[solstace]

Hiya!

Strange one for me today!

One of my users today tried to change her password through the "Accounts" tab in System Preferences. This change seemed to be accepted. She merrily locked her machine and went to get a coffee. When she came back to unlock her iMac, it wouldn't accept the new password. HUH?

When I logged in to the Admin account, I could change her password (as I'd expect) from the same preferences dialogue. Great. It then warned me that the keychain password would still be the old one. "Fine - Let's get into the desktop first, the run Keychain Admin to change the password" I think. Nope. Try to log in with new user password. Not accepted.

So I tried to change password back again to the original set up for the users profile. This time, I got no warning about the Keychain, and logging in just worked. Back to normal.

So - what am I supposed to tell the user, who wants to be able to change her password on a weekly basis? I do not want to give her admin rights because she's new to macs and I'd rather not compromise the one ultimate safeguard I still have...

Anyone got any ideas?

[RowdyScot]

Boot off of Panther Install disk 1 (hold C on startup), and choose Install->Reset Password. Choose the account that needs to have a password changed, and change it. Quit the Installer (which will restart the machine) and everything should be fine

[solstace]

Thanks to RowdyScot for the admin version! I'm not sure I can give this solution to a user though?

There has to be a way for a user to change their own password without ending up locked out of their own user account?

C.

[solstace]

Okay - having thought I'd returned the machine to its default state last week, I've come in this morning to find said user unable to collect e-mails etc. The cause? Mail did not want to accept a user-input mailbox password until the keychain had been unlocked. Why was it looking for a password in the first place? Because the Keychain was locked out... Grrrr...

So - we don't know her keychain (login) password as it seems to have been fubar'ed. It won't accept an Administrator name/password to authenticate a password update. It won't accept the users password(s).

Curiously, opening Keychain Access seemed to allow Mail.app to look up mailbox passwords from the keychain and get us rolling on that score.

Erm... So what's happened here is:

1) User changes password
2) User gets locked out as the new password isn't accepted
3) Admin logs in, sets a new (known) password for user.
4) User still locked out.
5) Admin logs in again, re-sets password to that originally set up for the user account created last week.
6) User now able to log in. All good on Friday.
7) It's now Monday, the user can log in but her keychain is locked. It's locked because it won't accept any of the known passwords.

How do I get out of this mess?

[FFL]

Try using Keychain First Aid on the Login keychain in the Keychain Access utility. If that doesn't work, delete it and recreate it.

You can manually remove the keychain from the user's home folder Library if none of your passwords will allow you to do it with Keychain Access.