Vaultwarden Email MFA provider not visible in bare-metal installation

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1

We noticed an interesting difference between Docker and bare-metal Vaultwarden deployments while testing Email MFA functionality Both environments are running exactly the same versions Vaultwarden 1.36.0 and Web-Vault 2026.4.1 In the Docker deployment the “Email” MFA provider is visible in the UI and users can configure it normally from the Two-step Login settings page

In the bare-metal installation SMTP works correctly and email codes are delivered successfully which confirms that the backend Email 2FA functionality is working Users are able to receive MFA verification codes by email however the “Email” MFA provider/tile is not visible in the UI even though Email 2FA related settings are enabled

We already tested service restarts backend updates web-vault updates SMTP configuration comparison of config.json and vaultwarden.conf as well as Email 2FA related settings including _enable_email_2fa email_2fa_auto_fallback and email_2fa_enforce_on_verified_invite

At this point it looks like a possible difference in how configuration or feature flags are loaded between Docker and non-Docker bare-metal installations even though the versions are identical We would like to ask whether this behavior is expected or if there is an additional configuration step required for bare-metal deployments to make the Email MFA provider visible in the frontend UI

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3

After switching the browser the Email MFA provider became visible and Email 2FA now appears to work correctly However there is still an issue with the recovery code section Even with Email MFA enabled the UI still shows the message “You have not enabled any two-step login provider” when opening the recovery code window

4

If it works in another browser you probably had the /css/vaultwarden.css cached by the browser. Because if you don’t have mail enabled the mail 2FA provider will be hidden: