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Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
I'm running Tiger 10.4.11, and since downloading the latest version of ff none of my bookmarked sites, (including this one) will recognize me. They all invite me to sign in, which is intensely irritating. I also downloaded at the same time a widget that tells me the weather elsewhere in the world. Anyone know anything?

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Mick Burrell
My guess would be your login keychain is locked.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
Thanks, Mick, I've had a go at that, to no avail. I should have mentioned that I also installed a few items from two MacFormat discs, the first being AppDelete, (which declined to delete one of the others on the grounds that it didn't recognize the file type.) That particular hard drive seems to have become erratic, inasmuch as both Safari and Firefox refused to fire up today, and Acrobat Reader 5.0.5 will not properly translate the latest version of a PDF file I copied from my OS 9 drive. I went back to that drive and checked the PDF file there, and everything was OK. All I had done was insert a couple of alterations into a PageMaker document, then exported it to PDF and copied it to the other drive (running Tiger 10.4.11) in order to print it out via Reader, which would only show me the file minus today's alterations. Nor will Preview do the job because it won't recognize the French keyboard I use in PageMaker.
I've now cured that particular problem by downloading Adobe Reader 9 to my other Tiger drive, copying the PDF file to there, and printing it out perfectly. I suspect that I shall end up by reformatting the big drive and having a fresh start.
Again, GULP!

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
I spoke to a mate yesterday, who uses Windows and Linux, who said that he'd had to trash FireFox 3 and reinstall FireFox 2, but could no longer remember why.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Lionel Ogden
Perhaps Safari may help, but having said that, when I use Safari to log in to this site it always now asks for my user name even though I have asked it to remember me. Then it fills in the password itself.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Lionel Ogden
Using Firefox 3 in Mac OS 10.5.5 it remembers both my user name and password.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
I've deduced that since I have a problem that affects both Firefox and Safari, Firefox 3 is not to blame. Something I've downloaded using it might be, as might something I've installed from a disc.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Mick Burrell
Eric, in reply to my suggestion, you say you've had a go at that (login keychain) - do you mean you've looked and it is unlocked or it's locked and you can't tell why?

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
To be honest, Mick, (I didn't want to tell you this), I'm not at all sure. I mucked about as best I could but I know so little it's embarrassing. Perhaps if you put the instructions in words of one syllable I'll have another go and let you know for certain! I've got to go out now, but when I get back I intend to have a look at Keychain on the obedient drive, and alter the naughty drive to agree with it, and try again. Thanks for your suspicion!

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Mick Burrell
Brief(!) explanation. Each user has a keychain which holds various passwords etc. There are other keychains too but this one is called login. It is normally kept locked unless that user has logged in to the computer. For most of us with just one user, this just means switching on. Now, you have a main password for the computer - an administrator password - and also one for the login keychain. By default, the login keychain uses the administrator password and is automatically unlocked when the user logs in or switches on. However, if the administrator password has changed, the keychain one does not automatically follow suit and this often leads to peoples' login keychain remaining locked with the result that Safari, Mail etc. cannot access it so ask you for your passwords. Hence my question.

To check yours, if you load Keychain Access (found in the Utilities folder) it will show you your keychain window and you should see that your login keychain is highlighted and unlocked. Just below the red/amber/green balls, it should show an open padlock with the message "click here to lock the keychain". If however,the padlock is locked and the message invites you to unlock then that's your problem. If it's already unlocked we need to look elsewhere.

Assuming it is locked, click to unlock. It will ask for the keychain password. Try your current administrator password but I would guess that you need to use an old one. If you do, then once it's unlocked, go to the edit menu and use the option to change the password - change it to your current administrator password.

Other than that, I usually suggest people avoid dealing with keychains unless they know what they're doing :-)

Aha! Just noticed your reference to drives. Your login keychain will be on your startup drive unless you've moved your home folder to another drive, but again, that could be what's causing the confusion.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
Love your style, Mick, you leave the punchline to the penultimate paragraph; and I couldn't agree more!
And much to my surprise, various thingies were locked, which I've just unlocked, and wOW! it all works perfectly. With respect to your comment on 'drives', I know you were talking about confusion on the Mac itself, but I've got three drives, thanks to two real ones and a partition, and the one that isn't partitioned has got Classic on it. I'm sure that Classic is in effect a partition because when I start up holding ALT I'm offered the choice of starting up in it. All these 'drives' are confusing the hell out of me. Classic is a poxy thing anyway, which is useless for my purposes; can I just whack it with AppDelete?

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Mick Burrell
So we're getting somewhere!

Just to recap, the login keychain was locked but you were able to unlock it and everything worked? That will, I assume be the one in your user account on the drive you used to start the machine. If you start from another drive, that's likely to have another version of Keychain Access on it which may or may not give you trouble. I don't know what you have on each drive and why they are as they are.

But back to the plot. If the answer to the question in the previous paragraph was yes, did you use your normal administrator password or was it an old one?

Answer that and we can take it further depending on your reply.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
First question, Yes, several items when I clicked on them were locked; I unlocked them all and everything worked as it used to do. This was on the drive I used to start up. This one is 180 gig and also contains Classic.
The other hardware drive is 120 gig, and is partitioned with 30 gig allotted to OS 9, and 90 gig allotted to Tiger. The 90 gig Tiger drive has been no trouble at all; it does have a slightly different Keychain arrangement inasmuch as everything was unlocked and it has very few apps on it. The OS 9 partition works perfectly, and it's only app is PageMaker. As to the passwords, this might be where I went wrong, as I tried to reset them all to blank. I hate passwords; nobody else uses my machine and I haven't got any secrets on the Mac. Why did I bother with Classic? If PageMaker had run properly in it, it would have saved me the trouble of messing about with separate drives. My printer will only work under OS X, not classic, which is why I have to go through Adobe Reader.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Mick Burrell
Slightly confused by your "several items - I unlocked them all" How many keychains did you have? We're only concerned with one item - the keychain called login.

You didn't say whether you had to use the current or an old password to unlock.

If you check again now, is it still unlocked?

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
Well now, isn't that a curious thing? There appear to be four: the first called Macuser which is unlocked, the second called Login, which is locked, the third called System, which is locked, the fourth called X509Anchors, which is locked.
The first one I assume I should have altered to read Eric when the (2nd hand) machine arrived (but I don't know how).
The last one is to do with something I foolishly installed from a MacFormat disk, (and don't know how to eliminate).
The password the machine arrived with was, I think, macuser. Somebody from this group told me how to change passwords, and I managed to change it to an empty box. Which means that when something asks me for the password, and shows me an empty box in which to type it I just click on the empty box. So I suppose that means it's a new 'password'. Gulp.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Mick Burrell
No need to do anything (for now) with the other keychains - just login. You need it unlocked. It needs to unlock automatically when you're using the computer.

You still haven't said how you unlocked it! If you highlight the login keychain in the list of four and then up above click the padlock to unlock it. Try just pressing return (i.e. your new blank password) when it asks you for the password. If it unlocks we have to find out why it is locking - but let me know. If, as I suspect, you'll have to type in a password (macuser?) then once it's unlocked, go to the Edit menu and choose the item to change the password for the login keychain. Type in the old password (macuser?) and then the new one (press return i.e. blank) and confirm and I think all should be well.

You can try restarting the computer and check that your login keychain has indeed unlocked.

When you were told how to change your password, depending on how you did it, it may or may not (probably didn't!) change your keychain password.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
Sorry Mate; I think I must have done it the way you are now suggesting. I've just had a look (locked) and unlocked it again. It does accept the return key as my new blank password. I'm now going to restart and have another look. Let you know in 5 mins!

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
After the restart it was locked. And furthermore the site made me log in, which it had not done just now. I went back and unlocked it again, but the site still made me log in. I've therefore now changed the password from blank to my usual one, and I'll see you in another 5 mins.

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
Back again, and so is that damned padlock! The site made me log in again, but had my username and password filled in, so all I had to do was tick the 'remember me' box and press the button. I don't know if this is a clue, but when I highlight the login keychain, in the right hand panel appears the message, Safari Forms AutoFill -application password- Account Safari - PersonalFormsAutofillDatabase - modified 12 12 08 - 1734. I'm using Firefox, not Safari, and the date and time mentioned is probably when I first altered the password. I re-altered the password 10 minutes ago; which surely implies that something hasn't noticed. Could the problem lie with Safari?

Re: Aggro with FireFox 3.0.4

Avatar Eric Jervis
Just started up again, to discover that Firefox is now behaving itself, but Safari isn't. Thought I'd trash the only two OS 9 folders I could see; Applications OS 9 went in happily enough but the OS 9 system folder would not as it's 'required by the System'. Login keychain is locked once more. Have not yet emptied the Trash. Gulp!
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