system keychain is purged on restart

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47 points

system keychain is purged on restart

Upgraded to OS X 10.11.5 in new iMac. Now whenever I boot the computer - either a cold boot or a restart - the startup process archives the system keychain and creates a new empty system keychain.

Log-In and Local Items keychains are unaffected, but the link to the Airport Base Station and/or the Time Capsule disappears and I lose wi-fi.

It is easy to reconnect wi-fi as when I click on the network name in the wi-fi icon of the title bar, it instantly reconnects; however it won't accept the password for the Time Capsule - I get a 25293 error (which I think is authentication).

Each time I reboot the computer archives the old system keychain with a time/date stamp identifier.

Working with Apple support but so far no solution.

I have experimented with an old Airport Base Station and get the same results as with the Time Capsule. I have started up in "Safe Mode" and get the same results. I have rebuilt the keychain over and over again but still get the same results. I have logged on as Administrator - same results. I have removed lots of software, particularly programs that do maintenance type actions, and get the same results.

Am I the only one with this type of problem?

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.5), 24 gb Ram, 3 TB time capsule

Posted on May 28, 2016 8:02 AM

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Answer 1

appreciate

Level 4

1,278 points

May 28, 2016 9:25 AM in response to bartjr

Close all applications by using keyboard short cut : command + tab + Q , then click on go > keep on holding option key > library > keychains > delete entire contents of it .

Restart your system from apple logo > empty the trash .

Then open airport utility from spotlight and click on base station , it will prompt to enter base station password please enter it and system will be connected to network .

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Answer 2

bartjr Author

Level 1

47 points

May 28, 2016 12:17 PM in response to appreciate

Thanks, appreciate. The process you noted did as you indicated, and got me set up again on the internet; however once I shut down and restarted, the system keychain was again blank and the most recent one was archived in the /library/keychains folder.

Still trying to figure out what's wrong!

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Answer 3

appreciate

Level 4

1,278 points

May 28, 2016 1:36 PM in response to bartjr

Have you restarted the system from apple logo and emptied the trash ? as new contents are recreated once again in key chain folder .

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Answer 4

bartjr Author

Level 1

47 points

May 28, 2016 5:19 PM in response to appreciate

Yes, I followed your instructions. After the restart, I have to enter all the passwords required to get back to the wifi. That works exactly like you said it would.

But when I shut down and then restart the computer later, there are no passwords in the System Keychain - it is blank, and the one I recreated is archived with a time/date stamp in the /library/keychains folder.

Something in the startup (or possibly shutdown) process backs up the system keychain to an archive file then creates a blank system keychain, which does not have the wifi passwords in it.

Log In keychains and Local keychains are not affected. They live in the /user/library/keychains folder, which is not being purged.

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Answer 5

Nov 10, 2016 3:20 PM in response to bartjr

I had the same issue, but this was after migrating my old Mac OS 10.11.something to a new laptop (where I'm currently on 10.11.6). I had copied my old data over, including the System keychain, but I noticed that this System keychain was being archived and a new one would take its place every time I rebooted.

Eventually I figured out part of the problem, and a way to fix it, after reading this answer (about how the system keychain works):

http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/115694/12027

You should first run this command as a normal user:

systemkeychain -vt

The normal output should be:

Testing system unlock of /Library/Keychains/System.keychain

(If you are prompted for a passphrase, cancel)

System unlock is working

If it's not, which was my case, then it's possible that the key that Mac OS uses to unlock the System keychain (which is located at

/var/db/SystemKey

) is not the right key for this keychain.

In my case, my old key (at /var/db/SystemKey) could unlock my old (archived) keychain, but there were an additional two new keys (at /var/db/SystemKey, - note the trailing comma, and another at /var/db/SystemKey.2016-09-24.09:43:06). The one ending in a comma presumably got generated at the last reboot (it had a very recent timestamp).

To fix this, I deleted the other SystemKeys (leaving the original one in place), and moved the "current" System.keychain as well as all the other backups to a different directory, moving only my original (oldest) backed-up System.keychain.<date-suffix> back as the system keychain (at /Library/Keychains/System.keychain).

Make sure to take a backup of all the files you delete. Also note that the /var/db is only readable by root, so you'll have to sudo to manage those SystemKeys.

After this, systemkeychain -vt produced the result above and the keychain wasn't deleted after boot anymore.

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