All vaults and project data are empty after the upgrade 2026.7.0

[tony-studio]

Steps To Reproduce

After upgrading to version 2026.7.0, my vault data has completely disappeared/empty. I tried reinstalling the desktop application by downloading the installer from the official website and performing an overwrite installation, but the app still shows no data upon opening, even though my account remains logged in. Since the data in my browser extension is still intact, I’m holding off on any further actions until I understand the root cause of this critical issue.

Please help to resolve, thanks!

Expected Result

The upgrade and installation were successful, and the data was normal and no loss.

Actual Result

All vaults and project data are empty after the upgrade.

Screenshots or Videos

No response

Additional Context

self-hosted vaultwarden 1.36.0

Operating System

Windows

Operating System Version

windows 11 LTSC 24H2

Installation method

Direct Download (from bitwarden.com)

Build Version

2026.7.0

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-40878
Link (for internal use): https://bitwarden.atlassian.net/browse/PM-40878

[pamperer562580892423]

Another user here.

Additional Context

self-hosted vaultwarden 1.36.0

When you use Vaultwarden instead of an official Bitwarden server, you should have a look at this info from Vaultwarden about reporting potential bugs: https://github.com/dani-garcia/vaultwarden/wiki/Bitwarden-clients-troubleshooting (and Bitwarden also requests to report bugs with an official Bitwarden server - cloud or self-hosted)

PS: I'm on the offical BW EU cloud account and my vault is not empty with desktop app 2026.7.0 on Win 11.

[tony-studio]

Just a quick heads-up and a potential fix:

I’ve rolled back the desktop version to 2026.6.1 and temporarily disabled updates by setting the ELECTRON_NO_UPDATER=1 environment variable in Windows. Everything is back to normal now. My server-side Vaultwarden instance is running fine with no errors, and there are no logs on my local machine either. I just wanted to flag this for now—thanks!

[pamperer562580892423]

@tony-studio This issue is probably getting closed - and you should rather discuss this with Vaultwarden.

[aderrose]

I've had exactly the same issue, the only change to my system was updating the Bitwarden Desktop client to 2026.7.0. I also have the extension available in Firefox and Edge and these remain working, the web client is also unaffected.

Closing the issue and passing the buck to Vaultwarden is a poor solution to the problem.

[pamperer562580892423]

@aderrose Are you also using Vaultwarden?

Can any one of you reproduce this with an official Bitwarden server (cloud or self-hosted)? EDIT: Not necessary any longer. It's a Vaultwarden issue.

[aderrose]

Yes I am, as a self-hosted Docker container.

[pamperer562580892423]

Ah, I would continue this discussion there: dani-garcia/vaultwarden#7462

According to this comment, they have a fix for this already.

PS: And browser extension 2026.7.0 seems to show the same issue for Vaultwarden users (without this fix).

[aderrose]

My browser extensions for Firefox and Edge seem to be working okay, despite being on version 2026.7.0 and Vaultwarden. I only have issues with the desktop client.

Edit: I spoke too soon, the problem seems to occur when the vault resyncs having installed the latest version.

[coolaj86]

Hotfix from :testing

Confirmed working with the 2026.7.0 chromium extension.
Also confirmed that it doesn't break the 2026.6.1 chromium extension.

Your deploy process is probably different from mine, but this has all the steps, so hopefully it's easy to modify for your VM / CT / bare metal server.

edit: I had accidentally left :latest-alpine here before. fixed.

1. create and extract the testing tarball / image, and extract it

   curl -LO 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/jjlin/docker-image-extract/main/docker-image-extract'
   chmod +x ./docker-image-extract
   ./docker-image-extract vaultwarden/server:testing-alpine

2. see extracted contents

   ls -lAhF ./output/vaultwarden ./output/web-vault/

3. set host

   my_host='app@warden.example.com'

4. copy over the new testing binary

   scp -rp ./output/vaultwarden "${my_host}":~/bin/vaultwarden.new
   scp -rp ./output/web-vault "${my_host}":~/srv/vaultwarden/web-vault.new

5. atomic update the binary, restart the service

   ssh "${my_host}" <<'EOF'
     mv ~/bin/vaultwarden ~/bin/vaultwarden.2025.12.0
     mv ~/bin/vaultwarden.new ~/bin/vaultwarden
   
     mv ~/srv/vaultwarden/web-vault ~/srv/vaultwarden/web-vault.2025.12.0
     mv ~/srv/vaultwarden/web-vault.new ~/srv/vaultwarden/web-vault
   
     serviceman restart vaultwarden
   EOF
   

The testing build also has additional dependencies. I don't know if they'll be required in the next production build (hopefully not):

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y libmariadb-dev libpq-dev

For completeness

These are my ENVs

~/.config/vaultwarden/vaultwarden.env

DATABASE_URL=/home/app/srv/vaultwarden/data/db.sqlite3
ROCKET_ADDRESS=0.0.0.0
ROCKET_PORT=3080
WEB_VAULT_FOLDER=/home/app/srv/vaultwarden/web-vault
DATA_FOLDER=/home/app/srv/vaultwarden/data
ADMIN_TOKEN=ffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffff

And this is how I run vaultwarden:

serviceman add --name vaultwarden -- \
   dotenv -f ~/.config/vaultwarden/vaultwarden.env ~/bin/vaultwarden

This method will work on any Linux server, VM, or CT with either OpenRC or Systemd.

[bwbug]

@aderrose

Closing the issue and passing the buck to Vaultwarden is a poor solution to the problem.

Not really. Bitwarden's policy on backwards compatibility only guarantees that clients versioned 2026.7.x are compatible with official Bitwarden server software versioned 2026.5.0 and later. Vaultwarden does not mirror every change made to the Bitwarden server codebase in real time, so it is guaranteed that compatibility with Vaultwarden will break from time to time as Bitwarden's code evolves. This is one of those times.