How to stop "Messages Agent wants to use the 'login' keychain. Please enter the keychain password" from occurring every time I turn my computer back on?

On the User log in, which prompt the message, "Messages Agent wants to use the 'login' keychain,' do the following:

Go to Application>Utilities>Keychain Access.App>Preferences

Then check Reset my Default Keychain, Type in Administrator's Login password. Type in the Administrator's Log in into the the "Messages Agent wants ...." This will eliminate this prompt.

Back up all data.

Launch the Keychain Access application in any of the following ways:

☞ Enter the first few letters of its name into a Spotlight search. Select it in the results (it should be at the top.)

☞ In the Finder, select Go ▹ Utilities from the menu bar, or press the key combination shift-command-U. The application is in the folder that opens.

☞ Open LaunchPad. Click Utilities, then Keychain Access in the icon grid.

Select the login keychain from the list on the left side of the Keychain Access window. If your default keychain has a different name, select that.

If the lock icon in the top left corner of the window shows that the keychain is locked, click to unlock it. You'll be prompted for the keychain password, which is the same as your login password, unless you've changed it.

Right-click or control-click the login entry in the list. From the menu that pops up, select Change Settings for Keychain "login". In the sheet that opens, uncheck both boxes, if not already unchecked.

From the menu bar, select

Keychain Access ▹ Preferences ▹ First Aid

If the box marked Keep login keychain unlocked is not checked, check it.

Select

Keychain Access ▹ Keychain First Aid

from the menu bar and repair the keychain. Quit Keychain Access.

Hi,

I am not sure the Alert is about the Messages app despite the wording.

Messages uses an App called IMAgent to support it in Connections to the servers and starting certain functions.

However if you do not use Messages check the System Preferences > Mail, Contacts and Calendars pane.

Make sure email accounts that might be considered Messages IDs are not active for the Messages app.

For Instance an AIM or AOL email address is most likely to also work as an AIM screen name in the Messages app.

The Google Mail ID will also work if Talk is enabled on your Google Account settings.

If you have various Apple Emails (@mac.com, @,me.com and @icloud.com) then these may also work as AIM valid Screen Names (you have to keep the password to 16 characters or less) as well.

The Messages app can also use Yahoo IDs

9:16 pm Saturday; January 4, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

Hi,

for the Points.

The Keychain stores most of your info about apps connecting to servers.

If you open Keychain Access - it is inside Applications/Utilities - you will see at least a Login keychain.

There is also likely to be a System one and possibly a Microsoft one if you have installed Office at all.

More recently one called Local Items has been included.

There can be issues if you don't use Migration Assistant and use a keychain from another User on another Mac (or even the same Mac).

There can be issues about Ownership and whether the Mac User Account you are logged on to your computer has permission to Read it or Write to it.

Apple have a Document about constant request to the Local Items keychain

http://support.apple.com/kb/TS5362

There can be issues if you have Changed the Password to the Keychain (It is normally the same as the Login Password and this Opens the keychain when you start up your computer).

I would check out these two things and see if they are the cause.

7:45 pm Sunday; January 5, 2014

 iMac 2.5Ghz 5i 2011 (Mavericks 10.9)
 G4/1GhzDual MDD (Leopard 10.5.8)
 MacBookPro 2Gb (Snow Leopard 10.6.8)
 Mac OS X (10.6.8),
 Couple of iPhones and an iPad

I had the same problem after genius bar editted my keychain to eliminate a multiple iCloud problem. Repeatedily running repir on the keychain fixed the problem for me eventually.

Your solution solved my problem. Thanks Linc.

Gotta wonder if Apple is EVER going to fix Keychain…been destroying the large enterprise end-user experience for like 8 years now….

Hi,

This thread is quite old and has also been marked Solved.

Very few will pop back to read it even if they are still subscribed.

If Linc's info has not helped I suggest starting your own Thread.

8:57 pm Friday; July 17, 2015

Hi Ralph-

Thanks. Really anyone getting this popup can find this thread with Google. It has plagued the Apple OSX from 10.7 through 10.10.4, and while your solution is awesome information for a single user in a singe profile, Apple has ignored the ongoing issue for wide scale deployments.

I realize Active Directory is not their product, but it runs the world's directory systems almost exclusively and will continue to do so for many years to come.

The screen captures above haven't changed at all, due to the fact that the problem continues to this day. A new thread would mean starting over with all your background and nice screenshots so I chose not to do that.

Great Fix !

I agree with roadrunnersrg - this is an on-going issue that Apple simply will not address. The solutions suggested work well for a single user on a single Mac. However, the suggested solutions absolutely do not translate into an enterprise situation. I manage multiple computer labs with many iMacs in them. My users (80000+) will log into any of the Macs and randomly run into this problem. My only work-around is to go into the User's network Home directory and empty their Library/Keychains folder. This works most of the time, but not always, plus I have to repeat this method over and over and over.

What worked for me tonight was to simply click that locked Lock button on the top left corner of the Keychain Access window, which prompted me to enter an "iCloud helper" password, which was my usual Mac laptop account login password not my iCloud password. From what I can tell of reading several articles, when you log into your laptop, it opens or unlocks that Lock for the Keychain Access, allowing apps and whatnot access to the passwords you've saved. When something locks it back, whether you did it on accident, or something else changed it, I'd suggest checking their first to make sure that lock is unlocked.

I finally fixed by doing "Reset my Default Keychain" in Keychain Access Preferences.

✅ OSX Yosemite