Arch Linux

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Yesterday (Sep 14) an update to chromium abruptly made it lose all my stored passwords/accounts, and it now refuses to store new ones.

It  appears to save them, insofar as the offer is offered, I accept it, and it says they are stored, but when I look under passwords they are not there. If I manually add an account it show up in the list, at least until I restart the application, at which point it disappears (and it doesn't auto-fill even when it is there). Same story when I import a CSV file: it appears to import but they don't work and disappear upon restart.

In terms of debugging, I have:

• Disabled all extensions

• Deleted all cookies and site data

• Ensured that it is configured to ask to save passwords and to use them for auto-filling.

• Deleted ~/.cache/chromium

• Made sure all the permissions in ~/.config/chromium are correct

There were some relevant log entries:

Sep 14 15:25:48 lucid chromium.desktop[74200]: [74200:74233:0914/152548.286308:ERROR:login_database_async_helper.cc(59)] Could not create/open login database.
Sep 14 15:25:48 lucid chromium.desktop[74200]: [74200:74267:0914/152548.286239:ERROR:login_database_async_helper.cc(59)] Could not create/open login database.
Sep 14 15:25:48 lucid chromium.desktop[74200]: [74200:74267:0914/152548.286041:ERROR:login_database.cc(922)] Password store database is too new, kCurrentVersionNumber=35, GetCompatibleVersionNumber=39
Sep 14 15:25:48 lucid chromium.desktop[74200]: [74200:74233:0914/152548.285994:ERROR:login_database.cc(922)] Password store database is too new, kCurrentVersionNumber=35, GetCompatibleVersionNumber=39

I had opened up a bug report, but the guy who hopped on it said that there really wasn't any indication that it was a packaging error, so he suggested that I try here.

I've looked at the upstream, but I don't see any related issues listed.

Other data that may be relevant:

• I am running Arch with the Gnome DE

Also, because it seems to be an interaction with other sotfware (and not an issue of chromium alone) these are the packages that I installed and/or upgraded  yesterday.

The listing may be a little messed up because a) I downgraded chromium and signon-kwallet-extension (seemed it could be relevant), and then re-upgraded them today, and b) upgraded today, so any package that was re-updated today wouldn't show up in the list, which is taken from /var/lib/pacman/local.

libtiff-4.6.0-1
librsvg-2:2.57.0-1
libwebp-1.3.2-1
curl-8.3.0-1
ffmpeg-2:6.0-10
containerd-1.7.6-1
element-web-1.11.42-1
element-desktop-1.11.42-1
firefox-117.0.1-1
ghostscript-10.02.0-1
graphviz-9.0.0-1
haskell-lens-5.2.3-1
haskell-dbus-1.2.22-177
haskell-generic-lens-2.2.2.0-6
haskell-lens-aeson-1.2.3-5
haskell-lsp-types-1.6.0.0-32
haskell-lsp-1.6.0.0-34
haskell-hls-plugin-api-1.6.0.0-46
haskell-listlike-4.7.8.1-1
haskell-process-extras-0.7.4-291
iio-sensor-proxy-3.5-1
lib32-curl-8.3.0-1
lib32-libtiff-4.6.0-1
libcurl-gnutls-8.3.0-1
liblouis-3.27.0-1
linux-6.5.3.arch1-1
telegram-desktop-4.9.7-1
virtualbox-host-modules-arch-7.0.10-17
xmobar-0.46-67
yed-1:3.23.2-1
slack-desktop-4.34.120-1
libmicrohttpd-0.9.77-1
debuginfod-0.189-3
openblas64-0.3.24-2
blas64-openblas-0.3.24-2
kaccounts-integration-23.08.1-1
libktorrent-23.08.1-1
ktorrent-23.08.1-1
libimagequant-4.2.1-1
spectacle-23.08.1-1
visual-studio-code-bin-1.82.2-1
pandoc-bin-3.1.8-1

The only other thing that I can think of as relevant: When I launched chromium the first time after upgrading, it asked me to set a password on the password store, and I declined. It has not asked again.

Thanks in advance for any suggestion you all may have!

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,716

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

chromium on gnome would default to https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/GNOME/Keyring - see whther they show up there.
There's even https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chromi … ME_Keyring
You can also https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Chromi … word_store

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mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

OK, that may have revealed some useful information.

I installed seahorse to take a look at the Gnome key-rings, and when I try to access the Login Key-ring is complains that my login password no longer matches the key-ring password, so I'm unable to load it (I have no idea what chromium (?) may have set it to).

I'll look into deleting it/re-initializing it to see if that helps.

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,716

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

You either changed your login PW or

it asked me to set a password on the password store, and I declined

has caused the problem.

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mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Frankly, I haven't changed my login password for, well, longer that I should have gone...

I recreated the Login key ring with a known, good, password (my login password), and unfortunately that didn't help.

I suppose I should reboot (or at least create a new Gnome session) to make sure.

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

OK, that was a little strange.

I rebooted the machine to make sure that all the new configuration information was loaded, and when I tried to bring up chromium I was prompted to create a Default keyring. I did so (securing it with my login password), and now I have two "Default keyring"s (same spelling and capitalization). The original one contains:

• Chrome Safe Storage Control

• Chromium Safe Storage (for slack, which is an electron application, so it runs an chromium instance)

• Chromium Safe Storage (for chromium)

• Chromium Safe Storage (for VS code, which is again an electron app)

whereas the new one contains

• Chrome Safe Storage Control

Both Chrome Safe Storage Control entries have the following explanation:

Because of quirks in the gnome libsecret API, Chrome needs to store a dummy entry to guarantee that this keyring was properly unlocked. More details at http://crbug.com/660005.

It's still not working, but I have a feeling we're going down the right path to fix things.

It's very strange that even though there is already a "Default keyring" it creates a second "Default keyring".

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

OK, the strangeness continues: I deleted the second, new Default keyring, and things appear to be working.

So I:

• Allowed chromium to create a new Default keyring

• Then deleted that keyring

• Created a new Login keyring with my login password (probably not needed, as it is still empty)

and things appear to be working. I don't exactly grok why (I let chromium do something and the un-did that thing), but it's good that it's working now!

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

... and it stopped working.

I restarted chromium and again it wanted to create a new key ring. I created it and deleted it, and it's up to its old tricks again. (I also tried not creating it, and it's the same thing.)

I think I'm going to step away for a bit. This is getting pretty frustrating...

espritlibre

Member

Registered: 2022-12-15

Posts: 132

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

you seem to have some kde apps installed, even though you're using the gnome DE... this might have caused issues with chromiums auto detection of the password store.
look into forcing a password store

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Well, it appears to be using the correct one (the actions show up in Seahorse, with is a gnome front-end), but I do have some KDE apps installed (like krita), so I'll give it a shot!

seth

Member

Registered: 2012-09-03

Posts: 59,716

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

How do you start GNOME?
GDM? startx? just a wayland session from the console?

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mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Yes, I'm running a display manager (GDM). First time I haven't just startx-ed.

But for clarity, I am not running Wayland -- too many or my applications didn't work well with it. So I'm running Xorg.

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Interestingly, at least one person is seeing similar behavior on OpenSUSE: https://www.reddit.com/r/chrome/comment … ?rdt=58867

--password-store=gnome

seemed to have no effect. Not too surprising, as the Chrome password was being created in the Default Keyring there.

Last edited by mcw (2023-09-17 15:49:48)

jlindgren

Member

Registered: 2011-02-27

Posts: 260

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

I used to have troubles like this with Chromium some time ago (never figured out the exact cause). My suggestion is to not rely on Chromium and the GNOME keyring, and instead use a dedicated (offline) password manager like KeePassXC. To me, passwords are simply too important to trust to a piece of software that randomly forgets them from time to time.

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

That's not a bad perspective!

What I've done before figuring this out is just not rely on chromium.  I actually prefer Firefox and tend to use it, but I use chromium when I'm at work. My personal Firefox profile is pretty security minded -- it deletes all cookies on exit, for example -- so I find it useful to have a more permissive profile for work. In that profile I'll leave myself logged into various services, keep cookies, etc. I just make sure to never do web searches from such a profile, because I never do web searches when logged into anything (I don't like being tracked).

So in the interim I'm just using a separate Firefox profile for work.

Hrafnahnef

Member

Registered: 2010-09-02

Posts: 15

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

I've had this same issue since upgrading to the latest google-chrome-stable from AUR, but I'm using KDE/plasma.

I was able to solve it by forcing a password store using --password-store=kdewallet5

I guess, for you, gnome-libsecret is the one you should force.

IIRC the new Google Password Manager UI was added in this version (of chrome, not sure about if the UI is enabled in Chromium, but backend stuff might have changed anyway). I think it might have triggered some specific system configurations to detect the wrong keyring.

Last edited by Hrafnahnef (2023-09-29 07:57:32)

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Well, I tried with

--password-store=gnome

with no good effect, but I think you're right about it doing some auto-detection wrong. I should try

--password-store=basic

to force the build-tin, insecure key ring and see if that has any effect.

qborki

Member

Registered: 2016-08-27

Posts: 7

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

I've just had the same issue. Fixed it by changing .config/chromium-flags.conf

--password-store=gnome

to

--password-store=gnome-libsecret

Hope someone will find this useful.

mcw

Member

Registered: 2023-09-15

Posts: 14

Re: Recent update caused chromium to no longer store passwords

Thanks. I'll check it out (although at this point I've kind of given up on chromium: I'm achieving the separation I need in my workflows by employing separate profiles)..