MacBook Pro (late 2013) running Big Sur - iCloud Keychain cannot be enabled

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MacBook Pro (late 2013) running Big Sur - iCloud Keychain cannot be enabled

I attempted to set up iCloud Keychain in order to sync with my iPhone SE (2020). Something went wrong and I ended up deleting the keychain using Keychain Access. (I thought it would be simple to recreate it.)

Currently in Keychain Access, I have just one item under "Default Keychains" and it is called "Local Items". (Prior to this fiasco there was another one called "iCloud Keychains", I think. It went away because I deleted it, somehow.)

Something seems to be stopping a new iCloud Keychain from being created.

Now, when using the Mac I frequently get error dialogs like "Keychain Not Found: A keychain cannot be found to store 'abcd...'", with two buttons, "Cancel" and "Reset To Defaults". If I click "Reset To Defaults", it warns me that I'll lose all my passwords (I no longer have any in there anyway). So I click "Reset" and it prompts for my MacBook login password. I enter the password, but then nothing happens that I can discern. I can repeat this loop with the MacBook, with no results.

Meanwhile, in System Preferences, I can click on Apple ID (because Big Sur) > iCloud. In the "Apps on this Mac using iCloud" list, "Keychain" is not checked. If I click the Keychain checkbox, a dialog appears "iCloud Keychain Uses End-to-End Encryption, Your Apple ID settings need to be updated so this MacBook Pro can use end-to-end encryption." I click "Continue", provide my Apple ID password, and click OK. A helpful-looking pinwheel appears for 2 seconds, then the dialog box closes.

After this, the "Apps on this Mac using iCloud" list now shows "Keychain" with a grayed out checkbox, which is checked. However if I click the back arrow in the top of the System Preferences window, and then click the right arrow to come back, the "Keychain" item is no longer checked. I can repeat this loop many times with no apparent results.

What is the right way out of this predicament? I am unable to save any passwords in Keychain, and I am getting frequent Keychain related pop-up errors.

If there is a system log file that might explain what's failing, please let me know how to find it.

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.7

Posted on Feb 25, 2023 6:53 AM

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Answer 1

Feb 25, 2023 7:26 AM in response to JacobColdfoot

My issue is resolved. The system created a new iCloud Keychain today and I've been able to sync a password between my iPhone and MacBook.

Some additional background, just writing this up for anyone's reference. All of the above behavior was happening in my MacBook last weekend. I rebooted at least once while trying to fix it.

A week passed and I barely touched the MacBook. I reproduced the behavior again (and wrote the above question).

Then I rebooted the MacBook. Immediately when I logged in, I opened Keychain Access and I saw two items in Default Keychains (this is different than before reboot!). The two items were "local" and "Local Items".

So I went to System Preferences > Apple ID > iCloud and checked the Keychain checkbox. This time, it asked for both the local Mac login password and the Apple ID password (I forget which one was first). The Keychain checkbox was grayed out again. But then I went back to Keychain Access and the "Local Items" keychain was renamed to "iCloud". Then I switched to System Preferences and the checkbox was enabled and blue (like the rest of the iCloud enabled apps).

Not sure what changed in the last week. Was it a change on my Mac, or in my Apple ID settings, or in iCloud? If anyone has insights, I will be following this discussion. Thanks.

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MacBook Pro (late 2013) running Big Sur - iCloud Keychain cannot be enabled

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