Entourage keeps requesting passwords

[Bruce Truax]

I have been using Entourage for many years and suddenly it is requesting
passwords for all of my email accounts each time I open the program. As
long as Entourage remains open the passwords are remembered. When I
re-enter all of the passwords they get stored in the keychain and they are
all correct. I have run Keychain First Aid but that did not help. It
appears that Entourage is able to write to the keychain but not read from
it.

Any ideas how to solve this problem?

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

I have been using Entourage for many years and suddenly it is requesting
passwords for all of my email accounts each time I open the program.

It looks like somethign is wrong with your Keychain. Launch the Keychain
Access application and use the Keychain first Aid to fix it.
If it is not enough, identify the entries corresponding to your e-mail
accounts and delete them to let Entoruage re-create them fresh.

Corentin

 

[Bruce Truax]

Corentin,

I tried both of your suggestions already. They did not solve the problem.
Should I trash the Entourage preference file?

Bruce

 

[Corentin Cras-Méneur]

Corentin,

I tried both of your suggestions already. They did not solve the problem.
Should I trash the Entourage preference file?

The passwords are not stored there. They are in the Keychain itself :-\

It could also be that your server has a temporary glitch and is refusing
login. When authentication is rejected, Entourage simply assumes that
the password is wrong and asks you to re-enter it.

Corentin

 

[Bruce Truax]

I do not think that it is the server since all of my passwords (6 accounts)
need to be entered every time I start Entourage. It is almost as if
entourage has write access to the keychain but not read access.

Bruce

 

[Obby]

I do not think that it is the server since all of my passwords (6 accounts)
need to be entered every time I start Entourage. It is almost as if
entourage has write access to the keychain but not read access.

Bruce

Did you change your main login password anytime recently? That usually
kicks off a problem with your keychain access and prompts you to re-enter
them after a restart, exactly as you described initially.

Two ways to get passed that issue, the keychain repair.. (theres a system
glitch thats why it hasn't worked for you so far). Open the keychain first
aid.. enter your user name and then password... but before you select and
start repair.. go to keychain preferences while the keychain first aid window
is up.. select the "First Aid" tab under keychain preferences and then simply
close the window. Now when you run the repair utility it should actually
work..(it will ask you for the previous password).

The second and possibly easier method.. delete the keychain (move to the
trash can) preference located:
Macintosh HD/Users/~username/Library/Keychains
Then log out or Restart your computer and the keychain should use default
values. Then when you key your passwords they should stay stored from this
point on without the bothersome popups.

 

[Bruce Truax]

Obby,

I did not change my main login password recently.

OK. I tried the Keychain repair per your instructions and that did not
help.

I will try restarting next and if that does not work I will delete the
keychain and start over. That is a little extreme because there are a large
number of items in the keychain which I would rather not loose. I hope I
can drag them back into the new keychain.

Bruce

 

[Obby]

Obby,

I did not change my main login password recently.

OK. I tried the Keychain repair per your instructions and that did not
help.

I will try restarting next and if that does not work I will delete the
keychain and start over. That is a little extreme because there are a large
number of items in the keychain which I would rather not loose. I hope I
can drag them back into the new keychain.

Bruce

You could just move that file to the trash can and restart or log off and
back on; for testing.

 

[Bruce Truax]

Restarting seems to have done the trick but I do not know why. Some
important deamon probably died or went into anti-microsoft mode.

Bruce

 

[William Smith]

Restarting seems to have done the trick but I do not know why. Some
important deamon probably died or went into anti-microsoft mode.

The exact same problem happened to me. I repaired and fixed problems in
my keychain with the Keychain Access utility. Then I looked at each
password and re-entered each one in Entourage. Quitting and restarting
Entourage finally stopped the cycle.

--

bill

William M. Smith, Microsoft Interop MVP - Mac/Windows
Entourage Help Page <http://entourage.mvps.org/>
Entourage Help Blog <http://blog.entourage.mvps.org/>