Brave-browser: Importing passwords from Chrome is not working

[Brave-Matt]

Test plan

See https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/5300

Description

Several users have reported the Import bookmarks and settings feature does not import all (or sometimes any) browsing data from other browsers, including Brave Muon.
This issue is unfortunately vague because it seems to do the trick for some users, some get their bookmarks but nothing else, others get passwords and browsing data but no bookmarks, etc. Reports come from all OS and all channels and from all available browsers.
Importing browsing data should be seamless in order to lower the barrier-to-entry for new/would-be Brave users.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Close all other chrome/chromium process running, launch Brave
2. Menu --> Bookmarks --> Import bookmarks and settings
3. Choose from available browsers on machine and attempt to import browsing data
   4.* Note that again, there don't seem to be many "clear" steps to reproduce this exactly given the nature of the issue - selecting different data to import, or importing one set of data at a time (one check box) is encouraged.

Actual result:

Some or all data may not be imported

Expected result:

Any browsing data selected should be imported after completing the process.

Reproduces how often:

Intermittent issue

Brave version (brave://version info)

All channels:

• v0.60.48 Rel
• v0.61.43 Beta
• v0.62.16 Dev

Additional Information

User reports - I have more to ad as well:

https://community.brave.com/t/new-chrome-brave-will-not-import-cookies-passwords-used-built-in-bookmarks-more-from-old-brave/47492/7
https://community.brave.com/t/updates-not-picking-up-old-settings-from-0-25-2/47520/4
https://community.brave.com/t/importing-chrome-content-not-quite-right-passwords-missing/47066/7
https://community.brave.com/t/importing-data-from-chome/46743/2
https://community.brave.com/t/failing-to-import-history-bookmarks-passwords-from-chrome-chromium/46173

[bsclifton]

cc: @rebron for help prioritizing - definitely seeing a good amount of users hitting this on GitHub (in addition to the issues @Brave-Matt has shared above from Community)

[rebron]

@Brave-Matt Need more reproducible steps and matrix of browsers this is affecting.

[willstocks]

From Community

Description of the issue:

I have just migrated from Chrome to Brave and used the “import settings” to import my Chrome stuff. Favourites and other things have imported, but saved passwords did not which is killerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Steps to Reproduce:

1. Download and install Brave
2. Menu
3. Settings
4. Import
5. Select Chrome profile
6. Make sure that “Passwords” is enabled for import

Actual Result:

Check “Saved Passwords” and see nothing is in there :sob:

Expected result:

Chrome saved passwords should also import, not just favourites.

Reproduces how often:

Every time I retry importing!

Brave Version:

0.60.47

Reproducible on current live release (yes/no):

Yes

Worth me also noting - no errors are thrown at all - the import appears to be successful as far as the UI is concerned.

[willstocks]

Further detail from the same community thread:

The import was the first thing I did - I had not browsed to any other pages before trying to import.

OS: Windows 10 Enterprise x64
OS Version: 1703
OS Build: 15063.1631

Importing passwords from: Chrome 72.0.3626.121 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Let me know if you need any other info - all bookmarks came through fine, it looks like it’s just the passwords that didn’t :frowning_face:

---

I just tried this - on my Windows 10 machine (where I’ve had Brave installed for a couple of days now) it did not work at all. I tried:

• Importing individual tickboxes
• Importing all tickboxes
• Importing just passwords

No change in the passwords at all. I even tried with Brave being the ONLY application open on the machine… no success :frowning: despite it giving me the big blue tick - I have all my bookmarks though!

I just did a fresh install of Brave on my MacOS Mojave (10.14.3) machine (never had Brave on it before), closed all browsers first, then launched Brave and did the import and it worked perfectly (it’s probably worth having an instruction pop-up first to say “close all browsers before importing”?)!

Any ideas what I can do to get the import to now work on my Windows 10 machine (I don’t sync between the two - one’s a personal machine, one’s a work machine).

[GeetaSarvadnya]

+1 https://community.brave.com/t/unable-to-import-bookmarks-and-bookmarks-bar/64414/9

[danny1199]

Tried numerous times to import bookmarks and bookmarks bar from Firefox on Windows 10 laptop and although everything says it went through ok, there are no bookmarks imported and the bookmarks bar is empty. Tried it with Firefox open - nothing. Tried it with Firefox closed - nothing. Uninstalled Brave and installed again, using latest version - nothing. I don't know what else I can do but I can't use it as my default browser as it is.

[bsclifton]

This may be a duplicate of https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/2198 and https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/2710

[danny1199]

I managed to resolve my issue by exporting my bookmarks and bookmarks bar as an html file from Firefox to my desktop then importing that file into Brave as html files. The bookmarks bar just appeared as a folder in the bookmarks bar on Brave so I had to open that and drag each file from the drop down to the bar. A bit long winded, but I got there.

[simonhong]

On windows, password importing from chrome seems broken after this upstream change (https://chromium-review.googlesource.com/c/chromium/src/+/1842671).
We are using import service in a separated utility process.
The problem is that generated encryption key in browser process was not passed to this utility process because upstream doesn't use encryption key in utility process while importing. It's brave's feature. During the password importing, import service needs that key but it's empty now.

In debug build, below DCHECK catches it.
https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/master:components/os_crypt/os_crypt_win.cc;l=111

We are using password_manager::LoginDatabase in import utility process to get chrome's login data. and LoginDatabase uses os_crypt that has above DCHECK issue.

Fixed by setting proper encryption key(chrome's key) in profile import process.
To read login data from chrome's login data file properly, chrome's key should be set first.

[rebron]

Verified this works in Windows 1.10.x, following the updated steps in the pr for both the import dialog screen and for onboarding. Imported 3 saved passwords from Chrome 81.x Version 81.0.4044.122

Brave | 1.10.11 Chromium: 81.0.4044.122 (Official Build) nightly (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 44f4233f08910d83b146130c1938256a2e05b136-refs/branch-heads/4044@{#963}
OS | Windows 10 OS Version 1903 (Build 18362.720)

[GeetaSarvadnya]

Verification passed on

Brave | 1.8.86 Chromium: 81.0.4044.129 (Official Build) (64-bit)
-- | --
Revision | 3d71af9f5704a40b85806f4d08925db24605ba25-refs/branch-heads/4044@{#979}
OS | Windows 10 OS Version 1803 (Build 17134.1006)

• Reproduced the issue in 1.7.98
• Verified the test plan from https://github.com/brave/brave-core/pull/5300

Clean profile:

• Ensured that chrome passwords are imported into brave via brave://settings/importData
• Ensured that chrome passwords are imported into brave via brave://settings ->Import bookmarks and settings
• Ensured that chrome passwords are imported into brave via brave://welcome->Import Bookmarks and Settings.
• Ensured that sites can be auto-logged in after providing confirmation
• Ensures that passwords can be exported from brave://settings/passwords
• Ensured that saved passwords can be removed/undo
• Ensured that real passwords cab be shown to user only after providing windows credentials authentication
• Ensured that brave://settings/passwords shows the Websites, Username and encrypted password details
• Ensured that along with password the bookmarks, cookies, history, and extensions are also imported into brave when all these checkboxes are checked in the import window
• Export all the imported passwords from brave://settings/passwords and ensured that the passwords and be re-imported using the Import option
• Ensured that there won't any duplicate passwords imported if we import passwords multiple times via different places
• Ensured that removed passwords can be re-imported via brave://settings/importData, brave://settings ->Import bookmarks and settings and brave://welcome->Import

Upgraded profile

• Upgraded profile from 1.7.98 to 1.8.86 and verified all the above scenarios and ensured all the scenarios working as expected in upgraded profile.

---

Reproduced the original issue on Win 10 x64 using the following build:

Brave | 1.7.98 Chromium: 81.0.4044.113 (Official Build) (64-bit)
--- | ---
Revision | e3225dafb0475864a1812a374d73a92e391635ac-refs/branch-heads/4044@{#936}
OS | Windows 10 OS Version 1909 (Build 18363.815)

• imported using brave://welcome and didn't see any passwords being added into brave://settings/passwords
• imported using brave://settings/importData and didn't see any passwords being added into brave://settings/passwords

Verification PASSED on Win 10 x64 using the following build:

Brave | 1.8.86 Chromium: 81.0.4044.129 (Official Build) (64-bit)
--- | ---
Revision | 3d71af9f5704a40b85806f4d08925db24605ba25-refs/branch-heads/4044@{#979}
OS | Windows 10 OS Version 1909 (Build 18363.815)

Using a clean profile

• ensured that passwords from Chrome are imported and appearing under brave://settings/passwords via brave://welcome
• ensured that passwords from Chrome are imported and appearing under brave://settings/passwords via brave://settings/importData
• ensured that passwords from Chrome are imported and appearing under brave://settings/passwords via Hamburger Menu -> Bookmarks -> Import bookmarks and settings
• ensured that Try again is working correctly via the To finish importing, close Chrome modal.
• ensured that you can view the password within brave://settings/passwords once you've provided the system leve OS PIN/password
• ensured that the credentials are working/being auto-filled once they've been imported into brave://settings/passwords
• ensured that both Remove/Undo are working as expected under brave://settings/passwords
• ensured that Details is working as expected and displaying the correct information
• ensured that removed passwords can still be imported via the above methods
• ensured that duplicates are not being added into brave://settings/passwords if importing multiple times.
• ensured that you can export the imported passwords from brave://settings/passwords via Export passwords..
• ensured that importing passwords into brave://settings/passwordsvia .csv works as expected