OPVault inside Dropbox not recognized [OPVault support added for Dropbox in version 6.3]

2

Comments

  • telUK
    telUK
    Community Member

    I love 1password and find the support from the 1p team and others excellent but I as well as a lot who wants OPvault fully supported on android.
    It should be the number 1 priority at agilebits personally to get this sorted.

    I don't understand why we need to keep hearing "we have added your up vote for opvault support on android"

    Surely we should be hearing something along the lines of we are working on it now?

    As the first comment does not exactly give me much confidence in stuff actually getting sorted, sounds more like its years away.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @bbach, @telUK: I'm sorry for the confusion. It absolutely isn't our intention to mislead anyone or delay features. If we could do it, we'd have it (along with everything else we're working on) out tomorrow! However, we can only reply honestly that it's something we're working on and cannot say for certain when implementing the newer format in 1Password for Android will be completed (both development and testing).

    We understand that OPVault support is important to you (and everyone else in this discussion). It's important to us too. But keep in mind that we're a small team, and there's only so much we can do at once. While OPVault may be your number one request, it isn't everyone's, and we need to take that into account as well.

    Don't forget that not everyone has the luxury of a high-end device, or access to recent OS releases. AgileKeychain has much less overhead than OPVault (which is part of the reason it is still the default in the 1Password for Windows desktop app). And while AgileKeychain isn't perfect, the only way someone can view the overview data (URLs and titles) is if they have access to your vault in the first place. Anyone interested can find more details about this on the forums and blog.

    To be completely clear, OPVault is coming to 1Password for Android, and you can be sure that we'll be eager to discuss it once it's ready for testing. It's really encouraging to know that you guys are out there pushing for this, and that there are people who're eager to test it when the time comes. Thanks for keeping us honest! :pirate:

  • faisal233
    faisal233
    Community Member
    edited February 2016

    @brenty I cannot comprehend the discussion making process that allowed for OPvault to be the default format on OSX when it doesnt work on android. Think of the default user experience you are providing to any new 1password customer that uses OSX and android. Download 1password on mac, export or manually enter the password on mac, try to sync to phone and it doesnt work by default.

    The small team excuse is dumb. 1password license for desktop cost $50 + $8 for phone. **Thats the cost of 5 YEAR subscription from lastpass. ** You charge like the big companies, you should provide support like the big companies. To your users it sound like you would rather pocket the money rather than hire enough devs for proper support.

  • I don’t disagree that the switch to OPVault as the default sync format on OS X makes configuring sync more difficult with Android. The best solution for this is to get OPVault support on Android. And that is exactly our plan moving forward!

    However, it’s unlikely for us to see this feature completed in the coming days or weeks. Supporting the OPVault format will take some time during the development and testing phases.

    For our users wanting to use OPVault format right now, we recommend using Wi-Fi sync. Otherwise, switch over to AgileKeychain for Dropbox and Folder sync by simply turning off OPVault on OS X through the menubar: Help > Tools > Enable OPVault for Dropbox and Folder sync. A complete set of available options can be found here:

    https://discussions.agilebits.com/discussion/58141/current-sync-options-in-1password-for-android

  • Khillo
    Khillo
    Community Member

    Hi guys,

    Just wanted to add my voice to the rest of the people on this thread and say that I would like to see OPVault support on Android. I've just downloaded the app on my phone today and tried for a few minutes to set up syncing via Dropbox without success. Luckily, I decided to google the issue and came upon this thread. I've used the WiFi sync option and it works beautifully (despite my qualms about using the WiFi network). Adding Dropbox support similar to what can be found on iOS and Mac OS would be a great. +100 here

  • Thank you for the feedback, @Khillo. I am happy to hear you managed to get sync working between your devices. I can understand the frustration of not being able to sync immediately using Dropbox and I will be passing on your vote for the request.

  • delais
    delais
    Community Member

    This is ridiculous! The old format clearly had security flaws (lots of plain text storing data related to logins) and you guys still want us to use it on our Android devices? What a slap in the face to your Android users. Op-vault is supported on every other platform! Come on. Instead of recommending a roundabout wifi sync and instead of the cutesy recent GUI feature updates to the android app focus on getting opvault support!

    How long will this take? I can't imagine how this is not a high priority task for the Android dev. team.

  • admdly
    admdly
    Community Member

    @delais Unfortunately, I share your view. I initially asked about this well over a year ago, well before the public 'drama' around the plaintext metadata. My understanding is that the current latest is that it will be available, but we're looking at perhaps Android version 6.3ish (I don't know how long that will take but faster releases were recently promised).

    To be quite honest, I've sort of given up on this particular matter. I'm lucky in that I don't use Android that much and I don't update my password database all that often (at the moment Android hasn't Wi-Fi synced for a while for some unknown reason, and I just haven't gotten around to fixing it).

    I can't say it hasn't affected my opinion of 1Password and the apparent focus on the subscription products at the expense of the standalone applications doesn't sit well with me. That said, platforms other than iOS/OS X have never been greatly supported by 1Password. We'll just have to see what the future holds.

    --Adam

  • dteare
    edited February 2018

    I'm sorry for the snafu with OPVault everyone. It's completely my fault and I take full responsibility for it. I too wanted to have the OPVault format in Android by now (as you saw in my blog post I co-authored with Jessy) but things ended up being more complicated than I had expected.

    When I had promised that in the blog post I was overly optimistic about the challenges we would face. For one thing, we need to make sure that 1Password runs well on the older devices and given that we still support Android 4 this has set the bar pretty high w/r/t performance because many of these older devices are quite slow and Android had not optimized things as well as they have in recent versions.

    Now, as for the "Security Issue", I'm quite frankly surprised how much hyperbole is going around simply because our original data format doesn't encrypt URLs and Titles. Yes, it would be great to encrypt more, and with our new format we do exactly that, but the AgileKeychain is still secure. There has been no crack or anything like that; it's simply a design decision that was made for performance and I used the Agile Keychain myself up until a few months ago when I switched to 1Password for Teams (more on this below). We desperately needed this performance boost when we created this format and it is still important today on certain devices. Basically we need 1Password to be usable in order to allow people to actually use it.

    With that said, clearly this is very important to you, and I'm not trying to be dismissive of the way you feel. They are your feelings and you really want to have these additional fields encrypted so you can have the best security available. I like to call it "secure-er" as it better captures the fact that security is a constant process as opposed to a binary state of YES or NO.

    Since you really want to use the latest and greatest data format available, I recommend that you switch to 1Password Families. 1Password Families builds on the technology we used in 1Password for Teams and the data format took the OPVault format to the next level. In Families we encrypt item URLs and Titles, and we've made things even more secure than OPVault. You can read the full details in our White Paper, but suffice it to say we are constantly evolving our data formats and in many ways this could be called OPVault 2.0. For example, AES-GCM provides authenticated encryption with far superior performance.

    My personal favourite feature with the new data format is how the Account Key strengthens your Master Password with an additional 128 bits of entropy. It's an awesome security enhancement that we've wanted to add to 1Password for years and were finally able to make it possible in 1Password Families.

    1Password for Teams has unmatched security, so if you want to have the best of the best, it's the best way to go. The only caveat is that 1Password Families requires Android 5 as it makes use of some amazing optimizations and new encryption features that Google added in that release, but I suspect everyone who's passionate about security formats is already running the latest and fully patched version of Android anyway so this shouldn't be an issue :)

    You can read about Families and sign up yours here:

    1Password for Families

    While it was the security design that got me talking about Families, I'd also like to point out that there are a ton of other benefits as well. To name a few, you can easily create multiple vaults that will appear automatically on everyone's devices (assuming you grant them access), there's Item history backup, and the ability to help your family members recover their account without AgileBits being able to do so is really awesome.

    Cheers!

    –Dave Teare
    AgileBits Founder

  • admdly
    admdly
    Community Member

    @dteare thanks for your detailed response. I'm not going to rehash what has already been said and what I've already said in the past, but even with all things considered, to not have this standard announced in 2012 across all platforms isn't great.

    I hear you regarding the 'security' aspect. As it is, I read the AgileKeychain documentation and was aware of the 'weakness'. For this reason I did ask and push for a newer format well before any of the mass hysteria surrounding it. However, I used AgileKeychain fully aware of this. Many users did not expect that some data was being stored as plain text and this has come as a shock.

    With regard to the Families/Teams recommendation; I'm sorry but this doesn't sit well with me and I don't believe it is appropriate. I understand it's using a newer format (I haven't yet looked into it deeply), but the reality is its not appropriate for solo usage. I, and many others, don't want to share our databases with anyone and certainly don't need a subscription product.

    Additionally, the initial purchase of the stand alone apps wasn't cheap across all platforms. Now you're telling loyal users to move to a $5/mo product if they value security? I don't care if it includes all the apps (I've already paid for them...), that it has additional functionality (I don't need it) or that it syncs without the need for an external cloud service (I use cloud services anyway).

    I find this push toward the subscription products troubling and with the lacklustre support for standalone users I'm feeling increasingly alienated as a customer. I remain as a customer, for now due to responses like yours and the transparency of AgileBits, but unless standalone users are catered for I can't promise I'll stay forever (regrettably).

  • Thank you for adding your personal perspective, @admdly. I appreciate it a lot.

    You're absolutely right that the situation is not ideal and I understand where you're coming from. As an individual, it makes perfect sense that you are not excited about the team and family capabilities that were unlocked by our new subscription service. I wouldn't be either. Personally I would be excited about the simpler setup and Multiple Vaults as I am constantly reinstalling machines, but I understand that might not be enough to warrant changing an existing setup. It's totally understandable.

    In any event I'm not saying you need to switch. The "standalone" versions of 1Password are super important and we are continuing to invest heavily into them. I simply brought up Families as it does give those who want the latest data format and Multiple Vaults a way to have them now.

    In terms of what we could have done differently in 2012, you have a valid point. It would have been lovely to have the same standard across all platforms. It is an ideal we've been working towards for quite some time, and a lot of steps remain on our journey.

    Going forward I believe the future for 1Password on Android is quite bright. For one thing we have tripled the size of the Android development team. That's a good start but it doesn't end there: our new CEO as well as our new Chief Architect are much more forceful than Roustem and I ever were when it comes to cross-platform consistency. That helps a lot as well. And quite frankly, Android itself has matured a lot since 2012 as well and so we have a much stronger foundation to build upon.

    Oh, and I guess the other thing I should mention is that I've personally switched to Android for a minimum of 6 months so I can live and breath this stuff like my customers do. It's been an eye opening experience and I've grown a lot as a result.

    Take care,

    –Dave Teare
    AgileBits Founder

  • ashleyk
    ashleyk
    Community Member
    edited March 2016

    I have 1Password installed on Mac, Windows and Android but I've been experiencing problems where attachments were downloaded every time 1Password was started on the Android. This was a known bug but supposedly fixed recently, so I was in touch with support and @saad has been kindly helping me to find a solution.

    I also had separate problems recently where changes made on one device were not synching across to the other versions. Then I had an issue where some attachments stored in 1Password were found to be corrupt and would not open, so lately my experiences have been a little less happy than usual and that's a problem when you have around 1200 items covering several years of usage tied up in one app. I also use Knox so I am heavily invested with Agilebits.

    Having various devices across different platforms is great in theory but I have no doubt it makes things more risky. Once upon a time I lost 50,000 words in a book I was writing when using another app that synched across Dropbox because the Windows version didn't play nicely with the Mac one. If it hadn't been for Time Machine I would have been toast and lost months of work in just a few seconds. Needless to say I never touched that app on Windows again.

    Getting back to 1Password, it turned out I had some conflicted files via Dropbox and possibly some other issues not yet identified. I was advised to disconnect the Mac and go through the process of deleting the vault, so that 1Password could create a new one without these errors. That part was easy but instead of creating a new keychain I ended up with a .opvault.

    I am not against using .opvault in principle and I am glad to see there are no longer plain text files in place or indeed any signs of conflicted files. The key problem as I discovered reading this thread is that Android doesn't read the .opvault format over Dropbox and when I tried to connect them it was a non starter.

    In the end I was able to connect the Android to the vault via wi-fi, however this comes with some serious limitations. It does not automatically sync when updates are made so I have to manually select the sync option inside the app and even then it will only work if 1Password is open and unlocked on the Mac with an active wi-fi connection. On top of that it does not download any attachments, so I have gone from downloading all attachments all of the time to none at all...

    I don't know what the time scale is for fixing this so that .opvault can be used on Android via Dropbox sync but I would have to say this should be a priority given the clear limitations of synching over wi-fi at present.

    1Password isn't 1Password if you cannot access all your data securely and it isn't in sync. Perhaps we even need an alternative to Dropbox if cross platform compatibility is an issue. I find Dropbox is incredibly slow to start and update any changes when I first switch on the computer.

  • Hey @ashleyk. Thanks for sharing your feedback regarding OPVault support.

    I'm sorry for the trouble that you've been experiencing with sync lately, but I'm glad that Saad was able to help you resolve the issue that you encountered syncing attachments. We have indeed just published an update that includes a fix for this very same issue.

    Once upon a time I lost 50,000 words in a book I was writing when using another app that synched across Dropbox because the Windows version didn't play nicely with the Mac one.

    Oh no! :fearful:

    If it hadn't been for Time Machine I would have been toast and lost months of work in just a few seconds. Needless to say I never touched that app on Windows again.

    Phew! That was a bit of a roller coaster to read, and it must have been even worse to experience! Dealing with sync issues that can result in loss of important and unrecoverable data is absolutely no fun. This is part of why we're so excited about 1Password for Teams and Families. It's a more seamless solution, and allows us to store all of your data in one place, so it's not vulnerable to conflicts caused by third-party sync solutions.

    That said, I'm glad you were able to recreate your vault from scratch, and eliminate those errors.

    We're planning on adding support for OPVault in an upcoming update to 1Password for Android. In the meantime though, it sounds like Wi-Fi sync is meeting all of your needs with the exception of syncing your attachments. Since you have so many attachments in your vault, you may want to consider switching to the Agile Keychain format and syncing that with Android instead. Here's what you'd need to do:

    1. Launch 1Password for Mac
    2. Under Help > Tools, uncheck Enable OPVault for Dropbox and Folder sync (this will let you create the .agilekeychain instead)
    3. Disable sync
    4. Set up sync, and an .agilekeychain will be created from the internal database in 1Password for Mac

    Then it would just be a matter of changing sync on your other devices so that everything points to the .agilekeychain vault in Dropbox.

    If you'd like, I recommend giving 1Password for Families a try. It's free to sign up, so it's worth checking it out to see if it better suits your needs.

  • ashleyk
    ashleyk
    Community Member
    edited March 2016

    Thanks @peri
    Will Android support for OPVault be in the near future? I work from home so nearly all my access to 1Password is on the Mac but there have been so many sync issues lately with the keychain that I may just leave things alone if the update is due within a few weeks.

    Yesterday I had to install Windows on a new hard drive after the old one died without warning and 1Password seemed fine using the OPVault from the quick glance I gave it.

    I didn't see a final price tag for the teams & families offer when it leaves beta but being a team of one that may not make financial sense for me. If the teams and families can sync via AWS rather than Dropbox perhaps this could be extended to non subscription versions of 1Password allowing users to simply create an account with AWS and pay for usage.

    When I start the computer I have to wait for around 4-5 minutes for Dropbox to start and check for any changes before I can use 1Password normally and this is the case even if there are no changes. I am using a Mac Pro with 32 gigs of ram but Dropbox just seems horrendously slow to get started and 1Password is clearly not happy if you try to start it during that time.

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Will Android support for OPVault be in the near future? I work from home so nearly all my access to 1Password is on the Mac but there have been so many sync issues lately with the keychain that I may just leave things alone if the update is due within a few weeks.

    @ashleyk: Unfortunately this isn't a question we can answer with any certainty. We'd certainly hope so, but my idea of "near future" may differ significantly from yours. And most importantly, while we don't expect issues implementing it, there can always be unforeseen obstacles in development, or unanticipated issues found during testing. I know that probably doesn't feel like a satisfactory answer, but it's the truth. We want to make sure it's ready before we release it publicly.

    Yesterday I had to install Windows on a new hard drive after the old one died without warning and 1Password seemed fine using the OPVault from the quick glance I gave it.

    That's a bummer that you suffered a hardware failure, but it sounds like you were prepared. It's good hear that you were able to get back up and running with your vault!

    I didn't see a final price tag for the teams & families offer when it leaves beta but being a team of one that may not make financial sense for me. If the teams and families can sync via AWS rather than Dropbox perhaps this could be extended to non subscription versions of 1Password allowing users to simply create an account with AWS and pay for usage.

    1Password for Families starts at 5$ per month for 5 people, just like the website says. 1Password for Teams is still in beta, and we haven't yet finalized pricing, but it will probably be in the ballpark of 5$ per person. 1Password for Teams is using AWS for the server infrastructure, not as "dumb" cloud storage. While we're looking into the possibility of allowing companies to run their own 1Password for Teams servers in the future, you'd have to do that as well if you wanted to manage it yourself. 1Password for Teams isn't a cloud sync service; it's everything..

    When I start the computer I have to wait for around 4-5 minutes for Dropbox to start and check for any changes before I can use 1Password normally and this is the case even if there are no changes. I am using a Mac Pro with 32 gigs of ram but Dropbox just seems horrendously slow to get started and 1Password is clearly not happy if you try to start it during that time.

    That's really weird. Even on my old desktop (ca. 2011) with spinning disks Dropbox isn't that slow. I'd first make sure your client is up to date (often I've found it wasn't), and then contact Dropbox if the problem persists to see what they recommend. Let us know what you find!

  • Emrecan Özen
    Emrecan Özen
    Community Member

    Consider another frustrated user voting for this basic functionality to be prioritised. I cannot even begin to understand how fingerprint scanning on Marshmallow (which is on only about 2% of Android devices) was prioritised over basic functionality on Lollipop. No worries about fragmentation on that, but you don't mind omitting OPVault support completely because you still wanna support Android 4!

    Do you REALLY need user votes to prioritise basic functionality issues like this?

    Yeah, yeah, I know it's coming "soon."

    And after years of using 1Password, I'll take a look at LastPass soon - actually "soon," though.

  • ntimo
    ntimo
    Community Member

    @Emrecan Özen calm down. OPVault is allready supported if you use wifi sync or 1password for teams/families. They are working on it belive me. And using the agilekeychain is still very very secure. So you don't have to worry about security. And you should also consider that most deviced are still on kikkat. Here is chart for you

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @Emrecan Özen: Thanks for letting us know this is important to you! We don't have anything to announce since my post two days ago though.

    As ntimo pointed out, there are a lot of folks using older versions of Android...but you'll notice that while 1Password for Android version 6 requires Marshmallow for fingerprint support (since that's where the API is), there's a lot of other new stuff in 1Password that isn't limited to Marshmallow. :pirate:

  • headkaze
    headkaze
    Community Member

    Based on what you've told us the issue appears to be a performance problem for older devices and versions of Android. You also point out the fact that 1Password for Android version 6 requires Marshmallow for fingerprint support. So this begs the question why not add support for opvault for devices that have the performance requirements? You can always optimize the feature for older machines later on.

  • Hi @headkaze. Thanks for chiming in with your feedback. :)

    As Dave points out in this thread, performance issues, while indeed a factor, are not the main reason for us not supporting OPVault on Android yet. That said, we hear you. :) We're planning on adding OPVault support on Android in an upcoming update. Thanks!

  • copiousfreetime
    copiousfreetime
    Community Member

    Just to let you know, the page https://support.1password.com/switch-to-opvault/mac.html leads folks to believe that OPVault is supported on android. It explicitly mentions instructions to enable syncing on android, which led me to believe that OPVault was supported.

    I believe that page should be updated to specifically call out that OPVault is not supported on android and say that if you have android devices you should use wifi syncing for it and OPVault for the others.

  • Hey @copiousfreetime. It sounds like you're referring to this statement:

    In order to use the OPVault format with Dropbox, the latest versions of 1Password are required on all platforms:

    • Mac and iOS: 1Password 6 or later
    • Windows: 1Password 4 or later
    • Android: 1Password 6.3 or later

    In the latest stable version of 1Password on Android, 1Password 6.2.1, it's only possible to sync an OPVault vault using Wi-Fi. However, in our latest beta, 6.3b1, OPVault is supported for Dropbox syncing, which is why we've updated the documentation. We're testing it now, and we'll release 6.3 as soon as it's ready. It shouldn't be too much longer now. :)

    If you're curious, you can find more info about OPVault in the latest beta announcement.

    Let us know if you need anything else!

  • headkaze
    headkaze
    Community Member

    Thanks to the AgileBits Team for implementing this feature!

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    You're welcome! And a big thanks to our intrepid beta testers as well! :chuffed:

  • Eluder
    Eluder
    Community Member

    Glad to see Android user data is now more secure with the opvault implementation.
    Next step related to this is to have a way for these users to migrate to opvault in an easy manner.

    I had to use my iPhone to create a new opvault and sync the data in dropbox and reset the android app to read the opvault. Wasn't difficult, but most users aren't going to have multiple devices or may not have purchased the app on multiple platforms.

  • Indeed, @Eluder. While it's possible to sync an existing OPVault vault on Android, we can't yet create one. We are hoping to add this functionality in the future. I'll add your vote!

    Thanks for the feedback!

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Definitely on our list to make this easier, now that OPVault is supported. But keep in mind that 1Password can be downloaded and used for free on every platform, either using the trial version of the desktop apps or the non-Pro iOS app, any of which will allow creation of an OPVault. Cheers! :)

  • stijnopheide
    stijnopheide
    Community Member

    Hi, is there a way to make this work with local storage sync? The app will always tell me 'Vault Not Found' when I navigate to the opvault directory?

  • Hey @stijnopheide. 1Password on Android supports syncing OPVault vaults through Dropbox, but it doesn't yet have support for syncing local OPVault vaults, which is why you're not able to do so. This is something we hope to add in the future, though. :)

    That said, while you can't sync with a local OPVault, you can export to OPVault. This will create a backup of your data in local storage in OPVault format. Just tap Settings > Advanced > Export primary vault.

    Let us know if you have more questions. Thanks!

  • stijnopheide
    stijnopheide
    Community Member

    Hi @peri, OK I see. Is it still possible to sync through agilekeychain in the OS X app, because it exports an opvault by default, and I can't seem to find the option to switch that?

This discussion has been closed.