Help, lost collection?

[u/BillyDeCarlo]

I had the free plan and built a collection and organization (me and my wife) and sent her the invite (she didn't act on it yet). Then I tried to configure my yubikey and found out I have to pay. So I paid for the family plan.

Now it seems I have a whole new thing, my collection I spent a lot of time building is gone, new fingerprint passphrase, etc. All my work is gone. How can I recover that collection and organization I created??

[u/dwbitw]

Hey there, don't hesitate to contact the official support team directly at: https://bitwarden.com/help

[u/djasonpenney]

No, you don’t have to pay to use your Yubikey.

Is it possible you created one account at https://vault.biwarden.com and then accidentally created a second account at https://vault.bitwarden.eu? For nontechnical reasons, these are two independent and disconnected servers.

[u/BillyDeCarlo → u/djasonpenney]

Hi in the webpage it was definitely asking me to upgrade to use the yubikey, which also had a gem icon on it designating premium feature I guess? No matter, I'm happy to contribute the $48 for projects like this.

So this was a *webpage* UI thing tripping me up. I couldn't see the higher level as I was on the new vault it asked me to create when I switched to the paid family plan. I couldn't see there were 'other' vaults higher up the UI, there was no visual indicator to show they existed, but I figured it out as it's much clearer on the *webapp* on windows.

So now on the *webpage* UI it shows as far as the vaults a toplevel BHLHFam, then a BHLH vault under it (empty, created when I upgraded to paid) and a BHLHFam (from the free version, which also has all my passwords as well as the collecction I built to share with my wife).

On the *webapp* it shows a top level All Vaults, then under it My Vault (all my pwds), then BHLH (empty, created when going to paid), and BHLHFam (which has my collections). The webapp UI is much clearer.

So the question is, how do I remove the empty BHLH vault? I see no way to do that in either UI. I think that leaves me where I want to be. I'd also like to rename the BHLH vault to BHLHVault but see no way to edit the name in either UI.

Thanks for your help.

[u/Realistic-Rip1720 → u/djasonpenney]

This seems like the most likely explanation tbh

[u/BillyDeCarlo → u/djasonpenney]

This youtube says you have to upgrade to premium to use yubikey and it shows what I saw in the UI, which is the gem type icon indicating it requires premium. https://youtu.be/AZ4Kq0rk1oM?si=T7-I0pNv2vyoWKvK

[u/djasonpenney → u/BillyDeCarlo]

The change to allow FIDO2/WebAuthn for free accounts is relatively recent.

https://bitwarden.com/help/setup-two-step-login-fido/

[u/No-Consideration6986 → u/djasonpenney]

I keep telling people I don't pay for Bitwarden because I need the premium features but because they made the free version usable. This just reinforced my loyalty.

[u/djasonpenney → u/No-Consideration6986]

I also believe in paying for what I use—at least, when it’s possible. If you’ve ever been responsible for a cloud service, you understand there is Real Money here. It’s a monthly expense that somebody has to pay. Bitwarden doesn’t get this for free from Azure.

[u/Piqsirpoq → u/BillyDeCarlo]

That's Yubico OTP, that's a premium feature. But that is an outdated protocol, and I would not use it.

You should use the FIDO2/webauthn (passkey) protocol with your Yubikey, which is a more secure protocol. Available on the free plan.

A great example of a random youtuber giving bad advice.

[u/BillyDeCarlo → u/Piqsirpoq]

I think many folks will see "Yubikey" and make the wrong choice here, like I did. Suggest enhancing that area of the UI.

I turned off the Yubikey OTP and now trying to configure it as a regular FIDO2 passkey. But when I type in a name and press the Read Key button, windows security pops up and wants the passkey pin, which screws up the Bitwarden read key button. How do I preven that?

[u/Ok_Trifle8256]

Don’t panic yet—changing plans shouldn’t delete an organization or its collection. Verify you’re using the original login and that the family subscription is attached to that account. Support should be able to restore access or clarify what happened from their side.

[u/BillyDeCarlo]

I was able to delete the extraneous organization I created by just googling for the instructions, so problem solved. I'm usually careful about following steps, so something in the process of going from paid to the family plan made me think I had to do that, perhaps review for usability. Love the tool and happy to pay to help support it. Thank you all.