Why am i forced to enter pin everytime i close my browser?

Ask the Community Password Manager
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1

why am i forced to enter pin everytime i close my browser?

isnt it possible to have the extension available without pin by some hours?

2

When you close the browser, the extension timeout takes into effect. See here: Automatic Logout or Lock | Bitwarden

It is possible - if you don’t close the browser and set a vault timeout to “some hours”. (for security BTW it is recommend to set shorter periods)

3

Is it possible even though i close my browser?

I dont wanna enter the damn pincode all the time.

4

Yes, it is possible. There are three ways:

  1. Open a second browser window and minimize it. Then, forget about this second window. This keeps the browser itself running and therefore able to keep the vault unlocked for “some hours”.

  2. Making it less-drag to unlock by getting a Windows Hello camera so you can instead smile-for-the-camera.

  3. Set your vault timeout to “never”. This causes Bitwarden to write the equivalent of your Master Password onto your hard drive so that it can it can type it on your behalf when a new browser window starts.

Personally, I would never do #3 because things could get really bad if you lose your device or it gets infected.

5

@user96:

  1. It seems that you are just starting out with Bitwarden, and learning the basics. While you’re welcome to post as many questions as you would like while you are figuring things out, it may be better if you post any future questions in a single thread (e.g., “Questions from new Bitwarden user”) instead of opening a new thread for each of your questions.
  2. Please review the Community Guidelines on respectful communication, which sets the expectation that forum participants “avoid the use of profanity or offensive terminology.”
  3. Re-entering a PIN or password when the browser restarts is required by default, for security reasons. If you care more about convenience than security, you have the option to disable this requirement, but going to Settings > Account Security and setting the Vault Timeout to “Never”.
6

i tried #3. it worked.

however, im still confused why it wants a pincode even though i set the timelimit to for example 4h?

shouldnt vault timeout override pincode within that timelimit?

7

When you restart the browser, a new browser extension process is started, which has an assigned section of memory that is initially blank. To load your vault data into the process memory (so that you can see your vault contents), the browser extension first reads a local cache that has been stored on your computer hard drive. However, to safeguard your secrets, the stored data cache is always encrypted — this means that no one, not even the Bitwarden browser extension, can decrypt the encrypted vault data (thereby unlocking your vault) unless they have access to the required encryption key.

Because the Bitwarden browser extension process memory is always blank whenever you restart the browser, how can the extension get the key that it will need to decrypt your vault? There are only two possibilities:

  1. It reads the key from some storage location (hard disk or credential manager) on your computer.
  2. It generates the correct key value based on information entered by the user at the unlock prompt.

Case #1 is what happens when you set the Timeout to “Never”. Case #2 is what happens when you set the Timeout to something other than “Never”.

Vault timelimit to override pincode customizability
8

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