System Preferences always requires Authentication after restart.

[ChrisBiele]

Hi there! Did a quick search of the forum and nothing similar turned up, so here goes...

I'm running 10.6.4. I have noticed for quite a while now (pre 10.6.2?) that after restarting my computer or logging out I have to re authenticate in System Preferences, even just to use Energy Saver! Once authenticated, everything stays normal until my next restart. I am admin and have one other test account which is standard.

Any ideas? This is extremely annoying when I want to quickly change something trivial like my network settings or whatever and I have to type in a complicated password.

Thanks.

 

[LPZ]

I just tested and this behavior doesn't happen for me under 10.6.4. When you say "authenticate" do you mean you have to click the lock symbol in the Preference pane, or does some message appear without any prior action on your part?

I'm wondering if this may be some sort of keychain-related issue ...

 

[ChrisBiele]

Yeah, I've never seen this happen on any other computer and I do part time freelance Mac support, so I've seen a few. Yes, I mean when I open Sys Pref I have to click the lock to make any adjustments.

I did have a keychain issue a while back, but I seem to remember the Sys Pref problem from before that, tho not sure. The keychain issue was with Mobile Me. I had to sign out of Mobile Me, remove all Mobile Me/.Mac instances from Keychain, login to Mobile Me (in System Preferences) with random user and password, eg. lkjdflkad@me.com pass: asdfghjkl, relaunch Sys Prefs and then login with my user and pass. That solved my Mobile Me issues, but this problem seems slightly different? Maybe I deleted something in Keychain by accident?

 

[LPZ]

In System Preferences, go to Security and click on General. Is "Require a password to unlock each System Preferences pane" checked?

 

[ChrisBiele]

Yeah, forgot to mention that. No, that's the first thing i checked. Thanks tho.

 

[LPZ]

No, that's the first thing i checked.

Well, I'm impressed. Didn't even remember/know that such a setting existed! Found it by Googling.

Maybe move com.apple.systempreferences.plist from ~/Library/Preferences to your Desktop and restart. You can always put the .plist back later if it doesn't fix the problem.

 

[ChrisBiele]

Yep, i used to use that feature for a really weird network preferences bug fix/workaround in tiger for some clients.

Will try moving the keychain log when back in the office.

 

[ChrisBiele]

I'm gonna hold off on removing the keychain for now. Can't restart my computer at the moment, but will post results here when I finally get a chance to try...

 

[LPZ]

I'm gonna hold off on removing the keychain for now. Can't restart my computer at the moment, but will post results here when I finally get a chance to try...

You're going to delete the entire login keychain? Maybe try Keychain First Aid first.

 

[ChrisBiele]

No way! That would only end in tears! I have about 100 wifi passwords in there which i would loose, not to mention all my safari forms and 7 email passwords. Just gonna move it to the desktop for now.

 

[ChrisBiele]

Ok. Tried it and no luck. I've already executed the keychain repair earlier when i had the problem with mobileme.

Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[LPZ]

Ok. Tried it and no luck. I've already executed the keychain repair earlier when i had the problem with mobileme.

Anyone have any other ideas?

What did you just do?

Have you tried this:

Maybe move com.apple.systempreferences.plist from ~/Library/Preferences to your Desktop and restart. You can always put the .plist back later if it doesn't fix the problem.

 

[ChrisBiele]

Yeah, i tried removing the login.keychain and restarting with no luck. I dont know if this might be a sys level problem. I'll try creating a new admin acct to see if it does the same thing.

 

[ChrisBiele]

Well, I put that on the back burner for about a month. Still haven't been able to figure this one out! I created a new account as admin and it gives me the same problem. That should prove it's not a problem with the keychain unless I have somehow modified the system keychain, although the steps I tried above should also prove it's not the keychain, right?

I'm at a bit of a loss here, but am going to upgrade my hdd to a 128gb ssd and stick my 500gb hard drive into the optical bay. I may take that opportunity to just do a full system re-install and just call it a day, although I loathe the thought of reinstalling nearly 100 apps! http://cl.ly/7ab45affdfdf4e0c3cc8