Bitwarden Desktop App suddenly inaccessible ("chrome legacy window unknown")

[Muhammad Aamir Shafique]

Hello everyone,

I'm encountering a significant accessibility issue with the **Bitwarden Desktop application** that started sometime last night. The app is running, but **NVDA** can no longer read or interact with its window.

When I launch the Bitwarden app, NVDA immediately announces the window as **"chrome legacy window unknown"** and provides no further access to the application's controls or content. Specifically, attempting to navigate using **Tab** or **Shift + Tab** while the window is focused also results in NVDA simply saying **"unknown."**

I have confirmed that this issue appears to be specific to NVDA: both **JAWS** and **Narrator** are able to interact with and read the Bitwarden desktop application without any problems.

### Troubleshooting Steps Attempted

To rule out local corruption or configuration issues, I have already taken the following steps, none of which resolved the problem:

* Reinstalling the Bitwarden desktop application.

* Running NVDA with all add-ons disabled.

* Running the COM registration fixing tool in NVDA.

* Reinstalling NVDA completely.

### Temporary Workaround

The only way I can currently get the Bitwarden application to be recognized and usable by NVDA is by explicitly running the **Bitwarden app in administrator mode**.

Has anyone else noticed this behavior recently? Any advice on a more permanent fix, or guidance for the NVDA developers on what might be causing the "chrome legacy window unknown" state, would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you.

[Greg Wocher]

Hello,
Try closing bitwarden and then disable all your add ons to see if the issue persists. I am running bitwarden on my windows 11 desktop with NVDA and it is working fine. If that works add your add ons bacck one by one to see which one might be causing the issue. If disabling the add ons does not work try rebooting. Finally if all else fails uninstall and re-install bitwarden.

Greg Wocher

[Michael Chopra]

Hi.

I've reported this to Bitwarden because I'm having the same issue and
they are putting in a report in about it, though I had one of their
support team say they couldn't reproduce what I mentioned. One of their
managers contacted me again, telling me that they are going to put in a
report for the engineers to look into an accessibility issue. I can give
you the request number, if that helps?
Thanks.
From Michael.

------ Original Message ------
From "Greg Wocher" <gtwo...@gmail.com>
To nvda-...@nvaccess.org
Date 3/10/25 06:12:45
Subject Re: [NVDA] Bitwarden Desktop App suddenly inaccessible ("chrome
legacy window unknown")

Hello,

Try closing bitwarden and then disable all your add ons to see if the issue persists. I am running bitwarden on my windows 11 desktop with NVDA and it is working fine. If that works add your add ons bacck one by one to see which one might be causing the issue. If disabling the add ons does not work try rebooting. Finally if all else fails uninstall and re-install bitwarden.



Greg Wocher

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[Gabriele Battaglia]

Guys, thanks for your effort. I'm an happy user of bitwarden Windows
desktop app too and I strongly need of it.

I really hope they didn't mess up with the app accessibility.

Keep us informed, please.

Gabe.

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Gabriele Battaglia (IZ4APU)
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Sent from my Giant desktop PC.

[Michael Chopra]

Hi.

I am as well, it's unfortunate this has happened, though I hope they can
track it down and fix it.

Thanks.
From Michael.

------ Original Message ------

From "Gabriele Battaglia" <gabriele....@gmail.com>
To nvda-...@nvaccess.org
Date 3/10/25 06:44:02

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/2afb5028-4b7f-4107-a884-7e9275b5860d%40gmail.com.

[Sarah Alawami]

I was just in bitwarden desktop this morning to sign in  to my work's browser tabs. All of it was accessible. I was able to tab to all elements I needed. I'm using Bitwarden 2025.9.0.0 which is, I think,  the latest version. I have not gotten any notification for any updates.

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Please note: the NVDA project has a Citizen and Contributor Code of Conduct.
NV Access expects that all community members will read and abide by the rules set out in this document while participating in this group.
https://github.com/nvaccess/nvda/blob/master/CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md
 
You can contact the group owners and moderators via nvda-user...@nvaccess.org.
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[FARHAN ISHRAK Fahim]

I a musing windows 11 24h2, nvda 2025.3 and bitwarden desktop 2025.9.0.0. It is working fine here. I have installed it from microsoft store.

[Sarah Alawami]

Can you check to see what windows update you have?  one of my colleagues installed KB5065789 Windows update, and their symptoms seem the same as yours.

Happy thursday.

On 10/2/2025 7:14 AM, Muhammad Aamir Shafique wrote:

[Aamir]

Hello Sarah,

Indeed, uninstalling the 5065789 update has resolved the issue. Thank you very much!

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/39f40915-de39-47a3-a74d-c3dcd298e902%40gmail.com.

[Oriol Gómez]

Hi,

This was sadly a long time coming, as it has been shown during the last 2 or 3 years that Bitwarden does not care about accessibility.

If you go to bitwarden.com you will see that most of the links have an explicit aria-label with the words go to and the URL like: go to https://bitwarden.com/contact-sales/

Multiple times me and my friends have reported this issue and it still has not been fixed, so I would advise against using BitWarden and instead stick to 1password or any other password manager you can think of.

cheers.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/78672b6d-6a53-407f-9b41-782ab12d4e75%40gmail.com.

[Gabriele Battaglia]

Does anyone has tried the CLI app for bitwarden?

I love the CLI applications and I would like to switch to it.

Gabe.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/CAEW4DcBsvpoLYzGuEzFWks%2BYaQZpxrHjYwhWHP-YxpPF7SyLiw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Aamir]

Hi

To be fair, this particular bug was specific to NVDA. Narrator and Jaws were unaffected. I'm worried though if this issue is not resolved in time, many people will be affected by this in a couple of weeks when the update is automatically applied to all users.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/CAEW4DcBsvpoLYzGuEzFWks%2BYaQZpxrHjYwhWHP-YxpPF7SyLiw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Michael Chopra]

Hi.

This update is already out there, 2025.9.0 of the Bitwarden desktop app, the latest version.

Also, to the poster who said that Bitwarden don't care about accessibility, I personally think that is a stretch as yes, though those links are labeled strangely, that DOES NOT mean they don't care, as you seem to think. Sure, it may have been happening for a few years but to claim they don't care about accessibility is a bit much.

Now, back to the subject of this post, the support request number you can give them so they can collect more information is 705999. That is my request number that someone is working on, give them that and tell them you're giving it so they can see that others are having the same issue.

Thanks.

From Michael.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/9983a029-60bf-4b22-b5a1-5f9540c4f173%40gmail.com.

[Michael Chopra]

Hi.

To add some other comments, at their suggestion, I also downgraded to 2025.8.2, which did fix the issue, however the problem comes back after it automatically updates, this is downloaded from the Bitwarden website, not the Microsoft Store.

Thanks.

From Michael.

[Aamir]

Hello Michael

I was talking about the September 29, 2025—KB5065789 (OS Build 26100.6725) Preview update which caused the issue for me. After uninstalling this update, I don't have any issues with the latest version of Bitwarden.

Thanks

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/CAFpfC7WG659%3DuUE%2BOHc_FNvTxocURqaC%3Dz1b%3DpOF4mBH839P-g%40mail.gmail.com.

[Sarah Alawami]

I'm glad this was not a bitwarden issue, I'm also glad  my colleague found out how to resolve this. I love bitwarden and they are very, very accessible, no issues, except for the CAPTCHA a and you can't beat the price of the personal premium at 410 a year.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/9983a029-60bf-4b22-b5a1-5f9540c4f173%40gmail.com.

[Michael Chopra]

Hi.

For clarification, I think you mean US$10 a year, that's how much the premium costs, not 410.

Thanks.

From Michael.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/31fa15fc-044c-482f-aea2-52c10347bac4%40gmail.com.

[Sarah Alawami]

I do mean $10usd. for what ever reason shift plus NumRow 4 did not fire properly. Thanks for the correction.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/nvaccess.org/d/msgid/nvda-users/CAFpfC7UpwhKpmZPEyF6RjMJS30Ajo-JcJgckag5ZpC-UxWUhsw%40mail.gmail.com.