Curious issue when changing passwords; Left in Limbo

Rob_H739
Rob_H739
Community Member

I'm still testing 1Password, but am confident enough that I'm moving all my logins into the bucket. Occasionally, I run into issues updating my (previously weak) passwords, particularly when it comes to financial institutions. Found a new issue today -- I saw it a few days ago, but I ran through it again to confirm.

I'm trying to update the PW for my brokerage account. Logging in is a two-step process, which your fine support people showed me how to accomplish. I'll try to clearly describe what's happening, although I expect there's a simple answer:

After logging in, I navigate to the Change Password page at the brokerage site, then I pull up 1Password Mini from my Chrome browser. I successfully copy the old password from 1PW, pasting it into the appropriate "current password" box. Now, I want to generate a new password, in this case 30 characters. After regenerating a new password, Mini fills the "new password" boxes on the site, no problem. BUT... 1Password does not ask me if I want to update the existing entry in 1PW. The site returns with, "Password successfully changed," but 1Password did not update its entry with the newly-regenerated password.

At this point, the password is changed, but I have no record of what it is. At 30 random characters, it's not as though I remember it.

Okay, so I humbly approached the site again, and asked to (manually) reset the password on the account. I'm back in, fine.

Again going to Change Password on the site, I entered the password that I just reset to as my "current password", then went to 1PW Mini to regenerate a new password. This time, I tried to copy the suggested password (Cmd-C), but 1PW Mini immediately disappears. Although I could probably paste this new password into the two "new password" boxes, and then paste it into 1Password (main) to update the record, clearly that's not what the software should be doing.

This does not occur on most sites. This one site is particularly troublesome.

The short question is: Why does 1PW not ask me to update my existing login when changing passwords on this site, and what's the best way around this issue?

Also, it seems to me that having the Password Regenerator function disappear after copying the password might not be the best thing to happen.

Any thoughts?

Thanks,
Rob


1Password Version: 6.5.2
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: OS X 10.12
Sync Type: Account

Comments

  • Rob_H739
    Rob_H739
    Community Member

    Another bit of data that I just discovered on this:

    I went back into 1Password and found four new entries in the "A" section, each for "accountaccess.[brokerage name].com", with a web address of https://accountaccess.[brokerage name]/ca-logon/logon.action." (This is not the usual sign-in page.) Inside each of these 1PW entries is one of the passwords that I had been trying to change to over four attempts. It's as though 1Password did not associate the site's "change password" pages with the proper record in the 1PW database. That's probably why it didn't ask me to "update existing."

    I could perhaps leave this type of record intact and rename it, but that seems awkward. I'd prefer things to be automatic, as 1PW usually behaves.

  • Hi @Rob_H739 ,

    As you noted in your second post, you found that 1Password will always save generated passwords. It's for exactly the reason you describe. If it doesn't offer to save, you will find it in the "Passwords" category, with the URL of the page where you generated it.

    The likely reason that it did not ask you to save or update the existing Login item in 1Password is because that brokerage site's change password had a different website URL than what you have stored in the Login item in 1Password.

    Luckily, you can store more than one website URL in each Login item. If you edit that login item in 1Password and add "https://accountaccess.[brokeragename]", the next time you change your password, it'll likely ask you to save it.

    I hope that addresses your concern. Feel free to reply if you have further questions.

    Regards,
    Kevin

  • Rob_H739
    Rob_H739
    Community Member

    ag_kevin

    Thanks for the insight.

    I've been struggling with this one account/password all day. At least I can get back to my original point, so I'm not dead in the water, but attempts to change to a stronger password at the brokerage have failed me. Ummm, let me explain...

    I'm not sure where the problem lies, but it could be the interaction with Quicken Mac 2015 that's problematic.

    I can navigate to the brokerage site and change my password easily enough. Despite having entered a second web URL in 1PW (for the change password page at the site), 1Password is still not asking me to 'update existing' to the original entry. Once I realized that that problem still existed, I changed passwords 'manually' by copying the generated password into 1PW Main. Using this new entry, I can double-click from Main and access the brokerage site, so that's successful.

    Now, over to Quicken Mac 2015, or Quicken Windows (I'm running parallel for a while as I convert Quicken from Windows to Mac.) When downloading transactions, both versions reject the new password like a bad organ. When this happens, reverting to the old password ALSO fails, as we might expect.

    To double-check, I go back to 1PW to access the site, with no troubles with the new password.

    To make matters worse, when the new password fails in Quicken Mac, it seems to nuke the Keychain entry for that item.

    For now, I've found that if I go back to the brokerage and change the password back to the original, then use that original password in either version of Quicken, I can get a download from the brokerage site.

    At this point, I'm frazzled trying to figure out what's going on. I'll pick up again tomorrow, but thought I'd post my results in case it fires off a lightbulb over someone's head. As I said, at least I'm not dead in the water, so I'll rest easy tonight. :)

  • Rob_H739
    Rob_H739
    Community Member

    After a good night's rest, I found that it's sometimes the simple things.

    I had been trying to secure the brokerage password using 21 characters. Quicken rejected the change because it's limited to only 20 characters.

    I reduced the length of the password, and all is well and good.

    I'm grateful for the fantastic support show by Agilebits. Thank you.

  • Drew_AG
    Drew_AG
    1Password Alumni

    That's great news, @Rob_H739! I'm glad you were able to figure out why it wasn't working in Quicken. Thanks for following up to let us know!

    As for the original problem (1Password doesn't ask to update a Login when you change your password on a specific site), unfortunately some sites design their web forms in a way that makes it difficult or impossible for 1Password to detect the change. However, if/when that happens, there's no need to reset your password on that site. Instead, 1Password saves a record of the generated password, so you'll be able to find it and update the Login item yourself.

    Whenever you click the Fill button in the password generator (or if you click the ▼ button next to Fill and choose Copy), that creates a new Password item in 1Password. (That serves as a safety net for this exact type of situation.) If 1Password doesn't prompt you to update your Login after submitting the 'change password' form, you can simply open the main 1Password app and select the Passwords category on the left sidebar, and you should see a new item for the new password you just generated (you can sort the list by Date Created if it helps). Just copy that password and paste it into your Login item for that site.

    We have more information about recovering unsaved passwords here: If you generated a password that wasn't saved, or you can't sign in

    If you have more questions about that or need more help, don't hesitate to let us know - we're here for you! :)

This discussion has been closed.