How to log Autofill issues with authenticated sites

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Hi, I sometimes note issues with Autofill not working with authenticated sites, but the “Report Autofill failure” form only has a problem URL field - which obvs means that it’s not worth filling this out.

The form asks for “Any other info” but it’s very technical and I have no idea how to capture any of it.
Would a screenshot help at all, or is there any other info that could be captured by a non-HTML coder to enable Autofill issue diagnosis?

Hi @MrB - welcome to the Bitwarden community!

Basic authentication websites pose a challenge for auto filling on any password manager given the way they are designed. Have you seen this guidance from Bitwarden?

Tx @dh024 but my question was about forms with address fields to be filled out etc. on sites that require you to login first, not about the site login or authentication process itself.
Obvs those sites will not be available to whoever is looking at the Report Autofill failure form submissions and so it is pointless entering a URL.
An example would be my local municipal council site which requires me to login before reporting a refuse collection issue etc.

So your issue is not about authentication on the site, but rather filling website fields from Identity items or Card items from your vault? Is that right?

Exactly - and that I can’t (apparently) use the Autofill Failure form to report the issue.

OK, so if I infer this correctly, is the issue that the pages you are trying to autofill are hidden behind a layer of authentication, meaning that Bitwarden devs can’t access it to verify what the autofill issue might be? If that’s the case, then I don’t know how they can help. They would need access to the pages you are trying to fill.

As a workaround, have you tried using custom fields to achieve your autofill tasks? They are very powerful and quite easy to wield. See more here:

Tx for that. I had no idea that Custom Fields existed. I looked at the help pages but couldn’t work out how to add a new custom field value. I copied the Custom Field Name OK from the form but I couldn’t fathom the help from there in order to add it to the Identity.
It’d be great if the help had a fully worked example. (Yes I’m sure it’s easy once you know how!)

Actually, Bitwarden makes it really easy. I think you have done this part already, but to be sure, follow these instructions to copy the identifying properties of the form field you want to fill on your website:

Once you have that copied to the clipboard, edit the Login Item that stores your credentials for the website and add a new Custom Field at the bottom of the edit form. For the Name of the field, paste in the value that was copied from the previous step above (the identifier of the form field), and for the Value type in the value you would like to see auto-filled. Then hit Save.

Repeat this process as many times as needed to cover all the fields you want filled. I don’t think there is a limit to how many fields you can add to your Bitwarden item (or if there is, it is huge).

Once you have completed a custom field for everything, reload the page, and then click on the Bitwarden extension in your browser’s tool bar and select the proper item in the list. That should trigger that autofill of the fields. :crossed_fingers:

I hope that all makes sense!

Sigh, yes of course you think it’s easy once you know how. It’s not if you don’t and it’s certainly not obvious.
Your example mentions a Login item, but as I said before mine is a form fill via an Identity, not a login.

I followed the Help text to copy the custom Field name.

Help says

" Selecting this context menu option will copy the form element’s id, name, aria-label, or placeholder value (in that order of preference).
Once you have saved a custom field, you can auto-fill it from the browser extension. "

But it skips over how you save the custom field part. :frowning:

So I edited my identity and navigated to the bottom where it says “Custom Fields”.
There it says “New custom field” and then a drop-down saying Text/Hidden/Boolean or Linked. I’ve no idea which option to choose. After you select the drop down there’s nothing else to do. just a Delete button underneath.
Also Help doesn’t mention editing Identity, just Logins.

These four options are described at the very beginning of the Custom Fields documentation that was linked by @dh024:

  • Text: Field value stores a freeform input (text, numbers, and more).
  • Hidden: Field value stores freeform input that is hidden from view (particularly useful for organizations using the Hide Password access control).
  • Boolean: Field value stores a boolean value (true/false).
  • Linked: Field value is linked to the item’s username or password.

The work flow may be slightly different depending on which client app you are using. In the browser extension, you first select the field type (probably Text in the case of an Identity item), then click the + symbol, which will create an empty custom field — you then need to supply the custom field name where it says Name and the desired value (e.g., the text that you want to be autofilled into the field) where it says Value. Very important not to forget to click Save after you have entered these values. Continue adding additional custom fields as necessary.

Let me know if anything is unclear.

P.S. Stay away from the Delete Item button at the bottom of the screen — this will delete the entire identity item.

Aha yes that helps a lot.

This is the issue with help docs that are in the “everything about everything” format that are usually produced by developers - they are very hard for folks that don’t want to become experts about every single facet of an app, they just want to accomplish a fairly simple task.

The key was the rather odd use of the left hand side + as an action - I had no idea that was an action, as it was to the left and higher than the option selector, especially since the other action button (Delete) was in the conventional place.
Anyway I selected the Text field, entered the values, though again I wasn’t expecting to overtype the field name & value as this didn’t match the UI in step 5 of the docs. and the custom field is now working!

Tx @grb for the help! :slight_smile:

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