Browser Extension looses self-hosted URL, switches back to bitwarden.com

[mrimann]

Steps To Reproduce

Logging in to our self-hosted Bitwarden Instance worked fine in the past and basically works fine also now. But from time to time, the Browser Extension seems to loose it's memory about our own Bitwarden instance and switches back to bitwarden.com.

When this occurs, I can switch back to "self-hosted", enter "https://our.vault.domain.tld/" and save. Then it immediately shows "bitwarden.com" again - and at the same time the green "Environment URLs saved" banner.

Only thing to fix it temporarily is to restart Chrome, then it's working again.

Expected Result

The Browser Extension memorizes permanently the choice made where to log in - and if that fails for whatever reason shows an error message.

Actual Result

As described, after some seconds of delay it switches back to bitwarden.com instead of authenticating against our Bitwarden instance.

Screenshots or Videos

No response

Additional Context

The Setup (Mac, Chrome, Bitwarden Browser-Extension) worked flawlessly for the past months. A change of internet provider and/or VPN connection might have happened roughly at the same time where these issues started to show.

Is the Browser Extension somehow trying to reach the Bitwarden system to check whether it's reachable at all (and when it fails then "blocks" by silently falling back to bitwarden.com)?

Operating System

macOS

Operating System Version

Tahoe 26.1

Web Browser

Chrome

Browser Version

143.0.7499.170

Environment Versions

impossible as I cannot log in to Bitwarden's Browser Extension right now.

Chrome v143.0.7499.170 (on MacOS)
Bitwarden Browser Extension v2025.12.0

Issue Tracking Info

• I understand that work is tracked outside of Github. A PR will be linked to this issue should one be opened to address it, but Bitwarden doesn't use fields like "assigned", "milestone", or "project" to track progress.

[bitwarden-bot]

Thank you for reporting this issue! We've added this to our internal tracking system.
ID: PM-30627
Link (for internal use): https://bitwarden.atlassian.net/browse/PM-30627

[jtodddd]

Hi there,

I am unable to reproduce this issue, it has been escalated for further investigation. If you have more information that can help us, please add it below.

Thanks!

[mrimann]

I am unable to reproduce this issue
well, that was the same over here as the problem only shows up sporadically and there's no clear steps to reproduce or trigger the wrong behaviour.

A colleague of mine mentioned he had experienced the same issue on his device and recommended to uninstall / remove the extension from Chrome, then freshly install it.

I tried that and since then it's "stable" but I did not yet mention this here as I'm still evaluating whether this uninstall/reinstall cycle has solved the issue for a longer duration. At least it looks promising up to now.

[mrimann]

Unfortunately this showed to be only a short-term solution - today the problem showed once again. The workaround to disable/re-enable the Extension (without Browser restart) worked for the moment.

Maybe relevant: It could be that the "auto-logout after n hours" is the trigger (and that after getting logged out automatically the re-authentication fails as it goes towards bitwarden.com instead of our self-hosted environment)

[jwallrab]

I also have experienced exactly this issue. After successfully using a self-hosted instance for some time, the login will switch to bitwarden.com. Attempting to select the self-hosted option for sign-in produces the banner "Environment URLs saved", but the login selection remains stuck on bitwarden.com instead of self-hosted.

The only fix has been uninstalling the browser extension and re-installing. I'm using firefox.

[Blayr]

+1 To this issue.

It happens after automatic logout (for me, configured to 4 hours).

Restarting chrome or disabling/enabling the Bitwarden extension resolves it.
I also have a VPN, but don't connect every day (I believe I see this bug every day).

[vidnick]

We began to see this occurring with the 2025.12.0 extension update. There has to be some additional settings from the in extension marketing calls for those user free bitwarden which is also causing it. If it's related to the 4 hour client side timeout that causes it to "forget" the self hosted url. This also occurs on windows machines that have the registry key set so the extension auto populates on Windows machines but it is affecting Windows and macOS users alike. We have probably 10 in our org or so that have reported the issue.

[fchorney]

I have also been experiencing this, with the restarting of the extension being the short term fix. I'm on Ubuntu 24.04.3 LTS using Chrome.

I'm fairly sure I tried a complete uninstall/reinstall of the extension and that has not fixed it.

[noahc3]

+1 Adding to what @fchorney said, our company uses the official Bitwarden server software on the latest version with a paid subscription. My guess is this problem occurs when the session timeout lapses, which we have configured as 6 hours with the timeout action set to "Log out". We require SAML SSO authentication for Bitwarden auth, so the idea is that the timeout hits and forces the user to re-auth against SSO which should just require one button press and a few automatic redirects.

With the web vault this works fine since there is no manual backend configuration, but for the browser extension the latest version loses the self-hosted configuration when the log out occurs. As @mrimann said, trying to re-enter the self-hosted configuration doesn't work. You need to disable and re-enable the extension in Chrome settings which temporarily restores the configuration, but the issue comes back after the next timeout 6 hours later making this bug quite disruptive.

[mritzmann]

To add more data points to this ticket. I have the same problem with:

• Google Chrome: 143.0.7499.193
• Bitwarden Extension: 2025.12.0
• Bitwarden Server: 2025.12.2

No SSO, normal login. We have enabled automatic logout after a few hours for all users.

[Bugbavka]

Experiencing the same issue on Firefox 147.0.1 (Fedora 42) and extension version 2025.12.1.
Server getting randomly stuck at .COM option.
Browser restart (or extension re-enable) is required for the server switch to work again for a while.

BTW - in this "stuck" state the server setting changes are respected (saved) and will be visible/used after restart.
(Stuck state > change server to .EU or self-hosted > restart extension/browser > the last set value is used)

Since this looks like a bug with 2025.12.1 and 2025.12.0, will try rollback to 2025.11.X until fixed I guess.

[MBekspert]

Experiencing the same issue on Firefox 147.0.3 (64 bity) on Windows 11.2510.14.0.
Extension version 2025.12.1 Extension getting randomly stuck at .COM option. We have our own Bitwarden server. We have enabled automatic logout after a 8 hours for all users.
Restarting the browser helps for now, but it's annoying.
We have been using Bitwarden for a long time, and I assume the problems started this year.

[masterflitzer]

i'm experiencing the same issue, i noticed it happening whenever the browser is running for an extended amount of time (>1-2 days with os sleeping over night), can temporarily be fixed by disabling & reenabling the extension in chrome://extensions or restarting the browser

• macos v26.2
• ms edge for business v144.0.3719.115
• bitwarden extension v2026.1.0
• bitwarden server v2026.1.0