Do not update any bitwarden client until you can update vaultwarden
this post was submitted on 24 Jul 2026
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If anyone's Firefox auto updated like mine you can uninstall the extension, go to the Bitwarden extension page on the Firefox website and manually install the old version. Only needed if you can't update vaultwarden right away.
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I found this comment on what happened by dani-garcia, one of the main devs:
The short version is that around 8-ish years ago, Bitwarden changed the way the vault items were structured, and Vaultwarden added some backwards compatibility fields to ensure both old and new versions of the clients worked.
These backwards compatibility fields were supposed to be a temporary measure, but for at least the next three years the clients still required them, until we eventually forgot to keep track of them. At some point between 2021 and today, the clients stopped requiring these backwards compatibility fields, but Vaultwarden was still sending them.
This wasn't a problem until Bitwarden decided to use the backwards compatibility fields in a completely different way, which caused the clients to crash.
Found here: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/discussions/7473
I do love docker + a front end like dockge.
Saw this post, switched to my browser, clicked three buttons; vaultwarden is now updated. Didn't even move my lazy ass off the couch. (I'm on my phone)
Thanks for the PSA! :)
I love podman quadlets, I didn't do anything and it updated itself 😁
I run watchtower on a cron schedule. It had already fired for today, so it wouldn't have run again until tomorrow. I could have waited, but manual is just as easy.
Be aware that watchtowerr is not updated anymore and due to the nature of having access to the socket is a security risk.
That's one of the joys of FOSS, when the dev for a popular project can't continue; there's often someone willing to pick up the torch and carry it forward.
I switched to this fork when the one you're thinking of ended development.
https://github.com/nicholas-fedor/watchtower
Last update 3 days ago.
I can recommend Arcane as a front end. I switched over all my services this last week from multiple dockges to a single arcane (+agents). It's looking pretty sweet now. Cleans up a lot of bookmarks too 😆
Homepage is my main front end/landing page for reaching/monitoring all my services; but I've got both my dockge instances linked together as well, so all my services show up in both.
wow didn't know dockge could do that!
I was looking for a simple solution like that, thank you kind stranger!
Thanks so much for the PSA. I'm currently on vacation without any chance to update Vaultwarden but need access to it via the Bitwarden client. Just disabled the auto update in time. I wish I could vote this twice.
Enjoy your vacation! ~
i'm in shadowzone's house right now and vaultwarden's working great :3
I've been leery about bitwarden client updates since the posts awhile back about the new(ish) PE/VC c suite person.
I'm not saying those are related in any way other than the fact that I intentionally haven't updated my clients to the latest yet and for once it worked out for me :)
Its a lot of coincidences
As soon as that news came down I immediately went to my extension and turned off auto-updates. Glad I did now!
Wow! Thanks for the PSA!
Ps. I notice your msn avatar. I'm busy with https://retromessenger.com/. Coming soon for free!
Would love this to work with Signal and Matrix!
Yah that's possible. I just implemented telegram for now. But depending on the open api like matrix should work for sure as well. Has signal also an open client api?
The whole client is open source, but idk if you can simply call the API with a token for a linked device or something. Pretty sure Signal doesn't want "chatbots" on their networks and it might be against ToS.
uhm.. yeah I need to look into that. with Telegram, I needed to register a special "telegram app token" and on top of that you still need to login with your own credentials. But I'm just using the official tdlib for that.
Very nice, I even considered using escargot to patch the old clients but then realized it's not a great idea security wise
Yeah escargot just doesn't do it for me. I want to keep using the existing chat network I use daily. But just giving back the MSN vibes.
I created it using gtk4. So it's cross platform as well. Meaning Linux native. Which I also wanted.
Thank you for the PSA good friend!
Noticed that as well with our selfhosted instance at work and wondered what the deal was.
Guess I now know why.
Thanks, probably saved me a lot of headache on my laptop browsers. Fortunately, I don't use the official Bitwarden client on android partly because this seems to keep happening.
I've been using the bitwarden android app for about a year and a half with zero issue 🤷
This would be the 3rd time since I've been using it that it has broken compatibility with Vaultwarden, but Vaultwarden always fixes it pretty quickly. But usually browser plugins end up updating before I get around to updating Vaultwarden.
Was wondering why it suddenly was stuck loading, thanks!
Yeah I updated bitearden yesterday and my vault would not load any items. Glad this bug is already fixed!
Thank you for this. I thought I was going insane. Time to turn auto updates off
Per the vault warden release notes:
We strongly advice to update as soon as possible.
With the vulnerabilities being patched these days, it seems ill asvised to disable automatic updates for something as critical as a password manager.
it seems ill asvised to disable automatic updates
I use the WatchTower fork for now, but I use it with the run once flag:
volumes:
- /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock
command: --run-once --cleanup
So, when an update is available, I'll delay updating until I am rather comfortable that all the early adopters have worked out all the bugs for me. LOL Thanks guys! You're an invaluable service.
The packaged Debian version did not get updated yet.
Tale as old as time.
It did get already updated though 😅
Thanks for the PSA, I got hit before any of this was live
“Accidental” — you are far more trusting than I
If you check the github discussion from the devs that patched the issue it doesn't seem intentional to me (not an expert). That being said I assumed the same thing.
My browser auto updated the extension at a very inopportune time and from some reason KDE connect from my phone to computer which is usually very reliable also wouldn't connect. Was quite annoying until I realized I can just log into the vaultwarden website directly. I don't think I've done that in years
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