Auto-submit no longer functions

Mr. Laser Beam
Mr. Laser Beam
Community Member
edited October 2018 in 1Password in the Browser

I recently updated to macOS Mojave and also the latest version of 1P. I have since discovered that 1P's auto-submit no longer works. Is there some way I can re-enable it? If so, how?

(I'm not seeing any reference to auto-submit in any of 1P's preferences.)


1Password Version: Not Provided
Extension Version: Not Provided
OS Version: Not Provided
Sync Type: Not Provided

Comments

  • GFEMajor
    GFEMajor
    Community Member

    I have the same Problem. Is this a Bug or a Feature? Any solution out there? This is really anoying.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @Mr. Laser Beam & @GFEMajor,

    Starting with 1Password 7.2 the submit after filling feature has been retired. As part of improved security measures Apple have been tightening up on accessibility usage and unfortunately the feature we used to enable submit after filling could be misused. My understanding is it has been removed and so we've also removed submit after filling from 1Password for Mac. I completely understand Apple's decision and why that had to make it, it's just a shame that our benign use was a casualty. We did note it in the 1Password 7.2 for Mac changelog but a single line at the bottom is incredibly easy to miss.

    Autosubmit, which has become quite fragile due to some modern security improvements in macOS, has been retired.

    I believe fragile is code for didn't work and macOS displayed an error message :tongue:

    I'm sure many people will find this an inconvenience to start but the extension will still attempt to leave focus on a field that will allow the user to submit the form using the enter/return key so hopefully it won't feel too unwieldy after a period of adjustment.

  • GFEMajor
    GFEMajor
    Community Member

    Thanks @littlebobbytables for the explanation. I‘m not sure why they remove it from MacOs, but are plaing to intruduce it in iOS. But so what, we have to live with that

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Greetings @GFEMajor,

    What Apple removed that affected 1Password for Mac wasn't specifically about submitting a page in a browser, it was the ability to programatically ask the operating system to react as if the user had pressed the enter key. Almost without exception, reasonably designed forms will allow the user to press enter to submit the form rather than force them to click on any sign-in button. If the extension could leave focus on a password field and submit after filling was enabled 1Password for Mac would ask macOS to react as if the user had pressed the enter key. The problem is this could be used elsewhere and the concern was it could be abused to skirt past a confirmation dialog before the user could react and decline. We had a good use but the bad use and stopping it has to take precedence. Submit after filling could be built into the browser because the browser ultimately has complete control whilst extensions must have guards in place to avoid them being a security nightmare.

  • jamiljonna
    jamiljonna
    Community Member
    edited October 2018

    Just out of curiosity, why not at least add a popup or change the focus. A popup could simply ask if you want to autosubmit. It would still require the user to hit the enter key but it would effectively "auto-submit" immediately thereafter. A better option would be for 1p to change the focus to the submit button—or somewhere else, as long as it would only require the user to hit "enter" and submit the form/password.

    As many people have mentioned, it is quite annoying to have to use the mouse to find the submit button of a form.

  • GFEMajor
    GFEMajor
    Community Member
    edited October 2018

    @jamiljonna I think 1P is moving the focus to the password field in the last step. So just hit enter and you should be logged in.
    Your solution with a popup is not better than the current implementation (where you just have to hit enter after everything is filled).

    A solution I would prefer would be that Apple integrates a system where you can authorize apps to "hit the enter button". So you can authorize 1Pass to do its job and prevent other Apps from doing harm. But I think this is something the we have to ask apple, and not the devs of 1P 😃

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    @jamiljonna, @GFEMajor is correct. We leave focus on the password field because the vast majority of sites will submit the form if you press enter at this point. It's how 1Password worked so the single (and disruptive, I do acknowledge that) change is that the enter key press is not automated as it was. If I needed to revert to using the mouse cursor I'd be cursing its absence a lot more than I currently am.

    It probably wouldn't do any harm having our developers ask nicely too but I'm not sure if we'll ever see its return now.

  • ttomr
    ttomr
    Community Member

    @littlebobbytables to add to this - isnt this sth that can be achieved with javascript? Search for a submit button and push it? (I am not a developer though, maybe it is too easy in my mind ;).

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Hi @ttomr,

    We used to try and use JavaScript but we found it notoriously unreliable, sufficiently so that we removed it in favour of having 1Password and the mimicking of the enter key being pressed. At least one of the JavaScript methods discarded was much for the same reason as the one we face on macOS, hardening to protect the users against misuse.

  • ttomr
    ttomr
    Community Member

    Ah too bad I thought as much. Thanks for the reply.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    It is a shame, hopefully the convenience of filling still makes 1Password a pretty useful tool. I know I couldn't accurately type any of my current passwords :tongue:

  • johnnyxhuynh
    johnnyxhuynh
    Community Member

    Totally missed this in the change log mentioned above. It's helpful to know I can press enter/return right after the UN/PW fill most of the time.

  • littlebobbytables
    littlebobbytables
    1Password Alumni

    Greetings @johnnyxhuynh,

    The changelog entry is easy to miss, there's no two ways about it. I'm glad this conversation was of help though :smile:

  • DavidMBrown
    DavidMBrown
    Community Member

    It still works in 1Password 6 for Mac. :)

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @DavidMBrown - hey there! :) So yeah, auto-fill still works 1Password 6 for Mac and will likely continue to do so for as long as Apple continues to allow .safariextz extensions installed from the Safari Extensions Gallery in Safari 12+. We aren't really sure when that will be sunset, but Apple have already indicated that's the plan: to sunset the SEG, which will effectively render all pre-7 versions of 1Password unable to use Safari 12, since there will be no way to install the extension they need (Apple has already removed the ability to install directly, you MUST use the SEG now, so if that goes away, that's effectively killing it).

    For now, you can install 1Password 6 for Mac into Mojave, and you can still get to the SEG to install the 4.7.3.90 extension...but for reasons I'm sure you remember, we can't recommend people revert to a previous version of 1Password as any kind of long-term solution; at some point it just becomes incompatible due to the march of time.

  • Johnofarrel
    Johnofarrel
    Community Member

    Hi - I understand why Autosubmit has been disabled. However, as a new user (migrating from Dashlane), I really appreciated the ability to _click in the username or password field _and have 1Password autofill the info, following which I could just click Submit or Enter. I find I can still do this on my Mac running MacOS Sierra, but I just installed 1Password on my wife's Mac running Mojave, and that "click in the field to fill" doesn't work there. I've also noticed that my Chrome extension is blue whereas hers is black. I don't see any reference to this functionality being disabled. Two questions:

    1. Was it disabled, and if so, why? Any way to get it back on Mojave?
    2. Is the Chrome extension supposed to be blue or black, and what's the significance of either color?

    I'd really appreciate any guidance anyone can give me.
    Thank you.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @Johnofarrel - there are currently two "flavors" of 1Password extension. There is our regular extension, which requires the companion application and acts as a conduit in the browser to the local data stored on your Mac or PC. If you've got the 1Password for Mac or 1Password for Windows app installed, this is typically the extension you'd install to allow it to fill in and save data from your browser. This extension works with either local, standalone 1Password data or with 1password.com accounts. Then there is 1Password X, which is a newer product that works only with 1password.com accounts, and does not require you to have a local 1Password app installed; it works directly with your data on 1password.com instead and only needs to be installed in your browser (Chrome, Firefox or Opera, but not Safari or MS Edge).

    If you have all your 1Password data in a 1password.com account (i.e. - no local vaults) and and you and your wife aren't Safari users, then you're free to use either one of these extensions, though they do function somewhat differently, as you've noticed. You can visit our downloads page and find both versions there.

  • Johnofarrel
    Johnofarrel
    Community Member

    Thank you very much. I'm glad I asked, as I didn't see this distinction explained in the signup/installation process, nor did it come up in an extensive Google search!

  • ag_sebastian
    ag_sebastian
    1Password Alumni

    We're happy to help, @Johnofarrel. :smile:

    I didn't see this distinction explained in the signup/installation process, nor did it come up in an extensive Google search!

    This sounds like an area we could improve on, so thanks for sharing your experience! :smile:

  • hawkmoth
    hawkmoth
    Community Member

    I was surprised to read this article this morning. Seems Apple has switched to having passwords autosubmit from Safari. I've gotten used to needing to press Return to submot my credentials, but it seems Apple must have backpedaled on preventing autosubmitting credentials..

    https://www.macworld.com/article/3388060/disable-mac-safari-autosubmit-login.html

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @hawkmoth - nice catch! Yes, we did indeed see this...but at this point, it's not likely to be changing any of the decisions we made around auto-submit (at least if thing stand the way they are now in relation to this). For one thing, this appears to be only using Safari's built-in auto-fill...for which there is no API. So unless Apple releases such an API to us, it's a non-starter. Truth be told, even if Apple does release that API, I'm not certain (off the cuff) we'd pursue it. Auto-fill is a fantastic feature, making the process of filling and signing into a web page as close as we're willing to get to "fully automated." There's no denying it saves a keystroke. But it's also not a 100% of the time success, and when auto-submit failed in the past (or auto-FILL somehow failed and then auto-submit worked but therefore submitted incorrect form data), it could leave things in a confusing state for the user and infrequently even a dangerous one where data could be lost in some cases. When Apple removed our ability to auto-submit in Safari, it made us take a more 50,000 ft. overview of the entire concept, something we hadn't done in that way in a while. What we realized is that, as cool as it is - and as helpful, when it works - its absence requires literally only the press of the enter key or at most (for the mouse-centric) clicking the "Login" or "Submit" button. Not only is this not a HUGE inconvenience (for the regular user; for sysadmins who spend all day logging in and out of various systems it may be a different story), but it has the benefit of intentionality: users have to (or at least can) stop and take a look at what's been entered, and catch errors before auto-submit would otherwise whisk them away by simulating the enter key instantly. And it also prevents the potentially bad states that can sometimes result.

    If all of that sounds kind of muddled, well, guilty as charged. Autosubmit hasn't been gone for too long, and it was beloved by many. And there are certainly arguments in favor of it. But as things stand right now, without an API nothing's really changed, and if/when it does, I'm not sure we'd pursue it. But without seeing what it is and what might be possible, I can't really say anything for certain, except that we'll certainly keep an eye on things.

  • hawkmoth
    hawkmoth
    Community Member

    @Lars - Thanks for the thoughtful reply. I've grown used to pressing Return to submit, and it was never a major issue for me when autosubmit departed 1Password. But I have followed this thread for some time, so the article about Apple's change was a surprise to me. (Personally, I'm mostly a Firefox user, so confining this change to Safari only wouldn't be helpful to me anyway.)

  • AGAlumB
    AGAlumB
    1Password Alumni

    @hawkmoth: It seems that on iOS this may happen since we're able to integrate with Apple's own autofill feature; so if and when that gets autosubmit I'd imagine that would happen whether the OS is filling login credentials from iCloud Keychain or from 1Password. Only time will tell on that though, and whether we see something similar in a future version of macOS. :)

This discussion has been closed.