Keychain Problems

[iamfaiz]

Alright, it's been bothering me for the past few weeks and I still haven't figured out how to fix this...

So, a while back, my mac mini restarted itself, after it started it, everything seemed fined until mail started up, asking me to put in a password to access keychain. iChat starts up, and that too asks me to put in a password for keychain. So I hit enter(because my computer doesn't have any passwords set) but it'll give an error saying wrong password...


Sorry if I'm not explaining correctly..
I'm thinking about reformatting it, but might as well ask before doing that.

 

[Eidorian]

So I hit enter(because my computer doesn't have any passwords set) but it'll give an error saying wrong password...

You haven't tried your account's password yet?

You're more then likely going to need to change the password on your keychain in Keychain Access to match your login password.

 

[iamfaiz]

Ah, but I haven't set any passwords for my login.

 

[Eidorian]

Ah, but I haven't set any passwords for my login.

Have you ever run Software Update or an installer that requires an administrator account and password?

 

[iamfaiz]

Yup, but I don't need to put in any passwords when I system update my mac mini.

 

[Eidorian]

You've never seen this? Ever?

 

[iamfaiz]

Yeah, when I do the system update. It doesn't require a password.

 

[Eidorian]

How'd you get past the Setup Assistant without giving your account a password?

 

[iamfaiz]

No idea....

I don't think it even bothered to stop me when I was setting up the account and didn't put in a password...

 

[Quint]

It is an option not to use a password when you create a user, even if it is the only user. The keychain by default uses the same password as the user.

To fix your problem, go to /Applications/Utilities and open Keychain Access. Unlock your keychain by leaving the password blank.
You can also try using the Accounts preference pane to temporarily change your user password. Restart and see if your keychain unlocks. If it does, you can change your password back to no password (just leave the field blank and click OK after the warning message.)

If all else fails and you don't mind losing any info stored in your keychain, you can go to ~/Library/Keychains and delete the login.keychain. Restart and you will have a new, empty keychain.

Note: While mac OS does allow an admin user to use no password as an option, it greatly reduces security as is allows anyone with physical assess to you machine complete control over it and compromise security for any shared network resources or even rouge applications and trojans to install system files without user interaction.