Update installer and extra copies of 1Password

Barton_Taylor
Barton_Taylor
Community Member
edited June 2016 in Mac

Since upgrading to El capitan I've found your update process to be annoying and not user friendly at all. I've use 1pasward for many year and love the whole experience but now when it tells me there is an update and I hit the prompt to install the fact that it comes to an error dialog informing that a duplicate copy is already installed and that I need to delete it … sorry but why ever would a program as user friendly as 1password work this way? Just now I updated and after following the instructions to delete the copy I already had (yes not a duplicate but the old version) I continued with the update only for nothing to happen at all. So I had to go back to your website and manually download and install.

Sorry but 1password is an excellent app — I recommend it to everyone. Someone dropped the ball on this one.

I've had to go through this process at least two times since upgrading, please fix it so that it works like any of the other decent app update processes. I'd rather just have the old way of the file download and then copy it to application folder replacing the old version., at least there is no confusion.


1Password Version: 6.3
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: 10.11.4
Sync Type: dropbox
Referrer: forum-search:update

Comments

  • Stephen_C
    Stephen_C
    Community Member

    @Barton_Taylor:

    Someone dropped the ball on this one.

    Indeed—Apple did. This is a problem with Apple's launchd service which has existed since the release of OS X Yosemite. It is not something about which AgileBits can currently do anything: see, for example, this AgileBits' post.

    Stephen

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @Barton_Taylor: I agree that it isn't ideal, but less ideal is folks having issues with using 1Password due to extra copies they're not even aware of being launched by OS X, completely out of their control. Hopefully one day this will no longer be necessary, but for now it's important to inform users of this so they don't encounter issues in the first place -- because it's always at the worst possible time that things go wrong, isn't it? ;)

  • Barton_Taylor
    Barton_Taylor
    Community Member

    Why can't you just have an installer like (for instance) Carbon Copy Cloner? I haven't had any issue with that … It's simple and foolproof. Or option to go to manual download from the error dialog and then just do it the old way, download, copy to application folder? I don't have a big problem doing it manually (CCC system preferable), but since my experience of the installer disappearing after deleting my 'duplicate' copy the current method is too flaky.

  • khad
    khad
    1Password Alumni

    @Barton_Taylor,

    Carbon Copy Cloner doesn't have a helper app constantly running in the background which is what causes problems if you have multiple copies of 1Password on your Mac. OS X gets a little tipsy and starts trying to launch any copy of 1Password mini he can find. This causes problems when 1Password tries to connect to mini because 1Password relies on mini for all locking and unlocking functionality (among other things, but those are critical to using 1Password).

    That said, if you only have one copy of 1Password on your Mac, you should never see "extra copies of 1Password found". If you are seeing it in error, we need to get that resolved. Next time it happens, can you post a screenshot of the message? It will be helpful to see the exact path(s). We'd love to get it sorted out if there is a bug, but this is the first time I've heard of the message coming up with only one copy of 1Password on a Mac.

    Note that the system will find copies of 1Password on external drives that are mounted as well, so if you are a Carbon Copy Cloner user, that may explain it. Maybe the extra copy found was on your backup drive rather than your startup volume. The path would appear identical in that case, it would just be on a different volume.

    Extra copies of the 1Password app on attached backup drives can cause the same problems as copies on your startup drive.

    You should continue to back up your 1Password data (found in your Application Support folder). However, you should exclude the 1Password app (found in your Applications folder) from backups.

    If you ever need to, you can restore your 1Password data from your backup, and the 1Password app from our website (or the Mac App Store if you purchased it there).

  • Barton_Taylor
    Barton_Taylor
    Community Member

    I do have 'copies' on a backup drive, but my backup drives are excluded from indexing. It would seem odd for 1Password to search all attached drives for Apps wouldn't it? It's not exactly common practice to run apps from outside of the Application folder is it (apart from OS X system utilities).

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @Barton_Taylor: 1Password doesn't run copies of itself from anywhere — Applications folder or otherwise. When you open the app, whichever copy you select is the one that runs.

    However, OS X then (seemingly arbitrarily) chooses which copy of the app — any that exist, on any drives the OS can see — from whence to launch 1Password mini from the app bundle. This is pretty bizarre, but it's unfortunately just how it works and we don't have any control over it.

    Now, this isn't guaranteed to happen. But given that this can cause problems if OS X happens to do what I've described above, launching 1Password mini from a different copy of the app and preventing the two from being able to communicate, that can be a huge headache for you, the user. So while we can cross our fingers and hope it doesn't happen, we think it's better to notify you that it could and that removing duplicate copies will prevent it from ever happening.

    If, however, you prefer to keep multiple copies of the app around, that's fine, and there's a simple workaround you can use: Command Control Q to quit 1Password completely, and then relaunch the copy you want to use. This almost always works for me, since, as you can imagine, I've got a number of different versions hanging around for testing purposes. But again, you can eliminate the problem completely by not keeping multiple copies around, and you can easily download the app again at any time if needed. Cheers! :)

  • Barton_Taylor
    Barton_Taylor
    Community Member

    An update just showed up so I unmounted my backup volumes (there the 'copy' — it's a system clone — is). Thankfully the update worked as expected. Pretty weird. I don't get how OS X could launch 1password (mini from the app bundle) from another drive if that drive is prevented from indexing by spotlight? Technically it shouldn't know it's there.

    Well, hopefully someone else will find this useful …

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    An update just showed up so I unmounted my backup volumes (there the 'copy' — it's a system clone — is). Thankfully the update worked as expected. Pretty weird. I don't get how OS X could launch 1password (mini from the app bundle) from another drive if that drive is prevented from indexing by spotlight? Technically it shouldn't know it's there. Well, hopefully someone else will find this useful …

    Indeed. Thanks for the update! To be clear, disabling Spotlight indexing just means that the files won't clutter your search results. OS X definitely still knows about the contents of any volumes you've mounted.

    It sounds like you should be all set, but don't hesitate to reach out if we can be of further assistance. We're always here to help! :)

  • Klaatu67
    Klaatu67
    Community Member

    I wonder if I can circumvent this recurring problem by exempting 1Password from my Carbon Copy Cloner backup. In an emergency recovery I can live without 1Password for a while?

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @Klaatu67,

    I wonder if I can circumvent this recurring problem by exempting 1Password from my Carbon Copy Cloner backup.

    Absolutely! In fact, that's exactly what Khad recommended yesterday:

    You should continue to back up your 1Password data (found in your Application Support folder). However, you should exclude the 1Password app (found in your Applications folder) from backups.

    Excluding the 1Password app from your CCC backups should ensure that you only have a single copy of the main 1Password app available (in the Applications folder on your main drive). And as long as you only have one copy of the 1Password app, OS X will have no choice but to launch the correct copy of 1Password mini.

    Remember: Your 1Password data is stored separately from the 1Password app. That data (which is stored in your Application Support folder) should still be backed up. But the app file itself (the one in the Applications folder) doesn't actually need to be backed up because you can always re-download it if necessary.

    In an emergency recovery I can live without 1Password for a while?

    If you need to restore your Mac from a CCC backup, and that backup doesn't include the 1Password app, you just need to re-download the 1Password app. If you use the AgileBits Store version of 1Password, you can download it from our download site. If you use the Mac App Store version, you can download it from the Purchased section of the Mac App Store. Once installed, the 1Password app should find your data (which should have been restored from your CCC backup).

    I hope that all makes sense, but please do let us know if you have more questions about that. We're always glad to help! :)

  • danco
    danco
    Volunteer Moderator

    And if you have any concerns about redownloading, there's always the option of making a zipped version of 1PW (using the Compress item in the Finder's File menu) and including that in the backup.

  • Pilar
    Pilar
    1Password Alumni

    :+1: :chuffed:

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    Very true! Thanks, danco! :)

  • roller
    roller
    Community Member

    I just came across this same issue but my scenario is a little different. I have 3 OS X installs on my Macbook to support different environments and a couple of them have 1Password installed in each. So now I just can't update them without a whole lot of fussing about. I know I am not the only one with multiple installs and this is just a PITA. The explanation just seems lazy to me. If there are multiple copies why not ask the user which one to update instead of insisting the other is removed?

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    I just came across this same issue but my scenario is a little different. I have 3 OS X installs on my Macbook to support different environments and a couple of them have 1Password installed in each. So now I just can't update them without a whole lot of fussing about.

    @roller: Well, I'm not sure exactly how a factual explanation equates with laziness, but it's really just one click:

    Believe me, I sometimes do this several times a day, and I'll be happy if these launchd issues are resolved eventually!

    I know I am not the only one with multiple installs and this is just a PITA. The explanation just seems lazy to me. If there are multiple copies why not ask the user which one to update instead of insisting the other is removed?

    1Password doesn't care about the multiple copies. But if macOS (née OS X) decides to launch the wrong one it can be a real pain for you. 1Password will update the correct one no matter what. It knows its location. But when the app restarts it's up to the OS to launch 1Password mini...and that's where people run into trouble, thus the message. Perhaps this will be addressed in a future version of macOS.

  • khad
    khad
    1Password Alumni
    edited July 2016

    To be 100% clear: the behavior of the wrong 1Password mini launching is caused by OS X. If it was something we had any control over, we would have fixed it a long time ago. This is as big a headache for us as it is for you all. :(

This discussion has been closed.