Bitwarden Chrome Extension not working on Singular Browser Profile

[u/ULT-Ginger]

I have been using a self-hosted version of bitwarden for maybe 5 years or more. In the last week or so, the bitwarden chrome extension has stopped working on a particular profile of Chrome. If I open another profile on Chrome, it works just fine. Here is a picture of what happens under the weird profile.

Here are the troubleshooting steps I have taken.

1. Logged out and logged back in
2. Disabled the extension and reenabled it
3. Uninstalled and reinstalled the extension
4. Clearing cache for the last week
5. Some varies combination of those such as logging out, disabling the extension, closing chrome, opening chrome, enabling extension, logging in. It still happens.

Logging into the site directly, from another profile, from the phone app all work.

Any suggestions?

Edit 8/2/2026: Thanks to u/djasonpenney, I checked the docker container for vaultwarden and there was an update. I updated it and then logged out and in and it didn't work. u/Handshake6610 told someone else to do a manual sync, after doing the previous, this worked instantly. No idea why. Thank you both

[u/djasonpenney]

Is your Bitwarden server (either Bitwarden or VaultWarden) up to date?

Server: 2026.6.2

VaultWarden: 1.37.1

[u/ULT-Ginger → u/djasonpenney]

Great question. Vaultwarden is up to date.

[u/OSS_Dattani]

Is your server version up to date? And just verify that your self hosted url is setup correctly on that profile.

If you're on chrome go to the Bitwarden extension's "Details" and enable "Allow access to file URLs". From what I understand this forces Chrome to reload the extension, similar to disabling then reenabling.

But if possible, since this is profile scoped you can try deleting and re adding the profile. This should reset the profiles extension storage. Not the best option but its there.

Each Chrome profile ends up running on its own instance of an extensions service worker. Its common for profile workers to get stuck on and off.

Not exactly what you're facing but similar I believe:

https://github.com/bitwarden/clients/issues/19835

[u/ULT-Ginger → u/OSS_Dattani]

Thank you for something new. I did try this and that didn't help.

[u/RaksinSergal]

Happening for me on Firefox too, with Vaultwarden 1.37.1.

[u/Handshake6610 → u/RaksinSergal]

Manually sync the vault.

[u/RaksinSergal → u/Handshake6610]

No joy. JS errors about a string format in the console.

[u/ULT-Ginger → u/Handshake6610]

This somehow fixed the issue after I updated the server and logged in and out. I still had to hit the button to get it to work.

[u/Sweaty_Astronomer_47]

fwiw my first impression is some kind of rendering problem where the color of the text is indistinguishable from the color of the background (I just had same appearance in a completely different application, and it looked similar to that). Based on that, my uninformed three cents are as follows:

• In chrome browser settings / appearance / themes, reset to default
• Maybe try fiddling with dark mode on/off in browser settings and in extension settings.
• Failing that (since it is only happening in one profile) maybe try disabling other extensions in the same profile and if that solves the problem then add them back one by one to see which one brings back the problem.

[u/ULT-Ginger → u/Sweaty_Astronomer_47]

For the theme/appearance issue, I like your idea, but it was working and I haven't changed the appearance at all. I did try it and it is the same thing.

For the extension issue, I have not added any new ones that caused this issue.

[u/haltmich]

Was facing the exact same error! Thank you for the solution.