Firefox for Mac - “Biometric unlock is unavailable because the Bitwarden desktop app is closed.”

Ask the Community Password Manager
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I’m having issues getting the biometrics option to work on my Mac. I believe I have set it up correctly.

  • Installed the Mac App from the App Store (web download apparently isn’t supported
  • Using default Bitwarden server (not selfhosted)
  • Desktop App has “Allow browser integration” ticked
  • Restarted mac and reinstalled desktop app multiple times

However, the option in the Firefox extension remains greyed out with the statement “Biometric unlock is unavailable because the Bitwarden desktop app is closed.”

Is this a known issue? Is there something else I’m missing?

Any help would be appreciated

2

@ThisIsMyPassword123 Welcome to the forum!

First, check this post (and do what it says if the file is not there on your system): Firefox browser extension biometrics integration stuck on "Awaiting confirmation from desktop" - #25 by Nail1684

When you made sure that the file is there: the desktop app has to be opened before you even open Firefox (!).

If it still doesn’t work: tell us more about your MacOS version, Firefox version, BW app/client versions…

That is important too. If you had an outdated self-hosted server, it might not even support the current biometrics implementation.

3

Thanks, I did have a search on the forum but couldn’t see that post.

I have now added that file into the directory and it works!! Bit crazy I had to do that but oh well