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AgingKeeper's avatar
AgingKeeper
Dedicated Contributor
2 months ago

Issues saving and signing in with passkeys on the Mac

Hi,

With 1Password having added Passkeys I decided to see if they are useful.  I now have several accounts that have passkeys.

Several times over the past couple of days I have been in a situation where an app or a website in my browser requires that I log in using a passkey.  However 1Password is not detecting the request and as a result there is no way I have found so far that I can tell 1Password to use my passkey to sign in. 

A key "feature" of 1Password's use of an app and a "paired" extension in web browsers has been that when the extension is not working properly or when I am logging into a standalone app I can always open the app and copy and paste my credentials into my browser or into the app.  My inability to use my passkey is breaking 1Password for me.  

In addition when I have generated passkeys I am finding that the 1Password stores it in its own login item and not with the credentials I used to use for the site.  I may be wrong but I am not sure it even asks if I want to upddate an existing login.  Once done there is no way for me to merge the username, passwords and 2FA codes also associated with the same account together.  So now I have duplicates that will take me time to merge.  

Also good luck finding the items with passkeys if you are trying to figure all of this out.

I understand the potential security benefits of passkeys but using them in 1Password so far has me baffled.  What am I missing?  

best practices
browser extension
discussion
ios
macos

11 Replies

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  • 1P_Dave's avatar
    1P_Dave
    Icon for Moderator rankModerator
    2 months ago

    Hello AgingKeeper and jeo4long! 👋

    I'm sorry that you're both running into issues when saving passkeys in 1Password. So that I can determine whether you're running into a known issue can you tell me the following: 

    1. Which browser(s) are you using?
    2. Are the websites that you're saving passkeys for listed on https://passkeys.directory/? Can you share some examples of the websites that you're run into trouble with? 

    In addition when I have generated passkeys I am finding that the 1Password stores it in its own login item and not with the credentials I used to use for the site.  I may be wrong but I am not sure it even asks if I want to upddate an existing login. 

    1Password in the browser will ask you if you'd like to update your existing login item with the passkey or save a new login item: 


    Are you not seeing this prompt when saving a passkey in your browser on your Mac? You can find our guide on how to save a passkey here: Save and sign in with passkeys in your browser

    -Dave

    • AgingKeeper's avatar
      AgingKeeper
      Dedicated Contributor
      2 months ago

      Dave,

      Sorry to say I did not document what is happening precisely, but I am happy to do so.  To answer your questions:

      1. Browser(s): I am using a two browsers Safari & Orion RC.  I am not certain if one or both of them had these issues.
      2. I believe I only have 9 passkeys. Of these I beleive I was using one or more of Gmail, Intuit (TurboTax & Quickbooks), Discourse over the time frame when I noticed the issues I posted about.
      3. Regarding the prompt, I do not recall seeing the prompt but that doesn't mean it did not appear.  1Password prompts appear often enough when I do not need them so that I have become somewhat desensitized to them.  Not a complaint just the nature of the beast. An example of this is my pharmacy at my grocery store.  After I have logged into the grocery store I need to enter a fixed passcode to access the pharmacy.  When I enter the passcode 1Password asks me if I want to update an existing item or enter a new item.  Unfortunately I have no idea how this would work and am "afraid" to "Update Existing" because I do not want the four digit passcode to replace my strong password.  Not figuring out what to do contributes to the desensitizing.  Perhaps just me, perhaps not.

      I am happy to test this a bit more rigorously.  Need to think about how to test the Passkey creation process and how to do this effectively with multiple browsers (especially Orion RC which is not offically not supported).

      Cheers!

      • 1P_Dave's avatar
        1P_Dave
        Icon for Moderator rankModerator
        2 months ago

        AgingKeeper 

        Thank you for those details. Since (as you mentioned) Orion isn't a supported browser, I suggest that we focus on Safari for now and make sure that everything is working properly there first. 

        Can you try to reproduce a circumstance where 1Password isn't suggesting or saving a passkey in Safari and then, so that I can investigate further, I'd like to ask you to create a diagnostics report from 1Password in your browser:

        Send a diagnostics report (browser extension)

        Attach the diagnostics to an email message addressed to support@1password.com

        With your email please include:

        • A link to this thread: https://www.1password.community/discussions/1password/1password-and-passkeys---what-is-going-on/154015/replies/154073
        • Your forum username: AgingKeeper


        You should receive an automated reply from our BitBot assistant with a Support ID number.  Please post that number here.  Thanks very much!

        An example of this is my pharmacy at my grocery store.  After I have logged into the grocery store I need to enter a fixed passcode to access the pharmacy.  When I enter the passcode 1Password asks me if I want to update an existing item or enter a new item.  Unfortunately I have no idea how this would work and am "afraid" to "Update Existing" because I do not want the four digit passcode to replace my strong password.

        It sounds like 1Password's filling brain might need to be updated to better handle the passcode. Once you open a ticket via email for the passkey issue using the steps above, the team can request some data about the grocery store page over email and file an issue with our development team. 

        -Dave

    • jeo4long's avatar
      jeo4long
      New Contributor
      2 months ago

      Hi Dave, I have better luck with my mac laptop.  My problem mostly trying to use the passkey with my mobile devices and tablets.   I have an iPhone, iPad and Android phones and tablets.   My general questions is how do you force the browser or device to use passkey stored in 1password?   For browser, a lot of time (even though 1password is installed), when a website asked for passkey (for example, google login), then it gives me message to use "phone" instead of using the 1password.

  • jeo4long's avatar
    jeo4long
    New Contributor
    2 months ago

    Pretty much same experience. The only time passkey works for me if I use the same device (laptop in my case) and the same browser.  Then the 1password browser extension will remember and recognized that passkey is set for that website.  However, as soon as I try to use it with my other devices including mobile, it doesn't work. I end up setup my passkey with my apple password instead (I am Mac user).