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Former Member's avatar
Former Member
3 years ago

Trouble generating and saving new password

I'm a very long term 1Password user. And I'm experiencing consistent trouble when I attempt to update/change a password for an online account. Several things happen with 1Password Mini that consistently cause trouble.

First, generating a new password in 1P Mini is easy. However, when the proposed password does not comply with the password "rules" required by the institution (like a bank), there is no apparent way to manually customize the new password. I don't even see a way to cycle the new password once it is proposed by 1P.

The second issue is that once I accept a new password proposed by 1P and insert it into the two password fields to do the password change, 1P wants me to save the new password to my login for that account in my 1P BEFORE I find out if the password is actually accepted by the institution. If that new password is rejected by the institution (for not meeting their rules), I am now forced to do a password reset at the institution because I have no record of the original password. I cannot access the prior password. It was over-written with the new password.

If I chose to NOT save the new, proposed password to 1P and simply make the change at the institution, the password that I think is saved to memory on my computer is GONE. It has disappeared from memory on my computer and I am unable to paste into my 1P account for that institution. I don't understand this at all. My computer is a Macbook Air M1 with plenty of power and memory. Yet it cannot retain that new password for long enough to paste in my 1P login file for that institution. This happens way too many times and is extremely frustrating.

A complicating factor is that the new password proposed by 1P is not visible to me. Even though I have the preference setting in my 1P app set to reveal all passwords, they are NOT revealed when I am using 1P Mini. This just adds to the confusion.

As a result, I end up wasting tons of time calling the institution, explaining what happened, passing their security questions, and then having them initiate a password reset. And even then, when I create another new complex password in 1P that complies with their rules, I have to first quickly save it in some other app (Pages, Textedit, etc.) BEFORE I insert it into the password fields in the browser. Once the new password is accepted at the institution (and tested), I then and only then copy and pasted it into my 1Password login for that institution.

The net of all this is that I find the process for changing a password to be very cumbersome and fraught with breakdowns that involve 1Password. These issues occur repeatedly and erode my sense of trust in 1P in general. I know I can work around these limitations, but come on... this is way too hard. It feels like 1P has become over-engineered and not sufficiently field tested to be released to the public.

I'm also anticipating that one of you Agilebits reps will politely explain that I just don't understand how 1P works. Duh. That's correct. I'm really feeling frustrated with 1P.

1Password Version: Mac 8.7.0
Extension Version: 2.3.3
OS Version: Mac 12.3.1
Referrer: forum-search:trouble generating and saving new password

macos
  • Jack_P_1P's avatar
    Jack_P_1P
    Icon for 1Password Team rank1Password Team
    3 years ago

    Hi @AMCarter3:

    That definitely isn't the experience we want you to have with 1Password. Just to make sure we're on the same page, when you're referring to 1Password mini, do you mean 1Password in your browser, or 1Password mini as was available in 1Password 7, but not 1Password 8?

    Here's 1Password in the browser:

    Here's 1Password mini as included in 1Password 7:

    If you're using 1Password in the browser, you should see something like this on a login page:

    For example, this is how I'd update my password with my bank SoFi:

    First I fill my current password into the current password field using the in-line menus. I'd then next select the new password field, and 1Password in the browser detects that it's a new password field and offers to generate a new one. I click to fill, and 1Password fills it into both password fields, and opens the 1Password save dialog to update my existing item.

    If you're generating a password from the password generator in 1Password in the browser, your generator history is always saved and accessible from the password generator:

    Additionally, you can always access your password history on an item in the 1Password desktop app by clicking the down arrow on the password field, and choosing View password history:

    However, when the proposed password does not comply with the password "rules" required by the institution (like a bank), there is no apparent way to manually customize the new password. I don't even see a way to cycle the new password once it is proposed by 1P.

    If the default Smart Password isn't compatible with the site you're on, you can always open the password generator in the 1Password pop-up and manually configure a random password that meets the site's requirements:

    A complicating factor is that the new password proposed by 1P is not visible to me. Even though I have the preference setting in my 1P app set to reveal all passwords, they are NOT revealed when I am using 1P Mini. This just adds to the confusion.

    As it currently stands, 1Password in the browser doesn't have a setting to always reveal passwords, so the setting configured in the 1Password desktop app would only apply there.

    Let me know if this quick overview helps, or if you're still running into trouble with changing your passwords.

    Jack

    ref: dev/core/core#12428