Understanding Universal Unlock and Auto-Lock

cjmusante

I"m afraid that I can't offer any help, but I'm also growing increasingly frustrated. The support team has tried to help me, but the problem is that the folks at Agle S/w have forgotten one very simple part of the problem.



The documentation that they provide does not actually tell you how things are supposed to work, so you can't identify exactly where the problem lies, and address it in an intelligent way.



For example, there is a lot of infomation within their website that seems to show how to configure things, but when you configure them in the way that is suggested, you're left to try to interpret what is supposed to happen, given the settings that you've just made.



Come on guys, we paid good money for the s/w, and on the Windows platform, there are simply so many issues, that I feel like I don't know where to begin.



Sorry to hijack this thread, but this really needs to be said.



Can you please write up what is supposed to happen, and under what conditions the master password dialog box will appear, and when the browser is supposed to know that you've logged in and authenticated recently? Is it related to how long, or if you have the 1Password application open? Is it based on the last time you had to enter master password for a browser? Is it related to whether you shut down the browser or not?



Really, please answer these questions so that we can help.

khad

Hi cjmusante,



Thanks for asking about this. I've split your post from the other unrelated thread in order to give you the personal attention you deserve. I checked all your other posts to see if you had asked about this before as it sounded like you've been trying to get help with this in the past. I wasn't able to find any posts of yours on this topic. However, I don't have any email communications you sent us in front of me, so it's possible you asked about this via email.



In any event, I'm happy to clarify the situation with Universal Unlock and Auto-Lock. In all honesty it is a bit confusing since Internet Explorer requires us to do things differently than all the other browsers due to the way we need to integrate with it. It just doesn't offer the same kinds of extension APIs that Chrome, Firefox, and Safari do. If you don't use Internet Explorer, that will make it much easier to understand. <img src='http://forum.agilebits.com/public/style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile.png' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':)' />



Ah, wait! I just found my previous communication with you in a support ticket from the beginning of August. Our communication ended when I said:



"I hope that clarifies the expected behavior. If your previous reports are still true, it sounds like we still have a problem if Firefox is not remaining unlocked across a restart, but please let me know. I would be curious to know if you have similar trouble with Universal Unlock enabled in Safari or Chrome."



However, you never wrote back, so I didn't know you were still having some trouble or that there was any confusion. I'll reproduce what I wrote in that support ticket here for the sake of anyone else following along on this public forum, and we can go from there if you still have questions.



----





The unlocking can be confusing and we are working to improve this as well as our documentation.



The real wrench in the works is that Internet Explorer is a total outlier due to the way the extension is allowed to interact with it. It is unlocked separate from what we call the "JSE" (JavaScript extension) which is used in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome.



The auto-lock settings are controlled centrally in 1Password's preferences on the Security tab. However, unlocking is performed in — let's call them three different zones: (1) main application, (2) Internet Explorer, and (3) the JavaScript Extension (JSE). The JSE is used in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome. You need to unlock each zone separately by entering your master password, once a zone is unlocked it will remain unlocked until you manually lock 1Password or if 1Password locks in accordance with your auto-lock settings.



Presuming "Universal Unlock" is enabled in the JSE in Safari, Firefox, and Chrome the JSE zone will remain unlocked (those three browsers) until auto-lock kicks in. This includes restarting any or all of those Three browsers. This was the issue I was getting at with the test I had you perform in my post #5 in the forum thread:



http://forum.agilebits.com/index.php?/topic/10614-autolock-disabled-but-system-still-times-out-and-locks/page__view__findpost__p__60834



If you restart your computer, each zone will need to be unlocked anew.



As I mentioned above, once unlocked, each zone should remain unlocked until you manually lock 1Password or your auto-lock settings kick in and lock 1Password. If you have "Universal Unlock" enabled in one of the three JSE browsers then quitting and restarting Firefox should not require entering the master password again.



Safari, Firefox, and Chrome can all be unlocked together if Universal Unlock is enabled in the extension's settings in each browser. Internet Explorer and the main application are unlocked separately.



We honestly don't normally have many questions about how 1Password unlocks, and you've given me a chance to put some words down which should find their way into our documentation.



I hope that helps. Please let me know. Feel free to reply here or in [url="http://support.agilebits.com/discussions/1password-for-windows/1381-khad-asked-me-to-send-a-report"]the private support ticket[/url] we already had going a while ago.