I’m using a Samsung Galaxy S21+, with whatever the latest version of Android it’s running. Everything is (mostly) okay using Bitwarden on Android, except for when I make a new account somewhere on my PC, add it to Bitwarden on the PC, and then try to get it on my phone. It simply isn’t there. I’ve updated the vault, I’ve rebooted the phone – the only thing I haven’t tried is reinstalling the app, and if I have to reinstall the app every time I want to add a new entry I’ll have to find another PWM.
Anybody know what to do? Everything is updated, Bitwarden has all the permissions it wants, along with notifications. Manual syncing doesn’t work. I made sure to sync both the desktop app and the mobile app. Nothing. All the stuff I had in my vault before I got this phone is in there, but anything new doesn’t show up at all.
It’s really frustrating lol.
Any help would be appreciated.
ETA: I just checked on an iPhone 12 Pro I have lying around, and the new entry is there. So this is specifically Bitwarden with Android, it seems. New entry shows on the PC as well.
ETA2: I have to open the BItwarden app on my phone, go to settings, then use the sync now button there to get it to work. Am I going to have to do this every time now? I’ve never had to do more to sync than just open the app and pull down on the vault page. Bitwarden has never autosynced like it’s supposed to, ever, on any device.
I have been running Bitwarden on my Samsung Galaxy S20 (same Android OS) for a long time and I have never experienced this. It must be something with the app settings on your phone.
I would check your Android settings to ensure that the app has permissions to run in the background and to use cellular data (maybe even in the background). Also be sure that it is not running on a battery optimized mode that may be interfering with its ability to sync. If these changes suddenly restore your sync abilities, then you will know it is your Android settings and not a problem with the BW app itself.
Also, you may wish to enable the setting in the app to “Enable sync on refresh” that allows you to sync the vault with a pull down gesture (which is far more convenient than having to manually sync the vault by going through the settings menus).
So the “enable sync on refresh” option was turned off (why was this the default?!) and the app was also being battery optimized. I fixed that and now at least I can sync with just a pull down – and it does now also show the new entries, which was the biggest issue. Bitwarden still doesn’t sync unless I open the app and pull down to refresh, but it has never, in the years I’ve used it, done that. Not on PC, iPhone, iPad, Android, Mac…nothing. It’s NEVER just refreshed in the background, so I figure it just doesn’t do that even though it claims to.
Unless I’ve got a setting wrong somewhere, but it seems unlikely since it happens across multiple devices and platforms.
Anyway, thanks for the help! If you know how to fix that sync-in-the-background thing, that’d be great lol.
Yes, that’s really strange. I have had BW running on at least 4 Android devices and an iPad and I have never encountered this either.
You might consider reaching out to the Bitwarden Support team in case they have seen this problem before. Unfortunately, I am stumped on this one. Hope you get it solved quickly!
I reached out a while back about that issue and they said be patient, it’s coming in an update. The update came and I still haven’t been able to get it to work. Since you have, it must just be a setting somewhere on my end, so maybe I’ll dig around some and see if I can get it working. If it doesn’t work though, I’ll still be happy that I have Bitwarden for free and that it now, at least, works like it used to on my iPhone (now that I’ve fixed the settings I borked lol).