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Keychain first aid: Keychain can't be unlocked automatically

MacBook Air running OS X 10.11 (El Cap), though I had the same issue with Yosemite just prior to upgrading.


On starting up I get prompted by various daemons and 'helpers' for keychain passwords as follows:


Local Items keychain:

-----------------------------

- talagent

- Messages Agent


iCloud keychain:

-----------------------

CallHistoryPluginHelper

CommCenter

com.apple.iCloudHelper.xpc

accountsd

AddressBookSourceSync

cloudd

assistantd

Google Drive


***Note that I do *not* get prompted for my login keychain password. Also that my login keychain password is the same as my login password, and the other keychain passwords (iCloud, Local Items) are all the same, but different than my login password. I'm not sure that I intended this but that's how it seems to have happened.


I've read various threads that recommend running Keychain First Aid. When I run the 'Verify' option I get the results shown below. When I run File->Unlock Keychain 'login', it prompts me to enter a new password for my login keychain (which I don't want to do), and accountsd prompts for my iCloud keychain. I Cancel out of the New Password dialog, and the keychain is apparently unlocked since the File->Unlock.. operation has now been changed to File->Lock...


I run First Aid/Verify again and get the same messages below, and the same 10 prompts on restart. I don't have this problem on my iMac (both signed into the same iCloud account, and both are using iCloud to sync everything including keychain). At this point I'm just trying stuff at random because the documentation doesn't really explain very well how keychain is supposed to work. I see other threads like this and no definitive answers - hello Apple ?



Verification started

Checking keychain configuration for keith nangle (user ID=501)

Home directory is /Users/keithnangle

Checked login keychain

Checked settings for ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

Keychain can't be unlocked automatically. Please attempt to unlock ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain from Keychain Access.

Checked default keychain

Checked contents of ~/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

No problems found

Verification completed

MacBook Air, OS X Yosemite (10.10.5)

Posted on Oct 6, 2015 8:04 AM

Reply
4 replies

Oct 11, 2015 1:04 PM in response to Jcyw

Unfortunately not. I have done everything to make my Macbook Air setup look exactly like my iMac setup, and I still have the issue on my Air but not my iMac. I have a feeling that the problem is related to the fact that my keychain passwords for Local Items and iCloud are not the same as my login password, but I don't know how to change these two password (the Keychain Access program only seems to let me change my login keychain password).


One question I still have is whether all of these passwords are shared across platforms or not. If they are then I am more puzzled by why my two machines have different behavior. If they are local (despite my iCloud settings set to sync Keychain) then I could understand the different behavior. It seems nobody at Apple is really responsible for Keychain - pretty disappointing.

Nov 8, 2015 6:03 PM in response to Kln-nc

I'm also seeing similar problems. Can you go into Keychain First Aid and see if there's an editable field next to "Password"? In previous versions of OSX, the password field is active so you may enter the account password to allow "repair". Ever since the update to El Capitan, this field disappeared. I wonder if that's related to what's causing the auto unlock to fail. I'm logging this with Apple at: http://www.apple.com/feedback/macosx.html and I suggest you all do the same.

Nov 9, 2015 2:12 AM in response to Thumbmaster

No, no editable field for changing passwords, for any of the keychains. When I highlight the logon keychain, and it's unlocked, there is a menu operation Edit->Change Password for keychain 'login'. But for the iCloud keychain, selected and unlocked, the menu item Edit->Change Password for keychain 'iCloud' is grayed out.


Even between logins/restarts (which I now try to avoid for as long as possible), I occasionally get prompted for keychain passwords for reasons that aren't clear, unless the password entries age away after some time period.


I'm on El Cap 10.11.1.

Keychain first aid: Keychain can't be unlocked automatically

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