Dialog box prompting to enter the password on startup

Question

I'm using Ubuntu 10.10. Following an update, when I restart my system (automatic login is my preference), a dialog box appears with the text:

"Enter your password to unlock your login keyring"

What's wrong? Can anyone explain why this appears?

Answer 1

You are using gnome-keyring (vault passwords for programs). Login to gdm unlocked base gnome-keyring, and if autologin base gnome-keyring to unlock accounts manually after autologin.

You can disable the use of gnome-keyring in programs that store passwords in it. Or change to another method of storing passwords in these programs (eg: base64 or plain)

Answer 2

This is happening because your login password and the password for gnome-keyring is not matching. You might have changed the password of your user account.

You can resolve this in two ways:

1). If you know your old password, Reset the password of gnome-keyring to current password of your user account.

2). Delete the existing keyring.

To do these open a terminal and type the command seahorse. A window will open where you can manage the gnome-keyring and other keys. Under the 'Passwords' tab right click on the 'Passwords:login'. A menu opens and you can find both options (Change password and delete).

You can also delete the application that causing the error from the keyring list

Answer 3

You can still use the gnome-keyring without having the annoying box popping up by setting your password for gnome-keyring to be the same as your login password.

See this answer for more information on how to do this.

Answer 4

This happens if you defined to auto-login into Ubuntu (without your password) and the computer tries to login to a password protected wifi network.

Explanation:

Every time you request to remember an external password, like log into a site and click on "remember password" (youtube, gmail, yahoo, etc.) and request to save the password, the password is saved into a file.

In order not to allow anyone to see these password, the file is encrypted so only you can have access to it - using your ubuntu password.

The wifi password is also protected in such a way, thus when logging in, the computer tries to connect to the WiFi, but needs to know the password, which is stored in the passwords file. To unlock and read this password file, it requests the user to enter Ubuntu's passwrod.

Solutions:

• Disable the password protection by going to the "passwords and encryption keys" and changing the password of "default" keyring to none (Just don't type anything in the new password)
• Just type the password when you log-in.
• Not a complete solution: Make the wifi available to all user: How can I stop being prompted to unlock the 'default' keyring on boot?. You will still get the message when you open other applications that needs access to passwords, like the browser.

You should not disable the password if you are wary that someone may steel your computer and copy your passwords - Not my case, so I chose to disable the password protection.