CoffeeCup Software

I have been using the coffee cup lock box for sometime now. At first I only put in general passwords because I had to learn to trust the software. But, after some time, I began to trust it and put in every important password I had. Because of the trust I developed over time, Lockbox became my ONLY source for saving passwords and the urls to which they belong.

3 days ago I had the lockbox open. I had used it just fine as usual. Then all of a sudden I went back to retrieve a new password, and 75 of my 200 passwords and all my group names looked like this:

§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD~à ´A~ÿÿÿÿË´A~ µA~


I imediately called for help. I was told I would get a call back from a technical support person. I never got that call but this is the email I got from Brandon:

"Did you download the trial version or the registered?" - Brandon


Ok, I figured you need to know if I am a paying customer before you waste your time. So, I let Bandon know I was a paying customer hoping that the calvery would then rush in to help me. Instead I got this response.


"It appears that the application you have on your computer, you may need to uninstall the software, restart your computer.Once it restarts you will need to visit our website at ( http://www.coffeecup.com/help/ ), enter your email address and password, then re download the password wizard and re install to see if it will help. Status: Ticked Closed" - Orlando


I was like, "WTF!" How can they close a ticket and offer me NO help whatsoever?" And exactly WHAT password should I used to redownload this software since your program has eaten all my passwords???? I had to make a new password just to post to this forum!!! I tried to remain calm and wrote asking for help and asking them to reopen the ticket so I could get some help. Here is the respons I got:


"It looks like the file has been corrupted and is no longer usable. unfortunately there is not a way to retrieve data from a corrupted file. What we can try is for you to send us the pw,pwk file in the lockbox program folder to us and we can see what we can do from here. But most likely the data is lost and you may need to re-enter all the information once again." -Abraham


Ok, let me understand this? You mean I should just say, "Oh well, all gone" and start all over again with this software so it can happen again. Or my other choice is to send you my password file with my bank passwords and other critial information in there so you can try to retrieve them. And of course, the response I will get back will be something like, "sorry it didn't work" and I will need to worry forever that I have missed some important bank or credit union password to which someone in your company may have access to now that I have sent you the files but I have yet to change until I happen to need access and remember I used to have a password to the online site?

When I asked how this could have happen I got this"

"A number of reasons can cause this to happen. Updates change files, virus and spy ware (even though you run both programs no program is 100% effective), bad sectors on the hard drive just to name a few. The most any user can really do is make periodic backup of their files in case something like this occurs." -Abraham


I am the girl who used to come in and beat people up if they said anything bad about coffee cup in the forums. I am also the girl who has singlehandedly sold over 2 dozen coffee cup software products to other web developers. I never wanted commision or fees, just for you guys to remain great. This totally breaks my heart.

Over time, your products have saved me a lot of time and effort. But, the time and effort and headaches it will take me to recoup these passwords will be much more time than the products have ever saved me in the past.

Suggestion for an easy fix to this product:

1. Put a back up button in the program. Click that button and it makes a back up of the entire password file as it is.

2. Put a restore button in the program. Click that button and it restores all passwords to the state they were at the time the last back up was made.

That way when this happenes to the next person and they call for help. Your tech support people can write": See the Blue Restore Button on the menu? Click that button and it will restore your passwords to the last state they were in when you last backed them up. Ticked Closed"

Just so you know - Before I contacted the CoffeeCup "support team" here are the steps I took to try to fix or repair the coffeecup lockbox corruption problem so I could help myself:

1. Ran Virus Scan twice (system wide and specifically the coffeecup folder)

2. Ran Spyware Scan twice (system wide and specifically the coffeecup folder)

3. Ran Full Registry Scan

4. Scan Disc and Defrag

5. Searched google for any information or help with this lockbox problem.

Sorry to hear you lost your data.

Lockbox does have a backup utility. File > Copy program to Folder or Drive.

This will serve as a backup. I wouldn't back it up every time you change something just in case, and I would have several backups from different time periods. Better to lose a little than all of it. CoffeeCup... Yeah, they are the best!

Austin24,

Do you backup up your harddrive? If you do, restall the software and the datafile that it creates from your last backup.

Did you keep the install package for the Lockbox software.?

I can understand how frustrating that can be, however our support team did provide a number of options. I can understand how you would not want to share the information with us, but by not doing so sort of limits what we can do for you.

Our software does not auto-update itself, so if the database got corrupted, this could point to something on your system. As mentioned about, we do have a backup option in the software to help prevent this. While it may not help now, at least you do know about the feature. ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~
Scott A. Swedorski - VP of Product Development
CoffeeCup Software Inc.
Phone: 678.495.3480

"Want to update your website from anywhere? Check out our new free service, S-Drive Streams. Visit http://www.coffeecup.com/sdrive for more information."

I work from an SD card by default, and keep two copies of it on hand.
one gets stored in a static bag the other stays plugged in.

making a copy of it is easy, one stays in the default card reader on the PC front panel, then I have an additional card reader via USB,
once I make a change to card #1 I just drag the file over to card #2

takes only .00000045 seconds to do.

fresh bu's are paramount

I know first hand that not having a fresh BU can be devastating
we lost over 50 active websites when we got hacked in dec 06

and for some reason our secondary bu drives were malfunctioning and not recording every night...(and had not been recording anything in over 3 months)

I personally had to call clients and tell them the bad news, and then rebuild their sites for FREE..some of them from complete scratch.

you go tell a company that you lost 3 months of their sales records, employee files,products,and emails.

I almost comitted suicide.

I thought some of our clients were seriously going to to send goons to my house.

had I a fresh BU on hand , I would have only lost a few orders and emails.

it took me until may 07 to completely recover everything I lost.


back up your comp every night,
just by a storage drive and set it to BU late at night or early morn.

you'll be thankful you did

This has now happened to me.... :-(

Lockbox has corrupted itself...

§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD§ì±hæ…ÄD

Use the program, but backup often....