danamania
Jan 15, 2008, 01:41 AM
This is an annoying one that's started popping up in the last month or so, on my mother's mac.
It's a G4/500, 896MB RAM, running 10.3.9 (Panther) and connected via dialup only. It's been running pretty reliably for more than a year now, if limited by awful phonelines out this way, and often 28.8kbps max dialup speeds . That's not the issue though.
The problem I'm having is on every dialup connection, iChat auto-runs *AND* logs in automatically. OK, that's two problems - as iChat doesn't have the password for the account entered in its prefs (in iChat->Preferences->Accounts), nor does it have an entry in keychain (which is almost empty on this machine as it's never used) for ichat login details. iChat itself has an option to automatically login when started, which I can turn off - but iChat still runs when a dialup connection is initiated, and it'd only take someone ticking that button to auto-login again (once more, despite not having my password)
Every time my mother uses her G4, and I'm logged into iChat from my home machine, I get a message saying iChat has logged in on another session - I can disconnect the one on her machine remotely when AOL's little warning bot tells me there are multiple logins, but it's a pain to do - not to mention that anyone using my mother's machine (there's about 3-4 people who do, regularly) get my iChat popping up on them when they use it for the 'net. That's not good, whether it's my iChat or my mother's - I'm not always on my home machine in order to disconnect them.
There's no camera connected to this machine to fire up iChat automatically (and that option is turned off anyway), and nothing in startup items reveals anything interesting - all that's there is itunes helper, ical and usb over drive. The cli level startupitems folders (in /Library/StartupItems etc) contain nothing iChat-like.
I've gone into ~/Library/Preferences, and deleted the 3 iChat prefs files there, then rebooted - unfortunately immediately afterwards, iChat runs again, as soon as the dialup connects. Of course with prefs deleted it asks to re-setup a connection again - but both my .mac login *and* password are already filled out in the form, and it's just a button click or two away from connecting automatically again. This shouldn't be happening, as I have no ichat or .mac entry in keychain - somehow it's getting my username and password somewhere else.
I'm at a loss. Normally a few hours peeking around online and I'll find what's broken - but this time, I've been stuck for a few weeks! any hints? I want to do two things
1. Stop iChat firing up automatically when a dialup connection is initiated
2. Stop iChat auto-logging in when it doesn't (technically) have my password, like all other iChat installs I've used.
Dana
an extra too:
Under a new user account, iChat still starts up on a dialup connect, but doesn't immediately have my user account info. I can give it the username/password for my iChat login, and it'll use it - and put an entry in the keychain - but even deleting it in keychain, manually deleting the entire keychain file from disk, and removing the password from iChat's Accounts preferences, it'll still auto-login.
If I log out of iChat and give it a false password, I'm OK - it'll keep trying to use the false password to login, and fail - though it doesn't solve the problem of the auto-run. zipping ichat up does fix that... but they're workarounds, and painful ones to remember every time I use iChat... The wrong-password workaround isn't all that good either, as deleting ichat's preferences then just re-sets iChat and then has the last working working username/password already filled out in its form.
This. Makes. No. Sense.
It's a G4/500, 896MB RAM, running 10.3.9 (Panther) and connected via dialup only. It's been running pretty reliably for more than a year now, if limited by awful phonelines out this way, and often 28.8kbps max dialup speeds . That's not the issue though.
The problem I'm having is on every dialup connection, iChat auto-runs *AND* logs in automatically. OK, that's two problems - as iChat doesn't have the password for the account entered in its prefs (in iChat->Preferences->Accounts), nor does it have an entry in keychain (which is almost empty on this machine as it's never used) for ichat login details. iChat itself has an option to automatically login when started, which I can turn off - but iChat still runs when a dialup connection is initiated, and it'd only take someone ticking that button to auto-login again (once more, despite not having my password)
Every time my mother uses her G4, and I'm logged into iChat from my home machine, I get a message saying iChat has logged in on another session - I can disconnect the one on her machine remotely when AOL's little warning bot tells me there are multiple logins, but it's a pain to do - not to mention that anyone using my mother's machine (there's about 3-4 people who do, regularly) get my iChat popping up on them when they use it for the 'net. That's not good, whether it's my iChat or my mother's - I'm not always on my home machine in order to disconnect them.
There's no camera connected to this machine to fire up iChat automatically (and that option is turned off anyway), and nothing in startup items reveals anything interesting - all that's there is itunes helper, ical and usb over drive. The cli level startupitems folders (in /Library/StartupItems etc) contain nothing iChat-like.
I've gone into ~/Library/Preferences, and deleted the 3 iChat prefs files there, then rebooted - unfortunately immediately afterwards, iChat runs again, as soon as the dialup connects. Of course with prefs deleted it asks to re-setup a connection again - but both my .mac login *and* password are already filled out in the form, and it's just a button click or two away from connecting automatically again. This shouldn't be happening, as I have no ichat or .mac entry in keychain - somehow it's getting my username and password somewhere else.
I'm at a loss. Normally a few hours peeking around online and I'll find what's broken - but this time, I've been stuck for a few weeks! any hints? I want to do two things
1. Stop iChat firing up automatically when a dialup connection is initiated
2. Stop iChat auto-logging in when it doesn't (technically) have my password, like all other iChat installs I've used.
Dana
an extra too:
Under a new user account, iChat still starts up on a dialup connect, but doesn't immediately have my user account info. I can give it the username/password for my iChat login, and it'll use it - and put an entry in the keychain - but even deleting it in keychain, manually deleting the entire keychain file from disk, and removing the password from iChat's Accounts preferences, it'll still auto-login.
If I log out of iChat and give it a false password, I'm OK - it'll keep trying to use the false password to login, and fail - though it doesn't solve the problem of the auto-run. zipping ichat up does fix that... but they're workarounds, and painful ones to remember every time I use iChat... The wrong-password workaround isn't all that good either, as deleting ichat's preferences then just re-sets iChat and then has the last working working username/password already filled out in its form.
This. Makes. No. Sense.
