1Password Cache Keeps Going Out of Sync?

Haravikk
Haravikk
Community Member
edited June 2013 in 1Password 3 – 7 for Mac

This is a bit of a recent problem that's surfaced, and I suspect it may be because I'm now loading my 1Password keychain from a disk image. However, the 1Password cache keeps going out of sync, such that I have to clear it every time I use the main 1Password app, otherwise none of my Accounts appear in the Accounts tab. Clearing the cache works fine to resolve the issue, and for the time being I've turned the cache off entirely, however this is resulting in very slow performance after first unlocking the keychain, particularly in the app itself (browser plugins are generally okay).

I do have hundreds of login entries so it's not surprising, but what I don't understand is why the cache is getting out of sync in the first place. I use a script to mount the disk image and then open 1Password only once the keychain is available, so there should be no chance of there being any changes that would cause the cache to become invalid. Although I do use the keychain on other machines, I do so by mounting the disk-image as read-only, so it shouldn't interfere with my main machine (this is partly why I'm doing this).

Is there anything I can do to try to figure out why the cache would be breaking in this way? I can't think of any reason why it should go out of sync as the keychain is always the same one that 1Password last saw, with no changes made, yet the cache is seemingly unsuitable between restarts. Perhaps the cache may need some added verification to better detect if some, or all, of it needs to be automatically refreshed?

I freely admit running my keychain from a disk image is a bit of a weird use-case, but it seems to be highlighting some bug or weakness in 1Password's cache, that I'm not sure running from a disk image alone explains.

Comments

  • khad
    khad
    1Password Alumni

    I'm sorry that you are having some trouble, @Haravikk.

    I suspect it may be because I'm now loading my 1Password keychain from a disk image.

    I think you may be correct, and there is an easy way to test this theory. Try moving your data file outside the disk image and see if you still have the trouble.

    I freely admit running my keychain from a disk image is a bit of a weird use-case, but it seems to be highlighting some bug or weakness in 1Password's cache, that I'm not sure running from a disk image alone explains.

    Technically it is an unsupported configuration. 1Password is not designed to read/write to/from a network share, disk image, or external volume. But it's possible that your issue is unrelated. The best way to find out would be to move your data file outside of the disk image.

    Please let me know how it goes.

  • Haravikk
    Haravikk
    Community Member
    edited June 2013

    I used to use it outside of the image and had no trouble, it's only since moving to using the image that it's having troubles so I'm pretty sure it's the reason. However, I just don't see why it should break, as the image is HFS+, and functionally it should be no different from running 1Password with your keychain on a different drive/partition of the same machine.

    It just doesn't seem like there's a reason why it should cause the cache to fail though? So long as the path to the keychain is the same then 1Password should surely just use the cache files and there should be no problem; the keychain and image are both unchanged from the last time 1Password was run, so it seems like there should be no reason it can't just pick up where it left off like normal?

    I didn't know that that external volumes aren't supported, is there a particular reason for that? I would have thought that many people would like to put their keychain on a USB stick they can take with them; personally I have a script to create a copy whenever I plug mine in but other users may not do this (or know how), and 1Password doesn't do anything to stop me from selecting a path on an external drive if I want to.

  • khad
    khad
    1Password Alumni

    I used to use it outside of the image and had no trouble, it's only since moving to using the image that it's having troubles so I'm pretty sure it's the reason. However, I just don't see why it should break, as the image is HFS+, and functionally it should be no different from running 1Password with your keychain on a different drive/partition of the same machine.

    I am not one of the developers, so I don't have all the technical details at the moment. (Although, I will ask about them.) But I know that such a configuration has never been supported. I'm sorry I don't have a more satisfying answer at this time.

    It just doesn't seem like there's a reason why it should cause the cache to fail though? So long as the path to the keychain is the same then 1Password should surely just use the cache files and there should be no problem; the keychain and image are both unchanged from the last time 1Password was run, so it seems like there should be no reason it can't just pick up where it left off like normal?

    I could be wrong, but I wonder if the issue is that the mount point is different every time...

    I didn't know that that external volumes aren't supported, is there a particular reason for that? I would have thought that many people would like to put their keychain on a USB stick they can take with them;

    Data availability is an important part of security. If the volume is ejected (even accidentally) during a write, it might cause damage. We try to minimize this rather than do things to possibly exacerbate it.

    personally I have a script to create a copy whenever I plug mine in but other users may not do this (or know how),

    Yeah, that would be a safe way to handle it. Access the local copy rather than the external one. Not all users are that savvy, but if that works for you it should work for 1Password. :)

    1Password doesn't do anything to stop me from selecting a path on an external drive if I want to.

    1Password does actually prevent this if you try to move it via the prescribed method.

    I'll try to get some more details for the sake of curiosity, but for now it does appear that this unsupported configuration is still unsupported.

This discussion has been closed.