Can't sign onto Bitwarden Android app Self hosted

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1

The Bitwarden Android app will not let me sign on using my cell phone when it is connected via wifi to my home network running Bitwarden self hosted.

The cell phone is connected to the same network as my bitwarden selfhosted server.

For the username, I am using the email id associated with my Bitwarden selfhosted server.

For the password, I am being prompted for and providing the Bitwarden master password.

I get a message that says “An error has occurred. Username or password is incorrect. Try again.”

However, when I access Bitwarden via a web browser from my PC on the same network using the same user id and master password it works.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Can’t sign onto Bitwarden Android app Self hosted when my cell phone is connected via wifi
Can’t sign onto Bitwarden Android app Self hosted when my cell phone is connected via wifi
2

@Dawg001 Please post a screenshot of your Admin Dashboard: Server & Client Versioning | Bitwarden

And what is your Android mobile app version?

3

Here is the server version:

ss1
ss1606×342 41.1 KB

The app version as reported in the App Info for Bitwarden on my Android phone is:

version 2025.5.0

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4

Ah, okay, all up-to-date! (current mobile app versions are incompatible with older server versions - so that reason is already excluded)

Is your server only available in your local network? (the title stresses “when my cell phone is connected via wifi” - and that sounds a bit like your phone could connect to your server, when the phone is on cellular?!)

And only for understanding: did you set this up freshly and it never worked with your phone on wifi? – Or did it work before and changed now so that it doesn’t work?

I guess, you already triple checked if everything is typed in correctly on the mobile app, to be able to connect to your server?

I must say, I have no first-hand experience myself with self-hosting and probably can’t offer any help here beyond that…

5

Is your server only available in your local network?

Yes. Although, I can connect my cell phone to my Wi-Fi directly when I am at home, or use a VPN to connect my cell phone to my home network remotely.

Regardless, the problem happens both scenarios.

And only for understanding: did you set this up freshly and it never worked with your phone on wifi?

It had worked in the past. However, I don’t need to use it often - in fact quite infrequently.
Recently I went to use it and it was no longer working.

I guess, you already triple checked if everything is typed in correctly on the mobile app, to be able to connect to your server?

Yes

I must say, I have no first-hand experience myself with self-hosting and probably can’t offer any help here beyond that…

Thank you very much all the same.

Hopefully someone else will stumble across this thread and be able to provide some additional insights.

1 Like
6

Hm, in general, this always raises the question “what changed since it worked the last time” (updates, configuration, …)?

PS: And you may consider contacting Bitwarden support (always an option).

If you don’t see any configurational problems etc. on your side, you could also consider reporting it as a possible bug on GitHub.

7

Just as an update on this, for anyone searching for the same issue.

I am still not able to sign on to the Bitwarden android app using my master password.

However, I was able to sign on by doing this:

in the Bitwarden Android app I selected the option to sign on using a device

from my Windows PC connect to the same network as my self hosted Bitwarden server, I browsed (using Chrome) to:

(ip address of self hosted Bitwarden server)/#/settings/security/device-management

(entered my master password to get into that)

from the Windows browser screen, approved the sign on request from my Android phone

I was then signed on to the Bitwarden app on my Android phone

In the Android app, went into Bitwarden - Settings - Account Security and enabled the unlock option to ‘Unlock with Biometrics’.

After that I locked the Android Bitwarden App.

Tried to sign on again to the Android Bitwarden App, and this time was able to select the option to use Biometrics, and then than worked. :partying_face:

I also tried powering off and on my Android phone, just to be sure I could access Bitwarden on it after a restart and yes, using biometrics, I was able to do so.

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8

I can’t sign onto Bitwarden Android app Self hosted when
my cell phone is connected via wifi.

This had happened to me some time ago and I found and documented
a work around here:

However, that work around - to use the option to sign on using a device -
no longer works as that option is no longer available in the Android app.

Is there any other work around or known solution?

9

@Dawg001 As this is a continuation of the original topic, which seems to be unresolved then, I moved your post into the other topic.

Furthermore I now removed “when connected to Wifi…” from the title, because:

The only things that come to my mind right now:

  • it must be something with your configuration of the self-hosted server, as others don’t have that problem (and I think you should check your configuration – and add some information here about your configuration)

  • did you configure HTTPS? – There was a change for the Android app with Release 2025.8.0:

    2025-09-27--04-57-30-vivaldi_cQR7212DAj
    2025-09-27--04-57-30-vivaldi_cQR7212DAj948×109 13.1 KB

10

thank you.

I had opened a new topic, because in the original one I had posted that I had found a work around. However, as that work around is no longer working I thought it would be best to open a new post.

Regardless, I kept at it this morning and found yet another work around as follows:

Context, while I have a self hosted account I also have a Bitwarden.com web account, the difference being that all my vault items are in the self hosted account, and there are no vault items in the web account.

Regardless, to get it to work with my self hosted account, I used the Bitwarden App on my Android to first log into my web account.

I did this in an unexpected way, I started off be telling the Android App i wanted to use my self hosting account, but scrolled down to the very bottom of the screen and there were two buttons about certificates (I clicked the top of the two - sorry I can’t remember what its said - something about it being the less perferred way though) - regardless I then got this screen:

When I tried that I got this screen:

ss
ss445×941 48.5 KB

and although the Android App telling me that it would email to [%1$s] did no exude confidence, it did indeed e-mail my correct e-mail account with the verification code - which I then entered on the Android app.

Once done, the Android app sign me into the my web bitwarden.com account.- which I was not expecting, but ok?

After that, I signed out / exited out of the Android app and went back in.

I then changed it from accessing my bitwarden.com account to self hosted. I entered my self hosted url (as I had done several times before) then tried to sign on to it.

However, this time it worked !!!

So perhaps signing on the bitwarden web account did something that allowed it to work.

As with the last time, I am posting this here in case it will be of help to others in the future.

Thanks, Rob

11

No problem. :slightly_smiling_face:

And I think I can only throw in some snippets (as I’m still not familiar with self-hosting)…

This sounds like the HTTPS topic… and if you haven’t done so already, you should have a look into this, I think: Certificate Options | Bitwarden

Just FYI, this seems like the New Device Login Protection (NDLP), that is active for your BW cloud account. If you activated any of the 2FA options, the NDLP would get deactivated automatically. (for as long as you don’t deactivate 2FA)

This seems to be a current bug - and/or has to be solved on Crowdin as stated in this comment by a BW developer on GitHub.

Hm… as written above, for me that sounds like you should investigate the HTTPS / SSL certificate topic further. (again, only when you didn’t already set that up correctly)

:+1:

12

Well, here I am again having found I can no longer log onto my selfhosted account from my wifi connected Android phone.

I followed my own work around instructions (above) from last time - but they no longer work.

Is this a known issue, I can’t believe I am the only one with a self hosted instance that is trying to access Bitwarden from their cell phone app.

13

@Dawg001 Did you check this here:

?

14

Yes, that looks like it could be just the thing.

However, the self hosting machine uses a lets encrypt certificate and they must be renewed every 90 days or less - which means I would need to update it every three months.

Regardless, I gave it a try and when i tried to import the certificate (.crt) file (which should not have a password) yet the Bitwarden Android App asked for an alias and insisted on a password. I could not skip the password. But the file has no password.

15

I also have the same issue on my Samsung android mobile phone with a selfhosted server using the vaultwarden/server:latest docker image.
My phone and bitwarden app are up to date.
I regularly/every day sign in to the server via a browser from my desktop with 2FA enabled.
I can sign into the server with a browser on my phone no problem.
If I try with the app on my phone it comes back with “Unable to process your request”.
I sent the slacktrace error message to my email address which shows a lot but at the top it mentions “Missing the required MasterPasswordUnlock data property”
Everything was working as expected using the app on my phone and had done for several months however now i am unable to login to the server using the app on my phone.

The server also uses a Letsencrypt certificate which is installed and valid and is updated every 3 months and it has not been a problem in the past.

16

Hi there, can you reinstall the Android app and let me know if the issue persists?

17

Same issue i uninstalled the app. Re-installed the app added the self hosted url in the app settings. Logged in and it took the user name and password then asked for the 2FA code. It then flipped back to the enter password screen which I entered again and the “An error has occured” msg was displayed. So same issue.

18

Since you’re using a different back-end, have you checked into their community spaces?

19

I am and will post here if anything is relevant, cheers.

20

Are you running any reverse proxy service like Nginix or the like? Do you happen to have your phone on a separate VLAN on your home network? Do you usually connect to your self hosted server with https://yourhost.yourdomain.com or with https://yourhomeserverIP:port ?