Keyring won't Unlock untill web browser is open

Question

Using Ubuntu 11.10 on an HP MINI1010nr. Ubuntu does not ask for Keyring unlock untill after I open either Chromium or firefox. Also sometimes I may be on for 30+ minuets then the screen blanks and I get the Ubuntu login screen asking for my Password again. Can ANYone please tell me what is wrong and how to fix it as I am quite new to linux and am still unfamiliar with bash

Answer 1

There are a few possibilities:

1. You have multiple keyrings

While the login keyring is unlocked automatically via a PAM module, other keyrings are not. It is possible that you have a second keyring called default that needs to be unlocked by an explicit keyring password prompt.

This keyring might have been created if you used an application when the login keyring was not available for some reason.

You can easily check what keyrings exist by starting the Passwords and Keys application and checking the Passwords tab. There will be a top level entry for each keyring.

If there is a second keyring and it only contains passwords you remember and can re-enter, I would suggest deleting the keyrings other than the one called login.

2. You performed an administrative password change

The PAM module that unlocks the login keyring using your login password. When you perform a normal password change, where your old password is requested before entering your new password, the PAM module re-encrypts your keyring with the new password.

This breaks down if you ever performed an administrative password change. That is, any password change that doesn't request the old password before setting the new one. Since the old password is not provided, it can't re-encrypt the keyring.

You should be able to recover from this situation by manually setting the password on the login keyring to your current login password. This can be done from the Passwords and Keys application. On the Passwords tab, right click on the top level entry for the login keyring and pick Change Password to fix things up.

When you log in next time, it should automatically unlock your keyring.