Even when I was a Lastpass user, this never happened to me.
Bitwarden just wiped all my data (passwords, identities, secure notes, etc.) and when I went to their support, all they could say was that there was nothing they could do. They couldn’t even tell why everything was wiped (my account is literally like a new one). They didn’t try to investigate the problem. It was “good luck with that and get lost”. Worst of all, they can’t even give me my data back.
I mean, I managed to get it back myself, but trusting a company with my security information and having this kind of problem is just unacceptable, especially since I got my YubiKeys and was going to get a subscription to use them on my account to improve my security.
If I’m already pissed as a (former) user, I’d be even more pissed if I was a paying customer at the time of the incident (luckily my YubyKeys delivery was delayed).
So the least I can do is warn the community: don’t trust Bitwarden completely. They are not that trustworthy. Always keep your backups up to date and have a second (or even third) alternative in case something like this happens; it may be a bit more work, but it’s worth it to rely on a company that simply doesn’t protect its users’ data.
Are you sure the data is gone? I had a similar scare a week ago when I added the browser extension to a different browser. I had been logged into my vault on my other browser, and after I added the extension to the new browser and logged in, everything was blank. I started freaking out and noticed that on the original browser, everything was blank there too.
Now more freaked out, I logged into the web interface and thankfully everything was still there. Shortly afterwards I was able to see everything in my vault using the extensions in both browsers.
I suspect there is some logic built in so that if a user is logged into browser A and then logs into browser B with for the first time, the vault is purged (if that’s the correct term) from the PC until some time goes by. Of course, I could be wrong on that.
Try logging into the web interface and see if your data is still there.
Hey @Kairion the team has followed up on this ticket and there is nothing indicating that your information has mistakenly been removed, please review the information they provided, including ensuring you are trying to access the correct account.
I will say that I agree with this sentiment in any regards, for Bitwarden or any company/product you are using.
Only the individual can ensure proper ownership of their data. Between any number of catastrophes, disaster planning and having multiple backups are critical for sensitive and important information.
Thankfully Bitwarden believes your data is your data and makes the process to export your vault fairly easy, as well as many wonderful community scripts to automate the process as well. (I have used many corporate software which you quickly learn will have “Vendor lock-in” where it becomes very easy to get your data in, but very difficult to get your data back out)
I truly hope this experience does not sour your opinion and you will continue to give the team the chance to assist.
Hopefully your issue can come to a resolution, and I would also always welcome you to reach out to the community here for any questions you may have as well.
Few days ago I logged into microsoft edge bitwarden extension (after all sessions ended) and my vault was completely empty. I logged out, logged back in and all data came back (nothing lost). So Bitwarden seems to have some problem loading the vault and sometimes you have to login again
Well, there wouldn’t be anything indicating that because, according to Adam (support rep.), and I quote:
Bitwarden does not log its users’ activity, and it is not possible for me to investigate what happened in your vault
So there’s not much to review from “the information they provided” and since it’s my only account (Bitwarden’s ToS state that I can’t have more than one, right?) of course I’m accessing the correct one.
But sure, blame the user instead of admitting your service’s flaw.
Yep, sadly I’m sure. The first thing I did was checking all my devices and browsers: phone, Firefox, Chrome, Bitwarden Desktop and Vault Web. Fortunately I had an unused device where my account was logged in and without internet connection and managed to export my data. Right after connecting it to the internet all data was wiped as well.
Well, not a chance. I have no reason to trust Bitwarden again.
Fool me once and it’s shame on you, fool me twice and it’s shame on me, right?
I just thought it was the right thing to let the community know Bitwarden isn’t that different from Lastpass, for example. All in all, they don’t give a damn about their users.
Sadly it wasn’t the case. Between that incident and now I logged in multiple times, on multiple devices, browsers extensions and vault web. All my data was simply wiped without a trace.
I would not make this kind of guess. What reason should the OP have to come here, sign up and then state a lie ? The thing is that we do not know what happened. So in here in the forum - like in the “real world” - we have to assume that people tell the truth and do not have a hidden agenda. And that is the only way a forum like this can work.
You are permitted to have more than one account, provided only one of them is a free account. Terms notwithstanding, there is nothing to prevent a user from creating more than one free account.
Furthermore, I see nothing in the descriptions of your interactions with Bitwarden that suggests they do not care about their users.
@bwuser10000 That’s your right, it wouldn’t change what happened. I did manage to get it back from a device disconnected from the internet which had a old version. I lost some new passwords (the unsynced ones), but I still was able to recover the most so I’d guess I was lucky. As I said, as soon as that device was connected to the internet it lost all my data as well.
@Eugene99 As I said above, why would I lie? I literally have no reason nor will gain anything from that. I’m not even expecting Bitwarden to admit there’s some flaw on their service. I just thought other people should know they have to be careful and to not blindly trust Bitwarden.
@ grb You’re right, but Bitwarden support is aware that I do only have a free account so it would be a violation of Bitwarden’s ToS to have more than one account and I wouldn’t do that because (1) why would I need or want more than one account? and (2) it’s not in my conduct to violate something I agreed to.
About they caring or not about their users it should be fairly simple to understand. Their service has a flaw, that flaw made a user lose all its data. All they can say is: you’re not paying so we can’t find out what happened and you’re on your own.
If I hadn’t find an old device which had a previous sync from my vault I’d have lost all my data (while I was talking to them that was the case since I remembered this old phone long after last talking to them). That’s pretty much the description of not caring about their users, at least to me, and you’re fine to disagree.
My point is: Bitwarden shouldn’t be trusted. If you really like it, just download the source code and host by yourself. Or just find a service that really care about its users.
If the problem that @Kairion had was a common occurrence, then this forum would be flooded with complaints of a similar nature. Since it is not flooded, the problem must be rare. Then the question is how rare is it?
No software or hardware is 100% reliable. Usually people talk about how many nines of reliability. If Bitwarden is 99.99% reliable that is not very reliable. But if it is 99.99999999999999% most people would call Bitwarden “reliable” even though it is not 100% reliable.
Unfortunately, I think @Kairion ran into a very rare event early in his use of Bitwarden and understandably concluded Bitwarden is not “reliable”. I might have come to the same conclusion.
@Kairion I wish you the best of luck wherever you decide to go!
The same could be said about your computer. If it just stops working or crashes due to corruption is it the software/hardware vendors fault? Should that scenario not be trusted too? What about when you go out to your car in the morning and the car doesn’t turn on should the automaker, battery maker, starter maker not be trusted?
I think it’s a bit to call it that. I have had computers crash on me, but I’ve had backups. I have never had such a scenario with bitwarden but I have and take exported backups every once in a while. Same goes for cell phones, they can be dropped, damaged, lost, stolen, frequent backups will prevent a complete loss. Trust is one thing, I think this should be more termed reliability. Is bitwarden reliable of faults and defects. I for one self host my own instance and I enjoy the project, it works. I unfortunately have not experienced a mishap like you stated and is truly unfortunate. Some will troubleshoot and problem solve and figure out what may have happened or how it happened to prevent it, others can’t be bother and will move on with their day, others will just call it untrustworthy/unreliable.
It’s unfortunate but I do agree a majority of users have not experienced what you have. Something along the way went wrong and must have been a rare scenario. To me do I trust that my data won’t ever be corrupted or lost, can’t say 100% but that’s why I do backups for the what if. Can I say I trust/rely on this product more than some of the other products out there, I’d say most likely. I also had trusted lastpass for a decent time until I started seeing a repetitive thing occur, thus decreases their reliability and trust hence why I left and now came to bitwarden.
This is just an unfortunate circumstance in which I believe you can recover from. Lesson learned have a backup, keep it safely stored and encrypted via password protect or other means. It’s not typical that you’d have this issue again, but if it were to happen to me and happened again I’d contribute in figuring out what went wrong and providing a dialog to get to a resolution of the problem. If bitwarden blew it off, then I’d say I’m done with this project and find something else. Beauty of choice.
You’re literally the only person in the world this is happening to. What do you, work for LastPass or something? You realize LP has been compromised FOUR TIMES (that we know about) in just the last 3 years, right? Come on, dude.
While this may have crossed the minds of some, I believe we absolutely should give the OP the benefit of the doubt that their intentions with this posting are not nefariously in any means.
I truly see no reason as to why someone would come to make false claims as such, other than in some form of coordinated corporate attack to tarnish the brand which we would likely see multiple indicators of.
While I agree this may be an incredibly rare happenstance, possibly user error, or simply a strange bug it stands to reason that someone would come to the community here to vent their frustrations/opinions on the product and especially contact official support for a resolution.
I can imagine a new user experiencing an issue is one concern someone could possibly get over, but truly the level of support provided where it can reasonably be is another factor.
As well as being met with some abrasive attitudes and replies from users here, I would imagine this is enough to make anyone get a bad impression as a whole.
We would like to further the discussion as well bring a positive and productive experience for everyone involved.
I am not sure that is what @bw-admin meant, as I have seen Bitwarden as a company truly does care for all of its users. Even us “lowly” personal users or even free-tier users (as Bitwarden has even stated multiple times their free tier will always be a completely free and useable service for password management).
I also do not believe that this was the intended meaning behind this at all, more so that evenif you were a paying user, possibly even as a member of a business organization.
As you previously stated the reply provided by the Bitwarden Support team,
Due to their zero-knowledge architecture, Bitwarden still likely would not be able to assist you much to perform any “root cause analysis” or to examine any form of logs, etc.
Typically bug reports need to be replicable in the software in order to further diagnose and troubleshoot.
Thankfully Bitwarden is open-source so you are perfectly able to do just that.
Wonderful option with choices, and there are several choices out there.
All with their own pros & cons of course
