iCloud Sync

rcornish
rcornish
Community Member

Using 1P 7.3.2 on a 2016 MacBook Pro running OS 10.14.6 and using iCloud sync.

Added a new password on my iPhone last night. It is not showing up on my MacBook Pro.
I have clicked "sync" in 1P on my iPhone repeatedly.
1P on my Mac says it sync'd 20 minutes ago. There seems to be no way to force it to sync, like there is on my phone. The online instructions say to select Preferences>>>Sync tab>>>"Sync primary vault with iCloud", but nothing happens.
Tried quitting and restarting the app as well as restarting the system.


1Password Version: 7.3.2
Extension Version: 7.3.2
OS Version: 10.14.6
Sync Type: iCloud

Comments

  • Corey_C
    Corey_C
    Community Member

    Hi there @rcornish

    That should have done the trick. Take a look over at our iCloud Troubleshooting page and see if any of the solutions there help you out.

  • rcornish
    rcornish
    Community Member

    Thanks, Corey... a second restart indeed did the trick… but is there any other way to force 1P/Mac to sync to iCloud without restarting my machine???

  • Corey_C
    Corey_C
    Community Member

    @rcornish

    It's hard to say. It would depend on what was causing it to not sync in the first place. What you were doing should have worked but standalone sync can be rather inconsistent.

  • rcornish
    rcornish
    Community Member

    Corey—let me make sure I understand you correctly: Any time I add a password or note to 1P on my iPhone or iPad or another Mac, do I need to restart my MacBook for the new password to be added to the vault on that machine?

  • Corey_C
    Corey_C
    Community Member

    @rcornish

    No, you should not have to do that. It should sync within a reasonable amount of time without you having to take any sort of action. What you did before I advised you to check the troubleshooting document should cause things to sync between devices.

  • rcornish
    rcornish
    Community Member
    edited September 2019

    Hey Corey.....
    So the question becomes (and I’m really not being snarky), what is "a reasonable amount amount of time?" This morning, I got in my office and wanted to check an online order I made on my phone last night, but the login I created wasn’t in 1P on my MacBook. So I waited. And waited.

    So—just to be sure—is the only way to force 1P/Mac to iCloud sync NOW to restart the machine? If so, a “sync now” button (like you have in the iOS app) would be a feature request I would heartily endorse.

    Just want to be sure I’m not missing anything. Many thanks for your kind support.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @rcornish - you're not missing anything. a "reasonable amount of time" should be pretty quick, under most circumstances. iCloud does tend to wait a bit and send through sync items at a more measured pace than Dropbox, but there shouldn't be any delay more than a few minutes for either one.

    One of the ways to "force" standalone sync should be simply locking 1Password for Mac, then unlocking it again. A restart of the Mac itself is a somewhat extreme version of this (though it seems to have worked). I think Corey_C's point above was that we have little insight into the sync engine used by Apple in iCloud, or that used by Dropbox. That's one of the reasons we built the 1password.com service -- so that we could control both parts of the sync equation, and make any fixes necessary should they arise. With advanced, 3rd party sync engines, it's not that they're UNreliable -- after all, this is how ALL 1Password was synced prior to 2016 -- it's more that, if and when issues arise, we often aren't able to address or even properly troubleshoot them due to many of the factors being out of our control.

    We've had no widespread reports of this being an issue with other iCloud sync users (of which there are still many), so we can be relatively confident this isn't an endemic issue affecting all users. iCloud sync should work on its own for you as it does for other users, without you needing to take such a measure as restarting your Mac, or even locking and unlocking 1Password. But that's why the article to which Corey_C linked you begins near the top with the highlight box that says:

    iCloud is complex and depends on many factors, including your network environment and software configuration. This article is a collection of common solutions for syncing problems.

    We’re unable to troubleshoot issues with iCloud beyond the scope of this article. If you’ve tried everything in the article and are still unable to sync, switch to a more reliable sync method.

    Again, this doesn't mean that iCloud (or Dropbox) is an UNreliable method of sync, it just means that although it should be working for you, if it isn't, our ability to troubleshoot it for you is somewhere between limited and nonexistent, and therefore a 1Password account may be a more reliable method of sync for you. And it's definitely going to be one we're able to help out with much more effectively.

  • rcornish
    rcornish
    Community Member

    Thanks, Lars. The lock/unlock routine is a good tip and I will use that when I need it… but I still vote for a "sync now" button. 😉

    Thanks again.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @rcornish - I hear you. For some color commentary from the past, in pre-1Password.com membership days, we would occasionally get requests for a "Sync Now" button in 1Password for Mac. We always resisted it because, as the head of 1Password for Mac development at the time used to say: sync should "just work" (to blatantly plagiarize Steve Jobs, LOL). If it doesn't, to such an extent that people are requesting a "Sync Now" button, we need to actually make sync work reliably, not provide a potentially problematic workaround. Fast forward a few years, and we HAVE "fixed sync" -- by creating our own sync engine that we have 100% visibility into and control over, in the form of the 1password.com servers.

  • rcornish
    rcornish
    Community Member

    I hear you, Lars... but it the sync button works so well on my iOS devices, I'd like to have the same thing on my Macs.

  • Lars
    Lars
    1Password Alumni

    @rcornish - :) :+1:

This discussion has been closed.