Windows Hello keeps unchecking itself in desktop settings

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1

Been battling this issue for a while now and I have started to get too annoyed so finally posting something here. I used to have no problem logging into my Bitwarden app using Windows Hello, however since recently the behaviour from the desktop app is like follows:

ezgif.com-crop

Before this it mostly would happen that after clicking OK on the Windows Hello popup it would give a yellow text saying “something went wrong please try again”, which then just never resolved itself until I reenabled Windows Hello in the Bitwarden settings, but that as you can see is now impossible.

Any idea how I can solve this issue?

1 Like
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Hi @anon19275117 and welcome to the community,

Have you tried to possibly uninstall and reinstall the Desktop application?

I would also confirm, are you using the standard installer for the Desktop client? IRRC the Windows Store application does not support Windows Hello integration and Biometrics Unlock support.

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Thank you for your reply @cksapp! I have reinstalled Bitwarden using the .exe downloaded from the website (so not the windows store) and the behaviour remains the same out of the box: the Unlock with Windows Hello checkbox instantly unchecks itself after the Windows Hello popup is gone.

4

I am getting the same problem.

I had to uninstall and reinstall the desktop app after an update rendered it unusable. (the login screen would keep reloading).

after reinstallation i am able to login but unable to enable Windows Hello login.
experience the exact same behavior as OP

5

I am encountering exactly the same issue after a windows reinstall… I’ve tried reinstalling the app but it still does the same thing. Any ideas?

6

Happening again with v2024.5.0.

I had to revert to v2024.4.3 to get up and running.

Raised Cannot enable Biometics (Unlock with Windows Hello) in v2024.5.0 (Windows, Desktop). · Issue #9516 · bitwarden/clients · GitHub to track it.

7

I had this issue. I uninstalled the desktop client. Then reinstalled but use ‘as administrator’. Working fine now.

8

This issue is happening again. Environment is a fresh install of Windows 11 Pro on a Microsoft Surface Laptop 7th gen (ARM64). Bitwarden Desktop Client version is 2024.11.2 and was installed (twice) using “Run as Administrator”.

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Same here. Just reinstalled windows yesterday and after that the issue started.

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Got it working again. So, the “solution” for me was to completely uninstall Bitwarden, downloaded the 2024.11.2 version from GitHub Releases page and re-install from the ground up after also completely removing everything I could find under ~/AppData folder.
After re-installed, ran it for the first time as admin and went through the windows hello configuration successfully.

Worked, but it’s a shame having to figure that out by myself since it could at least provide more details about the issue.

11

same problem, windows hello doesn’t work for unlocking the vault at reboot. btw, why have the menu items for windows hello and browser integration in the windows store version if they aren’t available?

2 Likes
13

I just found a solution, maybe…

  1. I uninstalled Bitwarden using BCUninstaller.
  2. I rebooted the Laptop.
  3. I downloaded Bitwarden.exe
  4. Installed “as administrator”
  5. Retried with windows hello activation and it worked fine.
  6. Hope it won’t decide to stop working again… :stuck_out_tongue:

Ciao!

1 Like
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