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Firefox asking for primary password several times throughout day, without restarting new session

  • 4 replies
  • 0 have this problem
  • 10 views
  • Last reply by Jer

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I enter the primary password for saved password when starting FF as prompted. It takes password fine and works just fine on sites just as designed and has worked for years. Lately last couple weeks since last update to 132.0.1 I notice a change. I didn't notice before this update. When starting Firefox it asks for primary password which is normal, I enter it and all is fine. I can go to sites and all works fine, passwords and user id are entered when prompted. However, later in the day when I go to a site wanting password, I get the prompt to enter primary password again. That never use to happen, once I entered the primary password, it didn't prompt again unless Firefox was restarted. Has anyone else seen this? Maybe it started and I just didn't notice some time ago. I know it wasn't that long ago the primary password prompt didn't have the little eye so you could see what you typed. I liked that, because FF for whatever reason wasn't always realizing I had the shift key pressed. Now with the eyeball I can see that it doesn't have what I typed, but that is not the problem I am asking about. Below is what Mozilla says about primary password:

Important: After you have defined and set your Primary Password, you will be prompted to enter it once for each Firefox session, when Firefox needs access to your stored passwords. This also applies if you want to add, remove or show a password.

I enter the primary password for saved password when starting FF as prompted. It takes password fine and works just fine on sites just as designed and has worked for years. Lately last couple weeks since last update to 132.0.1 I notice a change. I didn't notice before this update. When starting Firefox it asks for primary password which is normal, I enter it and all is fine. I can go to sites and all works fine, passwords and user id are entered when prompted. However, later in the day when I go to a site wanting password, I get the prompt to enter primary password again. That never use to happen, once I entered the primary password, it didn't prompt again unless Firefox was restarted. Has anyone else seen this? Maybe it started and I just didn't notice some time ago. I know it wasn't that long ago the primary password prompt didn't have the little eye so you could see what you typed. I liked that, because FF for whatever reason wasn't always realizing I had the shift key pressed. Now with the eyeball I can see that it doesn't have what I typed, but that is not the problem I am asking about. Below is what Mozilla says about primary password: Important: After you have defined and set your Primary Password, you will be prompted to '''enter it once''' for each Firefox session, when Firefox needs access to your stored passwords. This also applies if you want to add, remove or show a password.

Modified by Jer

All Replies (4)

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Most of these post have 0 answers under this category, I guess there is not much activity or a bunch of us ask stupid questions.

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I haven't noticed a change yet. I know you can trigger that behavior by canceling the Primary Password dialog. For example, clicking the view password or copy password button on the Passwords page and canceling the Primary Password dialog that pops up for those functions. Otherwise, although people have asked for a way to make the authorization expire after some amount of time, I don't think it expires.

Do you use Avast/AVG or ESET software? There is an article about those programs and the Primary Password dialog: Firefox keeps asking me for Primary Password.

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No right now I have Webroot that only has a few more days and then I believe I will go back to MS Defender. It must be something about my computer/settings, it asked me a second time today after sitting a long time. It's not a big deal, actually the idea of having a time to expire isn't a bad idea. I just thought maybe someone else had seen the same thing. Thanks for your reply Jerry

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Still happening and I don't go in and make any changes. I have played around removing addons and it will still sometimes come up and ask for Primary Password when coming to a logon screen. Doesn't always happen and doesn't do it every day. Not a big deal, have run 3 different virus and malwarebytes which finds nothing.

Not complaining, just find interesting that no one else has this issue.

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