Andy Walker / Android Authority
Summary
- An outage on July 24 caused Chrome’s built-in password manager to stop working for more than 18 hours, affecting millions of Windows users worldwide.
- The issue was limited to Chrome for Windows version M127.
- Google provided a workaround before releasing a full fix, which requires users to restart their browsers.
Google Chrome is one of the most popular browsers, and it’s used by people all over the world, so they also rely on its built-in password manager. However, an outage that began on July 24 caused user credentials in the password manager to disappear for 18 hours. This wasn’t a localized incident either – it affected Windows users around the world, leading to widespread frustration. However, the outage doesn’t seem to have affected anyone. Chrome OS or macOS users.
The Mountain View tech giant has finally fixed the bug that caused the outage and issued an apology to affected users (via Forbes). The problem, according to Google, was limited to version M127 of Chrome for Windows, which is, in fact, one of the last stable versions.
While it’s difficult to determine the extent of the impact, Google revealed that at least 2% of the 25% of users who received the settings change were affected by the outage. The outlet noted that this likely means that at least 15 million users had trouble accessing their passwords during this period.
At the time, Google provided a workaround to affected users. This involved launching the Chrome browser on a Windows laptop or desktop computer using the command line prompt. —enable-features=SkipUndecryptablePasswordsA full fix has since been implemented. If you are one of the affected users, all you need to do is restart your Chrome browser to access your password as usual. If this outage has affected you in other ways, you will need to contact Google Workspace Support for further assistance.
So what does this recent outage mean for users going forward? Well, for one, if you use a single password manager to store all of your login credentials, you might want to look into alternative solutions to back up important passwords. Of course, Google’s full, interim fix came fairly quickly, which meant that this issue didn’t cause any long-term outages. That said, it does serve as a reminder of the risks involved in relying entirely on a single system or app, especially when it comes to something as crucial as your passwords.