Autofill is unreliable

Hi,

I realized that the autofill feature is working very unreliable. It is very strange. Some sites work at one day, on the other it doesnt. I use the same browser/extension and still it is a 50/50 game if the data will be filled in or not. If not it is just “spinning” (the icon next to the user/pass). I have no idea how the autofill feature works, could this be connected to some extensions I use? Or having my firefox setting set very strict, regarding cookies/caches etc? Its not critical but a bit awkward, do other users have this problem?

Hello,

There can be multiple source of the problems with the autofill:

  • For some site we cannot auto fill. For example some bank sites setup iframes with different cross-domain policies, such as it is not possible for a script running a page to interact with the iframe.
  • Some site performs multiple redirections or url changes dynamically: the passbolt extension avoid entering data in such context voluntarily to prevent an attacker to trigger a redirect and capture password data.
  • When the browser refreshes in the background (like after an update, which can happen in the background) the script running on the page looses contact with the auto-fill popup because the port gets disconnected.
  • There may be instances where the page takes too much time to load and the script cannot be inserted/ready in time, e.g. the script running in the page is not ready when the order to autofill is sent.

We did some work last year to improve on this, but it seems by your feedback that it’s not sufficient. We’ll try to look into this.

Thanks for the reply! I can provide more information if you need them. It happens on big sites like gmx.de or even facebook.com. So if it would be one of the points you mentioned it would be the last. Is there a way to enable something like a debug log in the extension?

Can you share the specs of your machine (like OS, Chrome/Firefox version, ram/processor speed)?

Also you can check for errors in the browser extension console (different from the regular console):

Firefox 77.0.1 (64-bit), Manjaro (Archlike linux) up to date, 16GB ram DDR3, Notebook on intel i7 6700T CPU @ 2.80GHz

Extensions: HTTPS Everywhere: 2020.5.20, Passbolt Extension: 2.13.3, ublock Origin:1.27.10, Cookie AutoDelete:3.3.1

I will include some report if it happens again.

ok so this happened again and again sometimes it worked sometimes not. I could not figure out a pattern.

I am not super familiar with debugging extensions. If you can provide me with a way to create a debug log that is useful for you I could do it.

@momomomomo just a quick update, i’ve been working on this recently. I fixed the case 3 (when “the browser refreshes in the background (like after an update)”. I’ll add some additional debug information to be able to understand issue number 4 better. It will be in the next plugin release.

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I am ready to test it again. Just tell me when its done :slight_smile: