Keychain login probs on OS X Tiger

September 24, 2005 9:47 PM

Keychain probs with OS X...?

All of a sudden and out of the blue OS X is giving this error whenever a program tries to access the keychain:

It prompts me with a "Unlock Keychain" dialogue box: Please enter your keychain password. Safari wants to use keychain "login".

I enter the password and it tells me the password is invalid.

I know the password is right because it's a brand new user and I just created the password. When I go into, say, users, and click the padlock, it asks me for the master password, I provide it, and it works.

However, nothing that tries to access keychain (mail, safari, firefox) works. What the hell? How do I reset this or do something that allows me to access the keychain?

I'm on the latest version of Tiger. Thanks!

posted by You Should See the Other Guy to computers & internet (9 comments total)

I'm not sure that the keychain and system user share passwords -- in fact given that you can have multiple keychains for the same user account, I would be kind of surprised if it was.

You can go to Applications > Utilities > Keychain Access

That utility will let you delete keychains, create new keychains or attempt to repair broken keychains.
posted by willnot at 10:04 PM on September 24, 2005

Any chance you just grabbed the latest security update from Apple? I've heard this a few times now in relation to that update.

Don't know a work-around, but that's a possible place to start looking.
posted by teece at 10:12 PM on September 24, 2005

I've had this problem - try creating another account with a shorter username.
posted by Lanark at 2:22 AM on September 25, 2005

You can also dump the keychain file. I had the same problem you did and that seemed to work for me. I encountered the same problem and did the following with little success:

1) created new password -- loop of error continued though it worked in the beginning;
2) created new account -- loop of error continued though it worked in the beginning;

Be sure to reboot your computer if you dump the keychain. The system will ask if you want to restore the default after you have dumped and rebooted. I said "yes" and things seem normal from the rebuild.

Good luck to you. Now I have to figure out why my system is so slow.
posted by jadepearl at 2:37 AM on September 25, 2005

Do you have multiple keychains? It is possible the one you think you are unlocking is not the one you think it is. Use the Keychain Access program to make sure.
posted by schwa at 7:03 AM on September 25, 2005

I don't even know what the keychain file is called to delete it. Where would I find it?

Also, what are the overall effects of doing so? (I don't even really know what it does besides store passwords.)

Teece, yeah, I have the latest security thingy.

Also, MeFi is up and down today. If you have a solution and it's not letting you post, please email me at ysstog at gmail dot com. I'd love to get this fixed asap. Thanks!
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 8:50 AM on September 25, 2005

Ugh. This is driving me bonkers. I went into Keychain Access and deleted all the "login" passwords.

I run mail, it asks for my password, I enter it and check the "save on keychain" box. Then it asks me for the 'login password' for the keychain. I enter the password for logging into the computer (master password) and it tells me it's wrong. What the hell?
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:28 AM on September 25, 2005

Okay, I found it. Deleted the file called login.keychain. Seems to have fixed it. Thanks, all!
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 9:59 AM on September 25, 2005

Try using Keychain First Aid. This sounds like the type of problem it's supposed to solve.
posted by v-tach at 3:26 PM on September 25, 2005