Partner Cannot merge shared file
Hello - About a year ago, I helped my fiancé set up her 1Password on her mac. She and I have a shared file that stopped syncing a few months ago. Today, I deleted it from dropbox and created a completely new shared dropbox folder and exported the shared file to dropbox. We went into her 1Password and attempted to sync it. The window asked if she'd like to merge the files. We weren't sure and said yes, it then asked her for an answer to very simple and obvious secret question. She wrote in the answer and it was wrong and now she does not know what the answer is. We tried some obvious answers that she would know and we even tried some answers that I was guessing - nothing works. Is there anyway to reset the question? We're sitting here frustrated as to what to do next. Please help - thanks.
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Hi @ZINCT,
I'm sorry you're having trouble with the shared vault!
I don't know why that vault stopped syncing correctly via Dropbox, but it sounds like you did the right thing to try to set it up again. The reason it asked if you wanted to merge vaults is because any changes you've made to 1Password on your Mac haven't synced to her Mac (and vice versa) since the sync stopped working a few months ago. Since your vaults are now a little different from each other, the warning appears so you can make sure you're merging the correct vault (in case you use multiple vaults in 1Password).
The "secret question" it asked her for is the master password for that vault. It should be the exact same master password you use to unlock that vault in 1Password on your Mac. If the shared vault is a secondary vault on your Mac, then you may not have had to enter its master password in a long time, because unlocking the Primary vault automatically unlocks your secondary vaults. In that case, if it is a secondary vault on your Mac, try to unlock just that vault by following these steps:
- On your Mac, open the main 1Password app and make sure it is locked.
- Switch to the secondary/shared vault by selecting 1Password > Switch to Vault > [name of secondary vault].
- Enter your master password for that secondary vault.
Are you able to unlock that secondary vault? If so, the same master password should work for that vault on the other Mac as well. If it works on your Mac but not on hers, please check out the tips in this knowledgebase article to see if it helps.
Does any of that help? Please let us know how it goes. If it's still a problem, let us know some more details about your setup and if I'm incorrect about any of my assumptions (for example, if you're syncing/sharing your Primary vault instead of a secondary vault, or anything else). Thanks!
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Hi Drew -
Thank you for writing back. A couple of questions - and please bear with me.
On my mac (and iPhone) I have a master password which I use to open 1Password. Once I am in, I can easily access either my Vault or my partners vault without having to unlock anything. I see now that I can switch vaults and I can lock various vaults by selecting LOCK in the drop down menu, which is great.
I'm reluctant to lock my partners vault because I'm not sure if the main password will unlock it again. It's been awhile and I'm not sure if, when setting up a new vault, you assign different passwords to different vaults you create? I'm hoping you can answer that. If the answer is yes, then i don't remember what password i gave that particular vault. Can I change the password to that particular vault somewhere?Which leads me to my second question. So what I'm concluding is that the second vault either has it's own password which I created originally and I can't remember it. Or the password is my main master password in which case, I have to give it to her and I don't want to do that or I can change the password for the second vault. Or - I just realized as I'm typing this that I can just create a new vault to share with her and copy everything over to the new vault. Which I might end up doing - I'll just wait for your reply. thank you.
PS: Just a note on a different topic. It took me a LONG time to wrap my head around how shared vaults work. And it wasn't till I did a sketch on paper that I actually got it and I was able to show my partner how 1Password works. I'm not sure if you have any interaction with management - but a diagram on how vaults are shared on the website would really help people who are more visually inclined. thanks, Zoltan
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Hi @ZINCT,
So every vault has its own password. If you were a Windows user you'd be entering each password every time you needed to unlock that particular vault but things are different on the Mac. Instead what happens is the keys for the secondary vaults are stored in the Primary vault, allowing you to unlock all your vaults with a single Master Password on your Mac or iOS device. So don't worry about locking your wife's vault as every time you have to unlock your vault you're actually unlocking all of them.
Now the bad news is you can't reset a password on any vault without entering the existing password. So if your wife has forgotten her password then that's it for that vault.
DON'T PANIC.
(sorry, couldn't resist)
Even though you can't reset a password it isn't the end of the world because you have her vault as a secondary vault in your 1Password. Your idea of creating a new vault and copying everything across to it is exactly what you want to do :smile: It's what I needed to do when I realised I'd totally forgotten the password for my own secondary vault. The lesson I learned was to store secondary vault passwords explicitly inside my Primary vault :tongue:
Now if the shared vault is a secondary vault for both of you then it should be as 'simple' as creating a new vault, copying everything across, setting up syncing first on your machine and then setting up syncing of her existing secondary vault to the new .agilekeychain.
If the secondary vault (for you) is her primary vault then it needs to be handled a little differently but it isn't a deal breaker by any means. If it's the primary vault that can't be accessed then you would want to our How do I start over with an empty vault? guide on your wife's machine. The you can start afresh with the new secondary vault that you know the password to.
Now if I've forgotten to cover anything please do let us know.
Oh and I shall let our docs team know about your suggestion. I fully understand, quite often we'll take a screenshot of our own system to explain something as they do say a picture is worth a thousand words :smile:
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