machines. Just notating this as I have had some funky issues with my system after the failed update. Mostly Safari issues.
  • rafraf
    rafraf
    Community Member

    Hi @littlebobbytables - thank you for the information and the responsiveness. I have gone through the steps you proposed and unfortunately it does not resolve this issue. I continue to get redirected to the agilebits page: https://agilebits.com/browsers/welcome.html
    after each restart of safari.

    Thoughts or any additional information I can provide?

    Thanks again,
    Raf.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @rafraf,

    One of my colleagues has pointed me towards an older resource so we're not sure if it will apply or not but it's worth investigating.

    Do you use any application or Safari preference to reset website data. For example I use an application called Cookie to help remove cookies and Safari has a menu option Safari > Clear History and Website Data.... I ask as at least one version of Safari would also wipe out the extension data and so our extension didn't realise it had run before. Anything that attempts to purge session data might be clearing out the extensions data by accident and this could be a cause.

    Do you have anything set up like that?

  • rafraf
    rafraf
    Community Member

    I did consider something like this as a possibility. I had this issue start as soon as I installed 1Password, which was one of the first things I installed on the MBP, I don't have any privacy plugins installed. And I can see that agilebits has a cookie cached. I reset the browser data and set the cookie handling and privacy settings to be as permissive as possible and then restarted Safari. I was expecting the redirect the first time (and got it), however, it still returned on subsequent attempts to open the browser.
    I am using Safari 8.0.6 on MBP running OSX 10.10.3. I had installed the trial version prior to buying the full version.

  • Megan
    Megan
    1Password Alumni
    edited July 2015

    Hi @rafraf,

    I'm sorry to hear that this is still happening for you. I think the best way to figure out where things are getting tangled up is to take a closer look at your system. There might be some details in the logs that will help here. I'd like to ask you to create a Diagnostics Report from your Mac:

    https://support.1password.com/diagnostics/mac.html

    Attach the Diagnostics Report to an email message addressed to support+forum@agilebits.com.

    Please do not post your Diagnostics Report in the forums, but please do include a link to this thread in your email, along with your forum handle so that we can "connect the dots" when we see your Diagnostics Report in our inbox.

    You should receive an automated reply from our BitBot assistant with a Support ID number. Please post that number here so we can track down the report and ensure that it is dealt with quickly. :)

    Once we see the report we should be able to better assist you. Thanks very much!

    ref: ARX-91945-821

  • rafraf
    rafraf
    Community Member
    edited July 2015

    Thank you for the excellent support - it is much appreciated. I have built the file and sent to the default address (Support Jedi) and the support+forum@agilebits.com address. I am yet to receive a support ID, but will post it if/when I do.
    Raf.
    EDIT: support ID is [#ARX-91945-821].

  • Megan
    Megan
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @rafraf,

    We've received your Diagnostics Report - thanks for sending it in! I see that someone from our support team has already responded - please let us know if you do not see an email in your inbox. We'll keep the conversation going directly via email to avoid complicating things between here and there. :)

    ref: ARX-91945-821

  • rafraf
    rafraf
    Community Member
    edited July 2015

    Thank you Agilebits for the excellent support. Turns out this was not a problem with the AgileBits plugin at all but actually a general problem with safari where it would start as if for the first time every time. Support kept asking if another extension could be causing the problem and I kept saying I have no other extensions, and then it clicked that maybe I should try installing another extension and sure enough, the problem happened with any extension I installed. Wish I tried it sooner :)

    This is the thread I found that helped explain the problem: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6663182?start=0&tstart=0

    The solution I used was to run the command from the Terminal that Linc Davis recommended in Step 1 (reproduced here):

    sudo find ~ $TMPDIR.. -exec chflags -h nouchg,nouappnd,noschg,nosappnd {} + -exec chown -h $UID {} + -exec chmod +rw {} + -exec chmod -h -N {} + -type d -exec chmod -h +x {} + 2>&-

    Thanks again and sorry for the trouble.
    Raf

  • Thanks for sharing your solution! I'm glad to hear you were able to get it figured out.

    Please let us know if you have any other questions. We're always happy to help! :)

  • sjk
    sjk
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @rafraf,

    I've edited the solution in your reply a bit, giving credit to Linc Davis for it. :)

    I also want to recommend that readers here take a look at Linc's full post at Apple Support Communities before running the sudo … command line in Terminal (from an administrator account) to better understand what this does. It must be entered entirely accurately to minimize risk of unwanted side effects that would be tricky to undo.

    Thanks again for sharing your findings that'll hopefully help others resolve the same issue you were having after trying other methods. Cheers!

This discussion has been closed.