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Autofill isn't working on mobile (generally or for a specific site or app)

Open eliykat opened this issue 4 years ago • 60 comments

Describe the Bug

We are aware of some situations where the Bitwarden mobile app will not autofill information correctly. This may be due to:

  • the particular website or app you're trying to autofill
  • the particular browser being used (including first and third party browsers)
  • the mobile operating system and/or its version (Android vs. iOS)
  • the mobile device (hardware)
  • some other combination of factors

This includes situations where:

  • autofill does not work at all
  • autofill does not work consistently
  • autofill otherwise does not work as expected

This is something the Bitwarden team is actively working on but need your help as a community and active Bitwarden users!

Note: this issue is for the Bitwarden mobile app only. If you're having issues with the browser extension on a computer, please go to this issue instead.

Expected Result

If you have autofill enabled (following the instructions for Android or iOS, and you click a field in a login form in your mobile browser or an app, you should have the option to autofill the credentials from your Bitwarden vault.

Actual Result

This works most of the time, but not always and it can depend on many, many factors. Some sites, apps or devices simply don't work, some don't work consistently and others who knows. This is what we're aiming to fix!

Call to Action

Below is a link to a Google Form that we have created for capturing information that will help us track down all of these pages, apps, devices and/or OS versions where Bitwarden has failed to autofill your information. You may submit as many as you like, just please help us help you and the community by providing meaningful information and only those sites/pages where it legitimately doesn't work.

Report autofill failure - mobile

If you've been sent to this issue because another issue you had open was closed as a duplicate, thank you for taking the time to submit the issue to us, however we truly need to track this under a single item in aggregate fashion so we can manage it holistically and ensure we're taking broad measures that will improve this behavior with the maximum benefit to all. Please consider using the linked form above to submit the prior sites you had reported in the issue closed.

eliykat avatar Apr 28 '21 23:04 eliykat

@eliykat is there any news maybe? It's soon 3 months that "the Bitwarden team is actively working on" fixing the longstanding autofill issues, part of which been reported years ago but never cared about, and the commit history unfortunately does not indicate any progress so far.

larena1 avatar Jul 11 '21 10:07 larena1

I counted 62 referenced issues.

When my issue was closed this issue didn't even accurately reflect the problem that was described in the original issue.

I will admit, autofill has gotten better but I can't help but feel annoyed that so many people put in effort to help diagnose the problems with autofill only to be swept under the rug.

Edit: Why even bother going from a public issue tracker to a Google Form?

douglasparker avatar Jul 11 '21 12:07 douglasparker

Hi @douglasparker and @larena1 - thanks for your feedback here. I can confirm that this is an active research endeavor - no code commits yet, as we need to use a scalable and sustainable mechanism for this. We actually have brought additional roles into the engineering realm to assist with many of the autofill/autosave items.

@douglasparker we use the google sheet as a faster way to compare URLs, etc. than within comments on issues.

tgreer-bw avatar Jul 11 '21 19:07 tgreer-bw

As the Auto-Fill 'feature' has never, ever worked at all for me on any of my devices, I just don't use it. Sure, at first it was very frustrating for me- but once I came to the conclusion that it does not work, will not ever work, and therefore is not really a feature at all- I was relieved of this irritation.

In fact, this is not a Bitwarden problem. Auto-Fill never worked right for me even before Bitwarden was on any of my devices.

I just use the quick setting tile, and save the info I need to the clipboard (keyboard, not system) and type the other info.

Yes, it is a hassle. But much less so than trying to get Auto-Fill to work.

puppykickr avatar Jul 22 '21 02:07 puppykickr

Is there any time frame to improve the Auto-Fill behavior following the inputs provided in the google doc file?

heiserhorn avatar Aug 10 '21 09:08 heiserhorn

have you considered the possibility of an unknown malware capturing the password to certain apps? It kinda seems like the login details are getting captured in transit from vault to the certain app. I've run lots of scans with many products but well no can detect Pegasus yet only look for traces. I have reason to believe my device has been targeted by someone. I've submitted the Google Form just now with the details

geoffsterr avatar Aug 11 '21 10:08 geoffsterr

I have reason to believe my device has been targeted by someone.

If your device was compromised, all of your accounts would be compromised and you'd be well aware of that by now.

Bitwarden can't protect you from a device that is compromised.

douglasparker avatar Aug 11 '21 13:08 douglasparker

hi well it's not quite as simple as that, and I don't recall asking anything about needing protection, I was simply giving the background and a possible area to look at as a cause I thought was pretty simple to make out without your massive assumptions

geoffsterr avatar Aug 11 '21 13:08 geoffsterr

hi well it's not quite as simple as that, and I don't recall asking anything about needing protection, I was simply giving the background and a possible area to look at as a cause

It's most definitely not malware that is causing the autofill issues.

I thought was pretty simple to make out without your massive assumptions

Yeah, okay bud. 👍

douglasparker avatar Aug 11 '21 13:08 douglasparker

@eliykat @Greenderella

Another month now and still no traces of any progress to be seen. Would you mind sharing the status with us? Autofill is not an overly complicated feature IMHO. In case of native Android autofill it's just parsing the view structure and feeding the right data back to the system.

For the most part it's working as it is but it'll always fill the password into the username field on sites where there's only a username field like Amazon eBay PayPal Microsoft etc and that there's no fallback in match detection to detect hostname when only the hostname is provided like through native Android autofill APIs but the entry has match detection set to starts with.

larena1 avatar Aug 16 '21 18:08 larena1

On Samsung browser, if you close Samsung browser (recents, swipe up) and relaunch it, bitwarden works and you get the inline autofill. It works for a while, and then after some minutes it stops again. So, it's definitely some sort of timer or timeout that is going on, that somehow kills the autofill service for the browser.

yurividal avatar Aug 23 '21 09:08 yurividal

Autofill is working on Android 10 devices and I've only been running into it not filling forms sporadically since upgrading my M1 Macbook Air to build 21A5304g of the Monterrey beta and my phone to build 19A5325f of the iOS 15 beta. The failures are occuring with the browser extensions for Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on macOS and iOS. When I describe the issue as sporadic I mean that it stops working for every site for a period of time (sometimes hours but this most recent autofill failure has been going on for nearly a week now). I'm applying the 15 beta 7 update to iOS this morning and hoping that whatever they changed is resolved as they work on the new browser extension support for mobile Safari, etc. Will advise.

UPDATE: Updating to 15 beta (19A5337a) seems to have resolved the autofill problem.

cstrouse avatar Aug 26 '21 13:08 cstrouse

@eliykat @Greenderella

Another month now and still no traces of any progress to be seen. Would you mind sharing the status with us? Autofill is not an overly complicated feature IMHO. In case of native Android autofill it's just parsing the view structure and feeding the right data back to the system.

For the most part it's working as it is but it'll always fill the password into the username field on sites where there's only a username field like Amazon eBay PayPal Microsoft etc and that there's no fallback in match detection to detect hostname when only the hostname is provided like through native Android autofill APIs but the entry has match detection set to starts with. ==============

I would say that Autofill is a wildly complicated feature, depending on 10's of items all working at the same time to have a successfull 'fill.

Truth be told, I've used bitwarden for years and have loved it. Recently, I've tried "straying" to other PW managers (e.g. 1password, Keeper). They have more pleasing interfaces, and I just wanted to see what was out there. Well, I can tell you I'm back to Bitwarden, and I'll probably "stray" in 3-5 years again to test the waters.

Bitwarden, ,while not perfect, is in my opinion the top in terms of functionality. With autofill, yes, it doesnt always pop up perfectly, and/or doesn't make the right pick from my vault, BUT I always have the access to BW via the QuickTiles, and can quickly get the Username/Password/TOTP that I need, and those things can't be said for Keeper or 1PW etc. Those other apps: if they don't get a perfect match with your vault records, pow, you get nothing. NOTHING. BW has multiple redundancies / paths at hand.

With BW, I know that I have multiple routes to get my info that i need. It either (a) works and pops up the autofill button and (a1) gives me the correct info or (a2) I can pick from the list of comparable logins or (1c) I can choose to search my entire vault and copy and paste manually OR (b) doesn't pop up and I can (b1) go to the QuickTiles and pick either (b2) Auto-fill or (b3) My Vault and get my info that way (I don't find the Auto-fill quicktile to work that frequently, but I still try it).

I want to thank @kspearrin and @tgreer-bw et al for their continued improvements with the app, and I've learned to be patient with the process. Oh, and btw, nice new avatar @kspearrin (although you did look like quite the jet pilot in your prior one)

THEOCKID avatar Sep 04 '21 08:09 THEOCKID

Hi, please do not take this as impoliteness to your team.

KepassDX password manager has no issue with autofill in my Android 10 except that it does not copy OTP. Since it is opensource, do you believe is worth a look how they are doing it?

Thanks

AnthillSudoku avatar Sep 30 '21 14:09 AnthillSudoku

I have recently updated my Samsung Galaxy s21 to android 12 Beta (OneUI 4) and i can confirm that inline autofill has started to work as intended! Seems to work every time, using Samsung browser or chrome. No more timeouts (as of yet. It's been 3 days)

yurividal avatar Oct 08 '21 07:10 yurividal

I have recently updated my Samsung Galaxy s21 to android 12 Beta (OneUI 4) and i can confirm that inline autofill has started to work as intended! Seems to work every time, using Samsung browser or chrome. No more timeouts (as of yet. It's been 3 days)

Unfortunately, after a couple of days the same behavior is back. Autofill works for a while and then it stops. The only way to get it back is to kill the browser app and reopen it, Then it works again for a while. This is SO ANNOYING!!!

yurividal avatar Oct 27 '21 20:10 yurividal

More than half a year now and nothing but empty words so far. I was kind of expecting this having seen how issues were being dealt with (or not dealt with at all) in recent years but had a little hope nonetheless.

larena1 avatar Nov 02 '21 16:11 larena1

Yeah, I was hoping to see some improvements in this area.

Can anyone on the Bitwarden team provide an update?

douglasparker avatar Nov 02 '21 16:11 douglasparker

More than half a year now and nothing but empty words so far. I was kind of expecting this having seen how issues were being dealt with (or not dealt with at all) in recent years but had a little hope nonetheless.

This seems to be a very complex bug, that involves not only the password manager but also the browsers and maybe even the keyboards. But, I agree... it is frustrating indeed to have such an issue on a crucial part of the app, and still persist after more than 1 year...

yurividal avatar Nov 02 '21 16:11 yurividal

More than half a year now and nothing but empty words so far. I was kind of expecting this having seen how issues were being dealt with (or not dealt with at all) in recent years but had a little hope nonetheless.

This seems to be a very complex bug, that involves not only the password manager but also the browsers and maybe even the keyboards. But, I agree... it is frustrating indeed to have such an issue on a crucial part of the app, and still persist after more than 1 year...

It is not that complex at all. It's just that apparently nobody is working on it and that the last official reply was soon 4 months ago.

larena1 avatar Nov 02 '21 16:11 larena1

So I got a new Pixel 6 Pro, and had issues, but I've figured out how to get it to work and it hasn't failed me in >2 days (and I use BW a TON!):

Go into BW on your phone

Go to Auto-fill Services, and turn off everything: 1st Use Inline Autofill, then Auto-fill Service. Then Use Draw-Over, then Use Accessibility

Quit BW

Close all apps

Restart phone

Upon restart, run BW and re-enable the 4 options above.

Seems to be working for me. If needed, before you restart, you could go to Apps (on Android) and open BW and Clear Cache, and could even Clear Data, then restart, then re-enable the 4 options.

Please let me know if this helped.

THEOCKID avatar Nov 02 '21 16:11 THEOCKID

@larena1 pls chill a little. These guys aren't some big mega-company. And what does BW cost you? $10 a year? Let's have some empathy here.

And BTW, I have tried Keeper, having thought of jumping ship from BW. It's pretty, but also not nearly as functional as BW. I know, BW isn't for everyone (I'm a function over form guy), but it's pretty solid and I've been using it for .... 6+ years now?

@larena1 pls try my technique above, lemme know if it works for you

THEOCKID avatar Nov 02 '21 17:11 THEOCKID

So I got a new Pixel 6 Pro, and had issues, but I've figured out how to get it to work and it hasn't failed me in >2 days (and I use BW a TON!):

Go into BW on your phone

Go to Auto-fill Services, and turn off everything: 1st Use Inline Autofill, then Auto-fill Service. Then Use Draw-Over, then Use Accessibility

Quit BW

Close all apps

Restart phone

Upon restart, run BW and re-enable the 4 options above.

Seems to be working for me. If needed, before you restart, you could go to Apps (on Android) and open BW and Clear Cache, and could even Clear Data, then restart, then re-enable the 4 options.

Please let me know if this helped.

The thing is that for android 11 and 12, we should NOT be using Draw over and accessibility. These are legacy methods that do not use the built-in auto-fill api.

Even if this is a workaround, it's not a valid one. The bitwarden team needs to look into what is causing the bitwarden autofill agent to go into sleep.

yurividal avatar Nov 02 '21 17:11 yurividal

Autofill does work for the most part but there's issues like bitwarden filling the password into the username field on PayPal eBay Google login etc and little issues like https://github.com/bitwarden/mobile/issues/1509 that could be fixed easily... If anybody was working on it but that's not the case and it's a pity

larena1 avatar Nov 02 '21 17:11 larena1

OK, I've given you a method to get it to work, @yurividal . Maybe BW isn't for you. Try 1Password or LastPass, see how they work.

@larena1 : I'm not sure how you have determined that "(nobody is) working on it". @kspearrin and (sorry, forgot the other guys name) (@tgreer-bw , sorry) are on here all the time. As above, maybe a diff PW manager would be better for you. Putting negativity on this site may make you feel better, but it's really doing nothing to forward the cause for BW.

let's buck up, campers. If you wanna help, help. If you wanna complain, then be pleasant/positiive, or just shove off.

THEOCKID avatar Nov 02 '21 17:11 THEOCKID

I personally stopped using BW because of the Android performance. Inline Autofill not working reliably. Some sites not recognized at all. I appreciate the workarounds but satisfying my needs at the moment. Will come back in the future to see where we stand on this.

heiserhorn avatar Nov 07 '21 17:11 heiserhorn

@heiserhorn What are you using instead? I'm planning to do the same.

olfek avatar Nov 07 '21 18:11 olfek

@olfek I am trying a few and have not decided yet.

heiserhorn avatar Nov 07 '21 19:11 heiserhorn

I found a workaround for Firefox here https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/20987#issuecomment-904772802

Workaround for this: 1- tap to password area 2- press to three dot to open Firefox menu 3- press outside of menu to close it

Also, there is bugzilla report https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693152

This is also reported in issue https://github.com/bitwarden/mobile/issues/1479

julian-alarcon avatar Dec 04 '21 13:12 julian-alarcon

https://myid.telstra.com/identity/as/authorization.oauth2?redirect_uri=com.telstra.mobile.android.mytelstra%3A%2F%2Foauth2redirect&client_id=mytelstra-mobile-android&response_type=code&prompt=login&state=jh7Hle0JfHGCCk5S3YuT4g&scope=openid%20app.mytelstra.mobile%20m2w&code_challenge=Ppa1bnRLC6Ei9ig_rmWTooxv6BurGm-V_PccX-SGnlE&code_challenge_method=S256

The Username box does not get detected by Bitwarden at all until you enter the username, and then tap continue to reveal the password box.

ghost avatar Dec 05 '21 22:12 ghost