Sync Problems and Solutions
Below are the most common issues that customers experience with syncing between iPhone/iPod touch and Mac.
Sync Won’t Start
This problem most often appears as your iPhone/iPod touch not appearing in the list of available devices in the Wifi Sync window on your Mac, or the sync process appears to start but never completes. There are many reasons this can happen and below are the causes we have found.
Local Area Networks Only
Be sure both your iPhone/iPod touch and Mac are on the same LAN (Local Area Network), and that your iPhone’s WiFi is enabled. It sounds obvious, but the iPhone likes to find new networks. Be sure to check your iPhone is on the same network as your Mac by opening the Settings app and viewing the WiFi setting at the top. You can change your iPhone’s WiFi network by tapping that WiFi setting and picking a different network from the list or manually entering one.
If you have your own WiFi router at home, your Mac may be connected via ethernet, as long as your iPhone or iPod touch is connected to that router’s WiFi network.
Close Sync Windows and Retry
Sometimes the Sync windows on the iPhone and Mac can get out of sync. To see if this was the case, cancel the sync on the iPhone and close the Authorization window on the Mac by clicking the “Reject” button and then trying again. If you do not close the window on the Mac, then on the next authorization request you could accidentally enter the code into the old window and this will fail.
Upgrade to Latest iPhone firmware
Several users have reported that upgrading to the latest iPhone OS firmware solved all their syncing issues. Be sure to use iTunes to upgrade your iPhone or iPod touch to Apple’s latest firmware.
Restart the iPhone and Mac Applications
Sometimes all that is required to get the sync going is to restart the iPhone and Mac applications. Some users have reported that syncing failed consistently until they rebooted their Mac, iPhone, and Router. This obviously should not be required, but it is possible one of the systems gets into a bad state and prevents syncing. Some other users have reported that 1Password for Mac was not able to detect the availability of the iPhone on the network until they quit and restarted 1Password on their Mac.
Reinstall 1Password on iPhone or iPod touch
If all else fails, a full reinstall might solve the issue. Be absolutely sure sure to backup your data from the device first, since deleting the app on the iPhone also deletes the data. This should effectively resets the sync process.
Troubleshooting Ideas for Sync Issues
If none of the suggestions above work, there are a few things you can do to troubleshoot your Mac and network setup.
Wi-Fi Sync Using an Ad-Hoc Network
Using a computer-to-computer (Ad-Hoc) network can help quickly determine if the Wi-Fi syncing problem is related to the network. Here’s how to set up ad-hoc syncing. If syncing works this way, it is a strong sign that the root problem with regular WiFi syncing lies in your network.
Verify whether your Mac and iPhone or iPod touch can communicate
Apple’s Bonjour service, which makes it easy for devices to find each other on a network, may be disable on your Mac. 1Password relies on Apple’s Bonjour service to easily find your device, so you can troubleshoot the problem by checking if it is enabled and running as follows:
The Applications folder contains a folder named Utilities. Inside of that folder is an Apple application named Activity Monitor. Start Activity Monitor. Select All Processes from the drop down menu so that you are viewing everything. Look for the presence of mDNSResponder as shown in this screenshot.
If mDNSResponder is not running, use the Terminal application (also in the Utilities folder) and copy and paste the following command:
sudo launchctl load -w /System/Library/LaunchDaemons/com.apple.mDNSResponder.plist
Verify that mDNSResponder is now a running process in Activity Monitor and try to authorize the 1Password touch sync again. You may need to restart 1Password on your Mac once more to kickstart the process.
Other Sync Problems
If the sync process starts and appears to run fine, but another problem occurs, this section is for you.
Data Duplication
In earlier versions of 1Password the sync could get confused and create duplicate items. The easiest way to solve this issue is to reinstall 1Password on your iPhone/iPod touch (this will cause all your data to be removed and require you to setup a new PIN and Master Password) and then perform a fresh sync with the Desktop.
Sync Runs Continuously
Sometimes the same item will be synced between the Desktop and iPhone/iPod touch. Version 2.1 of 1Password for iPhone/iPod touch addresses this issue so be sure to verify you have the latest version installed.
Reauthorization Required
You should only need to authorize 1Password once with your Mac. During the “handshake”, after the secret codes are exchanged, your device is authorized and it should stay authorized.
If you are being forced to reauthorize multiple times, make sure you are only using one copy of 1Password on your iPhone/iPod touch. Having both the Standard and Pro Editions on the same device is technically okay, but you cannot sync them both with the Desktop without reauthorizing each time. This is because the Desktop stores the authentication code using the device id.