Huge passwords bug in Safari macOS Monterey

[sebalvarez]

I posted this message on both the Apple community forum, and on Reddit, and even though it's not an attack on anyone, and it doesn't have foul language, they both censored me. Apple's moderators said that it was a rant. It's not, if I was really ranting, it would be a whole different post. I'm simply trying to warn Safari on macOS users of a really big bug when it comes to passwords that if you don't know it's a bug, it can cause you a lot of frustration like it did for me. So hopefully this won't be taken down here, because I hope that somebody reads this and has a way to get through to Apple's engineers and let them know about it. Here's the original post:

It seems to me that Apple has been dropping the ball quite a bit lately. First it was an update to iOS where all my contacts got duplicated, so I had to waste a lot of time deleting the duplicates. Then, suddenly my Messages app would show a lot of the people I had messaged with as phone numbers, not their names. And some of the contacts that I had to delete the duplicate for, now were gone, so again I had to waste time adding the people that were missing.


Now another huge bug, this time with Safari in macOS Monterey. I saw this over the weekend when wiping the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro, and I saw it again in my 2015 iMac. Basically, Safari saves the wrong password for logins. I noticed this when I did a fresh install of macOS on my Macbook Pro, and when I saved a few website passwords in Safari, and then I tried to log in to those websites, it would tell me I had the wrong password. So I opened preferences and passwords, and I saw that the passwords saved for those websites were not what I had set, but an alphanumeric string similar to when Safari suggests a strong password when signing up for a service.


Then the same thing happened in my iMac, also with the latest macOS Monterey. I have been an Apple customer for 23 years. I've had a Powermac G3, a G3, a G5, a Macbook Pro, an iMac, 4 iPhones, 2 Apple TVs and a Mac Studio on the way. Having Apple computers is more expensive than building a PC (which I have done), but I did it because Apple products usually are dependable and just work as they should. This is very disappointing. Months after the bug with the duplicated contacts, now Safari is dropping the ball again with this new bug, so I can't save any passwords, or my login will be rejected.

 

[chrfr]

I posted this message on both the Apple community forum, and on Reddit, and even though it's not an attack on anyone, and it doesn't have foul language, they both censored me. Apple's moderators said that it was a rant. It's not, if I was really ranting, it would be a whole different post. I'm simply trying to warn Safari on macOS users of a really big bug when it comes to passwords that if you don't know it's a bug, it can cause you a lot of frustration like it did for me. So hopefully this won't be taken down here, because I hope that somebody reads this and has a way to get through to Apple's engineers and let them know about it. Here's the original post:

It seems to me that Apple has been dropping the ball quite a bit lately. First it was an update to iOS where all my contacts got duplicated, so I had to waste a lot of time deleting the duplicates. Then, suddenly my Messages app would show a lot of the people I had messaged with as phone numbers, not their names. And some of the contacts that I had to delete the duplicate for, now were gone, so again I had to waste time adding the people that were missing.


Now another huge bug, this time with Safari in macOS Monterey. I saw this over the weekend when wiping the SSD in my 2015 Macbook Pro, and I saw it again in my 2015 iMac. Basically, Safari saves the wrong password for logins. I noticed this when I did a fresh install of macOS on my Macbook Pro, and when I saved a few website passwords in Safari, and then I tried to log in to those websites, it would tell me I had the wrong password. So I opened preferences and passwords, and I saw that the passwords saved for those websites were not what I had set, but an alphanumeric string similar to when Safari suggests a strong password when signing up for a service.


Then the same thing happened in my iMac, also with the latest macOS Monterey. I have been an Apple customer for 23 years. I've had a Powermac G3, a G3, a G5, a Macbook Pro, an iMac, 4 iPhones, 2 Apple TVs and a Mac Studio on the way. Having Apple computers is more expensive than building a PC (which I have done), but I did it because Apple products usually are dependable and just work as they should. This is very disappointing. Months after the bug with the duplicated contacts, now Safari is dropping the ball again with this new bug, so I can't save any passwords, or my login will be rejected.

It sounds like something is wrong with your iCloud data. This isn’t an issue I’ve had at all, nor did I have duplicated contacts.

 

[sebalvarez]

It sounds like something is wrong with your iCloud data. This isn’t an issue I’ve had at all, nor did I have duplicated contacts.

So what do you think could be wrong with my iCloud data? Where should I look into?

 

[fisherking]

have you tried calling apple directly for help? it does sound like an icloud issue (and have not experienced this either)...

 

[Apple_Robert]

I had the contacts duplication after one of the iOS 15 updates. Outside of that, I haven't had any problems.

 

[MBAir2010]

I as well experienced numeric passwords via keychain on my iPad last December.
and was surprised
i just shut down the iPad and relogged into the iCloud account and forgot all about that until now.

Apple community is a joke and there are there to ONLY to sell new products
they always delete my "how to" solutions that requires repair.

 

[sebalvarez]

Apple community is a joke and there are there to ONLY to sell new products
they always delete my "how to" solutions that requires repair.

They have been the same for at least 23 years when I got my first Mac. Anything in your post that is remotely critical of Apple and not praising Steve Jobs as the true lord and savior is removed on lame excuses. It's really pathetic when a company that makes such great products is so petty when it comes to taking criticism. Maybe they think that taking down posts like that in their forums will make the bugs disappear.

I think the world is much better for having Apple products, especially now that they released the M1 chips, which are the next step in computing evolution, a machine so powerful it beats almost every Intel PC by far while barely blowing its fans. But their attitude towards their customers is rather crappy sometimes. My experience with them has been that if you get a bad Apple product, they will try to blame it on you rather than admit that their products can have any problem at all.

 

[fisherking]

They have been the same for at least 23 years when I got my first Mac. Anything in your post that is remotely critical of Apple and not praising Steve Jobs as the true lord and savior is removed on lame excuses. It's really pathetic when a company that makes such great products is so petty when it comes to taking criticism. Maybe they think that taking down posts like that in their forums will make the bugs disappear.

I think the world is much better for having Apple products, especially now that they released the M1 chips, which are the next step in computing evolution, a machine so powerful it beats almost every Intel PC by far while barely blowing its fans. But their attitude towards their customers is rather crappy sometimes. My experience with them has been that if you get a bad Apple product, they will try to blame it on you rather than admit that their products can have any problem at all.

this post is a perfect example of why your posts get deleted...

 

[sebalvarez]

this post is a perfect example of why your posts get deleted...

I don't post on Apple forums that they have a crappy attitude towards customers. Over the years, almost everything I posted on Apple forums, even things that were plain questions that didn't remotely criticize anything, they deleted it. Their moderators are children with a bit a power that feel good taking down posts they just don't like, nothing to do with the post being harsh or not, they're just cry babies.

And their Apple store employees are about the same. Back in 2005, I bought a PowerMac G5. Back then, the keyboard that came with it had a design problem that thousands of people had to put up with, which was that many key presses were received as double or even triple presses. So I went to the Apple store with the keyboard, showed it to a kid there, and he connected it to a Mac and asked me to type. I did, and he said that I was double pressing keys. That was a blatant lie. I asked him to speak to his supervisor, and he told me the best he could get was someone at the Genius Bar, but they were booked for the next two hours. This was during my work day, so I had to leave, I didn't have two hours to just stay there. And I left with a sour taste in my mouth. A few days later I called Apple, I told them what had happened, and they were still trying to ditch the blame, telling me that the keyboard didn't have a design problem, when there were hundreds of people online posting about the same problem. And I had just spent $2,000 on a new Mac, when I could've built a pretty fast PC for half that, and Apple wouldn't send me a replacement keyboard that probably cost them $10. That, to me, is really crappy customer service and shows the mindset of Apple as a really arrogant company that thinks their products are the best and don't have any flaws. In the end, I filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, and they were forced to send me a newer version of the keyboard, but I had to go through all these hurdles just to get something that Apple should've sent me right away.

It left me with such a bad taste in my mouth, that soon after that, I sold the Mac and built a PC. Eventually I bought a Macbook Pro in 2015 that I was very happy with, but for many years I didn't want anything to do with Apple. And two years ago I had a different problem with a $130 Apple Magic keyboard that bent on its own for no reason, and again I had another arrogant attitude from one of their reps.

It sucks that they have such an arrogant attitude, because Apple has been killing it for the last two decades, but especially now, with the M1 Max and Ultra chips and the Mac Studio, a machine that leaves almost everything else in the dust, plus the best phone in the world. So why have the patronizing attitude when they could take at least some constructive criticism? Why, if an Apple product has a design flaw, they have to wait until people sue them in a class action lawsuit to act, especially with small things that cost them nothing to replace, like a simple keyboard?

 

[fisherking]

I don't post on Apple forums that they have a crappy attitude towards customers. Over the years, almost everything I posted on Apple forums, even things that were plain questions that didn't remotely criticize anything, they deleted it. Their moderators are children with a bit a power that feel good taking down posts they just don't like, nothing to do with the post being harsh or not, they're just cry babies.

And their Apple store employees are about the same. Back in 2005, I bought a PowerMac G5. Back then, the keyboard that came with it had a design problem that thousands of people had to put up with, which was that many key presses were received as double or even triple presses. So I went to the Apple store with the keyboard, showed it to a kid there, and he connected it to a Mac and asked me to type. I did, and he said that I was double pressing keys. That was a blatant lie. I asked him to speak to his supervisor, and he told me the best he could get was someone at the Genius Bar, but they were booked for the next two hours. This was during my work day, so I had to leave, I didn't have two hours to just stay there. And I left with a sour taste in my mouth. A few days later I called Apple, I told them what had happened, and they were still trying to ditch the blame, telling me that the keyboard didn't have a design problem, when there were hundreds of people online posting about the same problem. And I had just spent $2,000 on a new Mac, when I could've built a pretty fast PC for half that, and Apple wouldn't send me a replacement keyboard that probably cost them $10. That, to me, is really crappy customer service and shows the mindset of Apple as a really arrogant company that thinks their products are the best and don't have any flaws. In the end, I filed a complaint with the Department of Justice, and they were forced to send me a newer version of the keyboard, but I had to go through all these hurdles just to get something that Apple should've sent me right away.

It left me with such a bad taste in my mouth, that soon after that, I sold the Mac and built a PC. Eventually I bought a Macbook Pro in 2015 that I was very happy with, but for many years I didn't want anything to do with Apple. And two years ago I had a different problem with a $130 Apple Magic keyboard that bent on its own for no reason, and again I had another arrogant attitude from one of their reps.

It sucks that they have such an arrogant attitude, because Apple has been killing it for the last two decades, but especially now, with the M1 Max and Ultra chips and the Mac Studio, a machine that leaves almost everything else in the dust, plus the best phone in the world. So why have the patronizing attitude when they could take at least some constructive criticism? Why, if an Apple product has a design flaw, they have to wait until people sue them in a class action lawsuit to act, especially with small things that cost them nothing to replace, like a simple keyboard?

more of the same. a rant is a rant, no matter how you dress it up. perhaps consider the millions of appleusers in the world, and how many people post on the apple forum, engage in questions/answers/discussion, and are not shut down. (here too).

if you think it's everyone else and you take no responsibility... that's your issue. people come to forums for help, the rest are just working, using their macs. and apple is just a business, it can't make everyone happy. me... am (mostly) happy, get my work done, come here when i need help, and offer help when i can.

simple.

 

[sebalvarez]

more of the same. a rant is a rant, no matter how you dress it up. perhaps consider the millions of appleusers in the world, and how many people post on the apple forum, engage in questions/answers/discussion, and are not shut down. (here too).

I guess I just don't see anything wrong about posting a message warning people of a huge bug that's going to drive them crazy like it did to me when I first encountered it, in great part because some things that require a login block you after a couple of wrong attempts, like my router.
But I know where I stand now, if I post a warning along with my opinion and I get crap from people like you for doing that, I will just keep it to myself, I don't need the aggravation. Keep living in your high horse where Apple products work flawlessly all the time, and if anything goes wrong, it's always the user's fault, never Apple's.

 

[fisherking]

I guess I just don't see anything wrong about posting a message warning people of a huge bug that's going to drive them crazy like it did to me when I first encountered it, in great part because some things that require a login block you after a couple of wrong attempts, like my router.
But I know where I stand now, if I post a warning along with my opinion and I get crap from people like you for doing that, I will just keep it to myself, I don't need the aggravation. Keep living in your high horse where Apple products work flawlessly all the time, and if anything goes wrong, it's always the user's fault, never Apple's.

first, it's not a bug, it's an issue you're having. but instead of coming here asking for help & support... you rant. second, i don't think apple is flawless, but i also don't think the sky is falling, and that, it's not steve jobs who is our great savior... it's you, by warning us that the sky is falling.

it isn't. call apple, get help with the issue. or clarify (in less words) what's happening, and... ask for help here.

 

[HDFan]

I guess I just don't see anything wrong about posting a message warning people of a huge bug

Because it isn't. If it were there would be hundreds of posts about the issue. Looks like something unusual in your configuration. Just wiped and rebuilt my disk with no issues.

 

[Jeven Stobs]

first, it's not a bug, it's an issue you're having. but instead of coming here asking for help & support... you rant. second, i don't think apple is flawless, but i also don't think the sky is falling, and that, it's not steve jobs who is our great savior... it's you, by warning us that the sky is falling.

it isn't. call apple, get help with the issue. or clarify (in less words) what's happening, and... ask for help here.

So far I got your point(s), but calling a bug a personal problem is going a little too far. Others have experienced the same, so it’s a collective personal issue with software? That sounds like a bug to me.

 

[TiggrToo]

So far I got your point(s), but calling a bug a personal problem is going a little too far. Others have experienced the same, so it’s a collective personal issue with software? That sounds like a bug to me.

A bug is a bug when it's been triaged and classified as a bug.

What we have here is an anecdotal report of corruption that apparently manifested itself in Safari.

And that's it.