After password reset, automatic login does not work

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After password reset, automatic login does not work

For Snow Leopard 10.6.8 on an iMac a friend bought as university surplus (with no install disc), he created a login password, set it to auto-login, then forgot what it was. A common enough development, but it became an issue when we tried to install some new software.

(Comedy of errors: He took it to the Apple Store where they reinstalled Snow Leopard for him, and he created a long secure password, but the password he wrote down does not correspond to what he entered when he created the password. In retrospect he thinks he forgot to write down one character.)

I used the password reset procedure described in https://discussions.apple.com/docs/DOC-5381 and expected to follow up with a login keychain procedure such as described in the referenced articles, but when I exited single-user mode and booted, a prompt allowed me to create a new login keychain right away. I thought, "Great, done!"

Well, sort of. We got the new software installed, but the login password has to be entered at every bootup.

I checked Preferences: Accounts, and it is set to auto-login for his account (the sole account besides Guest).

I'm thinking this is a keychain issue, but I don't know enough to fix it. Under Go: Utilities: Keychain Access, the login keychain has no items in it.

Anyone recognize the problem?

iMac, Mac OS X (10.6.8)

Posted on Nov 9, 2015 8:44 AM

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Answer 1

Eric Root

Level 10

684,027 points

Nov 10, 2015 8:49 AM in response to JD Hupp

Try running Keychain Access/First Aid and resetting the original keychain.

Keychain Reset

Keychain Issues - Resolve see post by Kappy

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Answer 2

JD Hupp Author

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Nov 12, 2015 1:28 PM in response to Eric Root

Thanks for the reply.

The first link is actually one of the articles referenced in the password reset procedure that I linked to in my original post.

The second link with Kappy's tutorial on using Keychain First Aid to synch the passwords is a nice read. I had not known what the functionality of First Aid included. That would have probably solved my problem.

But what I actually resorted to first: I read somewhere that changing the user login password via Preferences: User Accounts should automatically change the login keychain password, so I just changed the user login password. This apparently succeeded in synch'ing the P/W's, since auto-login worked after that.

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