Incompatible TOTP-storage formats?

[borque]

Hello!
I plan to store my growing number of TOTP-secrets in a seperate KeePass-database.
While planning this I did some research and noticed there might be an incompatibility in the way TOTP-information is stored?!

KeePassXC seems to store them in a single field called OTP where all information is coded in URL-style.
Many other Implementations (such as Strongbox, Keepassium, the KeeTrayTOTP plugin for KeePass) seem to store them in to different fields TOTPseed and TOTPsettings.

Indeed I was unable to get TOTP-codes from a test-database created with KeePassXC 2.7 in KeePass 2.5 with KeeTrayTOTP-plugin. And the KeeTrayTOTP-plugin refused to set the fields for seed and settings to the same databasefield.

Am I making something wrong? Is there a way to store TOTP data in a compatible and interoperable way?

Thanks for help!

[droidmonkey]

There is no standard way to store until recently when KeePass project implemented a multi-attribute method. The otp field is supported by all major mobility apps, but not KeePass. You will have to configure your TOTP in KeePass using the same secret. That will let it work in all apps.

[Slummi]

KeePass has supported TOTP natively (without plugins) for some time now.
Why does KeePassXC not support the custom fields used by KeePass to store the TOTP secrets/settings?

KeePass uses the following custom fields for TOPT:

• TimeOtp-Secret (UTF-8)

• TimeOtp-Secret-Hex

• TimeOtp-Secret-Base32 (most common)

• TimeOtp-Secret-Base64

• TimeOtp-Length (optional)

• TimeOtp-Period (optional)

• TimeOtp-Algorithm (optional)

In most cases, I only have the TimeOtp-Secret-Base32 field with the secret. This works with almost all applications and plugins, but not with KeePassXC. It would be nice if KeePassXC also supported the default KeePass custom fields for TOTP.

[droidmonkey]

#11229

You can equally post the same question over on KeePass forums. Why did they invent new custom fields and not just use the already existing and very efficient otp field?

[Slummi]

Yes, that is correct, if the native support of TOTP in KeePass was implemented after that of KeePassXC. I don't know who was faster here.
On the other hand, various other apps support the custom fields of KeePass, although they already supported TOTP before KeePass.

[droidmonkey]

We implemented it WAY before KeePass did (several years ahead). All other apps I am aware of support the otp field like we did from the extensions.