Solved Passwords not syncing from server

barefootcoder

My laptop melted down a few days ago and I finally managed to get a new hard drive in it and restored everything, including my Vivaldi folder (i.e. ~/.config/vivaldi). So, I brought up Vivaldi, and everything is still there, except passwords (and probably cookies). So I logged in via sync, thinking that would fix it, but it does not.

To be clear: my login to sync seems successful. Both login password and encryption password are accepted, and I've clicked "Start Syncing." Additionally, after a few moments, the "Last Synchronization Time" updates to the current time and "Download" says "Success." But I still have no passwords. (And very few cookies, which could easily have come from just reloading the tabs from my interrupted session.)

The only thing I found on searching here was references to keyring issues, but I'm not sure how that could apply here. I'm not using keyring (at least AFAIK) and I don't get prompted for a keyring password when starting Vivaldi, as it appears others do when using keyring. So I'm pretty sure that isn't it.

Any other thoughts? I'd appreciate any help getting this final little bit nailed down so I can be free and clear of this meltdown, finally. Thx guys.

barefootcoder

BADA BOOM!

Okay, worked it out. For any lurkers who want to make sure they're seeing the same problems as I was before trying to utilize my solution for themselves:

This page is quite instructive, even though it only talks about Windows. Turns out, Linux is doing the exact same thing, except it's using the keyring instead. (So when I said I wasn't using the keyring, I was wrong, although it is true that I have never been prompted for a keyring password when starting Vivaldi. FWIW.)
This page, OTOH, is the really useful one, because it taught me about chrome://sync-internals (this URL works in Vivaldi too, although it will automagically change to vivaldi://sync-internals (natch)).
Once I went there (this was in Chrome, but I presume the results would have been similar in Vivaldi), the table under "Type Info" was all green except for the "Passwords" line, which was red and contained the following error:

Error: MergeDataAndStartSyncing@../../components/password_manager/core/browser/sync/password_syncable_service.cc:193, datatype error was encountered: Failed to get passwords from store.

If your situation seems line up with this one, you may be able to benefit from my experience. However, I must stress that this is not a way to restore your lost passwords! My passwords were on the sync server, and I knew both my Vivaldi login password and the sync data encryption password, so that wasn't my concern. To reiterate, the situation I was trying to resolve was:

If I started with a fresh profile on the new machine, I lost anything that isn't sync'ed by Vivaldi. I believe this list consists of:
- Some settings.
- Your search engines.
- Your last tab session.
But there may also be other stuff as well.
Contrariwise, if I started with the restored profile from the old machine, I had everything except passwords (and I'm pretty sure cookies). Not only would my passwords not download from the sync server, but I also couldn't save new passwords.

Solution:

Before starting Vivaldi for the first time on the new machine, copy the old profile directory from your backup into ~/.config.
Remove your old passwords like so:

[braavos:~/.config] rm vivaldi/Default/Login\ Data*
removed 'vivaldi/Default/Login Data'
removed 'vivaldi/Default/Login Data 2-journal'
removed 'vivaldi/Default/Login Data-journal'

Start up Vivaldi (for the first time!) on the new machine.
It will (should) restore your previous tab session from the old machine. It will also tell you that you need to go to sync settings; click the button to do so.
Enter your Vivalidi login password and the sync data encryption password.
Give it a few seconds to complete the sync'ing.
Profit.

That's all there is to it. Hopefully my painful experience helps someone else out there.

barefootcoder

Okay, a couple days later, more info:

I don't have any passwords in Chrome either, despite the fact that I also restored my Chrome profile folder. Again, I have bookmarks, settings, extensions, even restoration of my previous tab session ... just no passwords. (Not sure about cookies.) I mention this because something I read somewhere suggested that Vivaldi may be using the Chrome password facility, so these issues could be connected.
At least in Chrome, I can't save new passwords either.

So now I'm wondering if there's some encryption something-or-other that was keyed to the old machine, but is now borked on the new machine. (Although it's fair to point out that this is technically the same hardware: just a new hard drive, and also a newer Linux distro.) One possibility would be to blow away the old profile dirs and create new ones, but then I wouldn't have all my other stuff (bookmarks and I think extensions and maybe settings would theoretically get re-sync'ed from the server, but IME search engines and tab sessions—at least!—would not). Which would make me very sad.

Is there any way I can have all my stuff? I feel like there ought to be, given I have all the data backed up. Any thoughts from anyone?

barefootcoder

BADA BOOM!

Okay, worked it out. For any lurkers who want to make sure they're seeing the same problems as I was before trying to utilize my solution for themselves:

This page is quite instructive, even though it only talks about Windows. Turns out, Linux is doing the exact same thing, except it's using the keyring instead. (So when I said I wasn't using the keyring, I was wrong, although it is true that I have never been prompted for a keyring password when starting Vivaldi. FWIW.)
This page, OTOH, is the really useful one, because it taught me about chrome://sync-internals (this URL works in Vivaldi too, although it will automagically change to vivaldi://sync-internals (natch)).
Once I went there (this was in Chrome, but I presume the results would have been similar in Vivaldi), the table under "Type Info" was all green except for the "Passwords" line, which was red and contained the following error:

Error: MergeDataAndStartSyncing@../../components/password_manager/core/browser/sync/password_syncable_service.cc:193, datatype error was encountered: Failed to get passwords from store.

If your situation seems line up with this one, you may be able to benefit from my experience. However, I must stress that this is not a way to restore your lost passwords! My passwords were on the sync server, and I knew both my Vivaldi login password and the sync data encryption password, so that wasn't my concern. To reiterate, the situation I was trying to resolve was:

If I started with a fresh profile on the new machine, I lost anything that isn't sync'ed by Vivaldi. I believe this list consists of:
- Some settings.
- Your search engines.
- Your last tab session.
But there may also be other stuff as well.
Contrariwise, if I started with the restored profile from the old machine, I had everything except passwords (and I'm pretty sure cookies). Not only would my passwords not download from the sync server, but I also couldn't save new passwords.

Solution:

Before starting Vivaldi for the first time on the new machine, copy the old profile directory from your backup into ~/.config.
Remove your old passwords like so:

[braavos:~/.config] rm vivaldi/Default/Login\ Data*
removed 'vivaldi/Default/Login Data'
removed 'vivaldi/Default/Login Data 2-journal'
removed 'vivaldi/Default/Login Data-journal'

Start up Vivaldi (for the first time!) on the new machine.
It will (should) restore your previous tab session from the old machine. It will also tell you that you need to go to sync settings; click the button to do so.
Enter your Vivalidi login password and the sync data encryption password.
Give it a few seconds to complete the sync'ing.
Profit.

That's all there is to it. Hopefully my painful experience helps someone else out there.

aldem

Big Thanks!

barefootcoder

Got a brand new laptop and ran into this same problem again, and this solution still works (now using Vivaldi 3.1). This time I didn't even have to remove the Login Data files before firing up the browsers. Works on Chrome and Vivaldi. Sometimes when you post your solutions on the Internet the future person you help is yourself.

xTye

I love you, it worked!