I have used Bitwarden for several years. I got a new computer and have started using Bitwarden on it as well. I changed the master password on the new computer and it works there. But neither the new nor the old password work on the old computer. The new password gives an err “Invalid master password”. The old password gives an err “No key provided. Lock the user to clear the key”. I don’t understand how to coordinate the two computers so that I can use Bitwarden on either one. In summary, how can I get Bitwarden to work on the old computer? Thank you.
Now would be a good time to, create an export using the working computer. If things somehow get worse, having a backup is a great stress-reliever. A password-protected JSON exports is the best choice.
On the old computer, make sure you logout (not just lock). This will force the vault to be freshly downloaded from the cloud. If that does not do it, try uninstalling/reinstalling and maybe deleting the local storage to remove any remnants of the old credential.
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Thanks DanBesten, logging out entirely worked for me. Just for my education do you know why the error message says “Lock the user to clear the key”? While your suggested steps were clear for me, I haven’t come across the phrase presented by the UI before. I’d love to get a better understanding of the terminology at play here in the hopes it reduces the chance I get stuck in the future.
“Lock” removes the decryption key from memory. The encrypted vault remains in your computer’s persistent storage. Unlocking restores the decryption key into memory and allows use of the encrypted vault that is already on your computer.
“Logout” removes the encrypted vault from your computer’s persistent storage and requires a fresh download when logging back in.
I am not DenBesten, but here is an alternative explanation.
Typically, when you change the master password on a client, all the connected clients are logged out automatically pretty much immediately (always in my case). Apparently, the OP’s client on the old computer didn’t, and gave the error “Invalid master password” when supplied with the new “correct” password, and the error “No key provided. Lock the user to clear the key” when supplied with the old “incorrect” password. The OP most likely explicitly logged out and then logged back in successfully using the new password.
A speculative explanation is that the old client was stuck in an old state, locked by the old master password, but the old master password may not give the correct key to decrypt the newly synced vault. The error “No key provided. Lock the user to clear the key” is probably not often seen or tested, and hence, isn’t very clear (or arguably incorrect); it looks to me like an error message a programmer would have come up with quickly without reviews. Locking the vault wouldn’t have solved the problem, logging out probably did.
For BW explanation about “Unlock” and “Log in” see the following doc. Note the blue “Note” section about when the plaintext decryption key is kept in memory (unlocked) and not kept in memory (locked or logged out).
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