10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install

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Fri, Nov 9 2007 at 2:00PM PST • Contributed by: wgscott

After archive/install upgrading to 10.5, Mail.app, Safari, etc. all complained about my keychain information missing. So I simply copied the file ~/Library » Keychains » login.keychain to ~/Library » Keychains » yourusername.keychain. After that, everything worked fine again.

[robg adds: There were some comments on the queue review site about this hint that I thought I should share. I haven't seen this issue myself, but the comments covered a range from "Thanks for figuring out this simple solution. This had been nagging me since install" to "I think there should be some advice on backing up the original before doing this" and "Are we sure this is even the right thing to do?" So this tip may or may not help you, but at least one of our reviewers noted that it solved the same problem for him.]

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10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install | 8 comments | Create New Account

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10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: jcbeckman on Fri, Nov 9 2007 at 2:46PM PST

This happened to me on 10.4. I copied all the entries from one keychain to the other to get around it.

10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: pdonovan on Fri, Nov 9 2007 at 4:07PM PST

Apple have a Knowledgebase article about this problem at http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306862

It only occurs for keychains created in 10.2.8 or earlier.

It seems that at some point since 10.1 (when I created my account), Apple switched the default user keychain from being named after your loginname to just being called 'login.keychain'.

I think it's better to rename your keychain to login.keychain rather than carrying on using yourloginname.keychain in case the same problem occurs in the future.

You can also use Keychain Access's Edit->Keychain List to select which keychains should be used.

10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: tbolioli on Fri, Nov 9 2007 at 2:51PM PST

You can also just add the keychain in. So long as the username/password is in one of your keychains, it does not matter which one. I had the same issue where the default keychain was gone when I upgraded to 10.5. I just added it in and then made it the default (that second step is important if you want certain apps to find things) and everything was fine.

10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: jcrossley on Fri, Nov 9 2007 at 5:44PM PST

Here's Apple's solution which worked for me.

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=306862

10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: wgscott on Sat, Nov 10 2007 at 4:04AM PST

I upgraded a second machine and my proposed fix didn't work at all. This has been a real annoyance. Sorry my hint isn't a good one.

Keychain confusion...
Authored by: ptwithy on Sat, Nov 10 2007 at 4:16AM PST

I hit this after and archive and install. Many apps were still looking for my 'ptw' keychain, although it seemed that I also had a 'login' keychain. In Keychain Access, there was still an entry for my 'ptw' keychain, but it was grayed out -- there was no file behind it. I deleted that, and all worked for a while.

Then I got the keychain update and my 'ptw' keychain was back. Now some apps appeared to be using my 'login' keychain and others using my 'ptw' keychain. I was pretty sure that all my passwords were correctly in my 'login' keychain, so I manually moved my 'ptw' keychain file to a safe backup (just in case) and then deleted that keychain using Keychain Access/File/Delete Keychain and telling it to delete the reference and the file.

10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: wgscott on Sat, Nov 10 2007 at 4:12AM PST

jcrossley's link provided a solution that seems to have solved my ongoing problems:

Simply delete (or gzip) ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.security.plist

(I gzipped it in case I need the original back some day).

10.5: Keychain access after 10.5 archive/install
Authored by: willisjw on Sat, Nov 10 2007 at 6:56AM PST

In my case I noted that the extension .keychain was missing from the old file that was not imported. I added the extension, dropped it into keychain access, and then ran keychain first aid. Seems to work ok now with all the old info available. This has worked on all three machines I've upgraded. I'll try the plist approach if I upgrade another one.

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