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Syncing between Mac and iPhone taking a long time (through membership)

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dalembertian
dalembertian
Community Member

I've been using 1Password with the membership option at both my Mac and iPhone. But I'm noticing many times items are not in sync, and it can take a long time for them to appear at the other.

For instance, I created a new vault yesterday, with 7 items in it, on my iPhone. Today, some 16h later, the new vault did appear on my Mac desktop app, but with 1 item missing. I kept clicking all over the place to make sure it wasn't there, and after some 10' logged in it "appeared".

I would expect the membership to be instantaneous, and that's a key feature for the service to be realiable. Is this a known issue?

Thanks,
Rubens


1Password Version: 6
Extension Version: 6.8.3
OS Version: OS X 10.11.6 & iOS 10.3.3
Sync Type: membership
Referrer: forum-search:membership sync

Comments

  • Hi @dalembertian,

    You're right to expect things to be instantaneous. When things aren't instantaneous, it's almost always because the app failed to connect to the service we use to push notifications to the app telling them to update. You can always force a sync by locking and unlocking the app, but that's obviously very inconvenient. If you're seeing this on a regular basis I'd love to see a Diagnostics Report from the device that's slow to get the changes. To do that, follow the instructions on this page:
    https://support.1password.com/diagnostics/

    Email the report to support+forums@1password.com. In the email include a link to this forum post so that we have a bit of context for why we're getting the report. When doing that, you should get a support request id from our support system nearly instantaneously after emailing in... if you could post that on the forum it would be helpful for us as well.

    Thanks

    Rick

  • dalembertian
    dalembertian
    Community Member
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    Hi Rick,

    Thanks for the prompt feedback - just sent you guys both reports generated at my MacBook and iPhone.

    Cheers,
    Rubens

  • bundtkate
    edited October 2017
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    @dalembertian: I've found your e-mail, thank you! I'll let @rickfillion know so he can take a look and we can continue this conversation via e-mail. :+1:

    ref: EWM-95691-892

  • dalembertian
    dalembertian
    Community Member
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    Hello,

    Again, I'm seeing issues related to sync'ing my iPhone app with the Desktop/central repository. Right now, my iPhone is showing old versions of entries, and the past 3 days I have been using all sorts of different networks (3/4G, WiFi, etc.), so I'm pretty sure it has nothing to do with work network blocking traffic or anything like that.

    This is killing the product for me. I needed my credit card info, which was replaced recently, and since the app had the old numbers, I was inadvertently using the wrong info. There's no indication of problems, no way to be sure things are really in sync (like a simple "last updated" timestamp or something).

    I can't believe I'm the only one facing this problem, or that it's something related to my phone...

  • dalembertian
    dalembertian
    Community Member
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    Even worse: I force-locked the app, as a previous comment suggested, and unlocked it again. As a result, my database was UPDATED with the old/wrong data!!! :-O

    So apparently the app data got somehow prioritized and reverse-updated the database. This is too disturbing, I can't keep using this, I totally lost trust in 1Password capacity of ckeeping my data safe... :-((

  • dalembertian
    dalembertian
    Community Member
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    How do I know what was updated, so I can fix or at least know if something went wrong?! Is there a history log somewhere? This is so disturbing...

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
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    @dalembertian: Thanks for following up. We do occasionally receive reports like this...but almost always the cause is network restrictions, often within a company network. And your description sounds much more extreme than any others I've heard of. Are you able to get a different version through the website?

    View and restore previous versions of items in 1Password accounts

    Granted, that won't help if 1Password.com never received changes from your device in the first place, but if it has you'd be able to restore it from there.

    However, one thing that we haven't discussed yet which seems likely based on your comments so far is a date/time/zone discrepancy. Go into the settings on your Mac and iPhone and set them manually to match the correct time, using an atomic clock in your region, such as this:

    https://time.gov

    A problem there would account not only for the original sync issue (TLS does not work reliably if the client and server cannot agree on the time, and this breaks certificate validation too) but also the issue with new data replacing old. Let us know what you find...but it may be best to continue the conversation via email since Rick never heard back from you. I know he'll want additional details in order to investigate this further.

  • dalembertian
    dalembertian
    Community Member
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    The date/time discrepancy wouldn't explain why the app "suddenly" sync'd up (and actually forced its version) after I locked/unlocked, wouldn't it? In any case, I do have the date/time automatic setting on already... Also, at least some of the updates were happening, so whatever else happened was just in the past few days. Checking now, I see a "Conflicts" section on the record in question, and only on it.

    As I mentioned, these past few days I've been using external networks, that don't restrict network traffic. So if the the app was really trying to send/get updates, it should have succeeded.

    The main problem to me, besides the actual sync'ing issue, is not knowing what's going on. The app (and desktop, etc.) should at the very least show a timestamp, like other applications do. I could then immediately see that it has been a while, for instance, that it was not updated, and take action. The way it is we're in the dark, and I only found this out because I tried to use my (wrong) credit card.

    I'll go to the email as you suggest. Thanks for replying...

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni
    edited December 2017
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    The date/time discrepancy wouldn't explain why the app "suddenly" sync'd up (and actually forced its version) after I locked/unlocked, wouldn't it?

    @dalembertian: It would as the time is updated periodically. It may be that after updating it is correct, but that it is drifting over time. It wouldn't be the first time.

    In any case, I do have the date/time automatic setting on already...

    Right. Did you try setting it manually as I suggested?

    Also, at least some of the updates were happening, so whatever else happened was just in the past few days. Checking now, I see a "Conflicts" section on the record in question, and only on it.

    That's good to know!

    As I mentioned, these past few days I've been using external networks, that don't restrict network traffic. So if the the app was really trying to send/get updates, it should have succeeded.

    Yeah, that's why we're looking at other likely possibilities.

    The main problem to me, besides the actual sync'ing issue, is not knowing what's going on. The app (and desktop, etc.) should at the very least show a timestamp, like other applications do. I could then immediately see that it has been a while, for instance, that it was not updated, and take action. The way it is we're in the dark, and I only found this out because I tried to use my (wrong) credit card.

    I'm not sure what you mean here. Each item has a "last modified" timestamp. But again, these may be unreliable if the date/time/zone on the device is not.

    I'll go to the email as you suggest. Thanks for replying...

    Sure thing! All we can really do without more detailed information is educated guessing and speculation based on past experience, so it will be good to dig into the facts further. Cheers! :)

This discussion has been closed.