Vault refresh not available during entry selection from another app

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1

Hey forum, this time it’s me with a question.

Every time I add new credentials in another client (web vault, browser extension), those values are not available right away when choosing auto-fill on my phone from another app.

Steps to reproduce:

  1. Add credentials in the browser extension for a website that also offers an app
  2. Open the corresponding app and choose Bitwarden from the keyboard for auto-fill
  3. Bitwarden opens and does not offer the credentials right away. This is expected because the app URL is not stored yet.
  4. A search for the app name does not produce any results.
  5. Syncing the vault is not possible from this screen, neither by “pulling down” nor by any menu entry.

There is a workaround by opening the Bitwarden app first and perform a manual sync, but in my opinion it should be possible to sync from the selection screen, too.

The same problem arises when I share an existing entry with my wife. When she opens the app, the entry is not available until a manual sync is performed as described above.

Is there a setting I am missing like “Always sync” or is there another way to sync from the selection screen?

Feel free to merge this topic into another one, my attempt of finding a similar issue was not successful.

2

This will happen if you somehow blocked “push notifications”. On iOS, this can be found under settings >> apps >> Bitwarden >> Background app refresh.

3

@marlin No comprehensive analysis, but…

… that has some resemblance to: Browser extension search not searching properly · Issue #16328 · bitwarden/clients · GitHub

And that some “automatic, but partial sync” occurs and can lead to errors, I also experienced myself: Creating a passkey fails - immediately after creating a passkey on the Android mobile app failed · Issue #16842 · bitwarden/clients · GitHub

4

Push notifications are enabled. At least I am getting an instant notification when using “login with device”.

5

In this case only the browser extension was involved, so I don’t think it relates to my case.

That sounds more like it. However, I never experienced that the browser extension is out-of-date, only the Android vault.

6

It seems to me this is a well-known problem: the writes get pushed to the server immediately, but the clients don’t sync immediately. So, this seems like a valuable feature request.

Bitwarden’s official documentation states that the organization’s vaults sync every 30 minutes, while personal vaults sync “regularly” when unlocked.

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7

Could one of the moderators please move the topic to the “Feature Requests” section?

8

No problem, but I would tend to open a new clear and clean feature request for that. – Also, because I’m not really sure, what the exact feature request would be now:

  1. general syncing improvements,
  2. organizational sync improvements,
  3. added sync option during entry selection

?

Also, there might be some existing feature requests, at least for some of those:

Syncing (general):

Add a syncing option during entry selection:

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9

That sounds exactly what I was requesting. :+1:

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