Data Migration Local Keychain Passwords Not Appearing.

[MacGekko]

I transferred my data from a time machine backup to a new Macbook Pro, the new Macbook Pro was on Yosemite but the time machine info was Mavericks. Everything transferred perfectly except for Keychain and all of my local passwords for my websites, this is one of the most important things I need.

I had to return that Macbook Pro but when I do buy a new one again does anybody know how to bring all of your local passwords with you from an older machine?

Thanks.

 

[Gav2k]

• /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
  
  That is where they are stored. Find that on time machine

 

[MacGekko]

• /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
  
  That is where they are stored. Find that on time machine

And then do I drag the file and place it in Keychain?

 

[Gav2k]

You can but remember if you've changed your password it'll ask for your old password

 

[MacGekko]

• /Library/Keychains/System.keychain
  
  That is where they are stored. Find that on time machine

I have purchased the new Macbook Pro but I am still having problems solving this, I am in the latest Time Machine backup and when I click the system.keychain which is in the Kechains folder it simply opens Keychain to the program and it still does not show my local passwords for all of my websites. There is another file called System.Keychain-orig but when I try to click that it says there is no application set to open it.


Judging from the first few sites that come up after this Google search:

migration assistant keychain local passwords missing

This does not look good, please tell me I can find this and my secure notes.

 

[Gav2k]

Have you logged into iCloud?

 

[MacGekko]

Have you logged into iCloud?

I have never used Icloud.

 

[MacGekko]

Have you logged into iCloud?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7083407

The above link seems to capture my dilemma but I don't see a workable solution if all you have is your Time Machine backup as my 2008 Macbook Pro's logic board finally decided to stop working for good.

 

[Weaselboy]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7083407

The above link seems to capture my dilemma but I don't see a workable solution if all you have is your Time Machine backup as my 2008 Macbook Pro's logic board finally decided to stop working for good.

How did you "transfer data" from the Time Machine backup? If you let it run Migration Assistant during system setup, it should have pulled in the local keychain. At least mine always has.

The file you want is at /Users/username/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

So manually enter Time Machine and navigate to that file (substituting your real username) then restore that login.keychain file to the Desktop. Now follow the process toward the end of that Apple discussion you linked to replace the login.keychain currently in use with the one from the Desktop.

To manually move the file from TM to the Desktop follow the "Restore <item> to ..." instructions from here.

 

[MacGekko]

How did you "transfer data" from the Time Machine backup? If you let it run Migration Assistant during system setup, it should have pulled in the local keychain. At least mine always has.

The file you want is at /Users/username/Library/Keychains/login.keychain

So manually enter Time Machine and navigate to that file (substituting your real username) then restore that login.keychain file to the Desktop. Now follow the process toward the end of that Apple discussion you linked to replace the login.keychain currently in use with the one from the Desktop.

To manually move the file from TM to the Desktop follow the "Restore <item> to ..." instructions from here.

Something is wrong, when I enter Time Machine, I can see all of the backups in the right panel but when I hover over them I get the color red and when I click it nothing happens. Everything else migrated over perfectly, I have searched for the specific file and nothing shows up in Finder.

 

[Weaselboy]

Something is wrong, when I enter Time Machine, I can see all of the backups in the right panel but when I hover over them I get the color red and when I click it nothing happens. Everything else migrated over perfectly, I have searched for the specific file and nothing shows up in Finder.

Hmm... sounds like maybe your backup is corrupted.

 

[MacGekko]

Hmm... sounds like maybe your backup is corrupted.

Researching this I have found other users state this is a glitch within Yosemite and you have to go through your hard drive folder within Finder first to access Time Machine backups but I still can't find the keychain login.

 

[MacGekko]

Hmm... sounds like maybe your backup is corrupted.

If I turn off time machine and remove the USB drive and go through Finder and hold the option key to find my library home folder, I can then go to a folder called Keychains and in that folder I find:

login.keychain, login_renamed_1.keychain, login_renamed.keychain

Then I have two login.keychain's followed by random numbers and letters after the keychain.

Then I have two folders with only random numbers and letters and within both of those a few files like:

keychain-2.db

 

[Weaselboy]

The login.keychain file is the one you want. Odd you have those others also though. I would copy all the to the Desktop and try each, as it could be any of the three that is your old keychain. The default would be the login.keychain one though.

Make sure you copy off the existing keychain also as described in the linked post earlier.

 

[MacGekko]

The login.keychain file is the one you want. Odd you have those others also though. I would copy all the to the Desktop and try each, as it could be any of the three that is your old keychain. The default would be the login.keychain one though.

Make sure you copy off the existing keychain also as described in the linked post earlier.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5497869?tstart=0

In this thread they mention that starting in Mavericks the OSX is saving your website passwords to a DB file located in those folders with just numbers and letters. I have two of those folders with DB files but when I try to transfer them into Keychain it does not go, I opened one of them with Text Edit and it only shows many pages of random code.

If this DB file is indeed my local keychain is there any possible way to get it back into Keychain?

 

[Weaselboy]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5497869?tstart=0

In this thread they mention that starting in Mavericks the OSX is saving your website passwords to a DB file located in those folders with just numbers and letters. I have two of those folders with DB files but when I try to transfer them into Keychain it does not go, I opened one of them with Text Edit and it only shows many pages of random code.

If this DB file is indeed my local keychain is there any possible way to get it back into Keychain?

That is if you have iCloud keychain sync on. If you do not, it is still in that local.keychain file.

 

[MacGekko]

That is if you have iCloud keychain sync on. If you do not, it is still in that local.keychain file.

Yes but there is no local.keychain, do you mean within one of the login.keychain files?

 

[Weaselboy]

Yes but there is no local.keychain, do you mean within one of the login.keychain files?

Yes... I'm sorry that's what I meant.

 

[MacGekko]

Yes... I'm sorry that's what I meant.

Thank you for putting up with my lack of knowledge, when I connected my Time Machine backup and turned on Time Machine the computer asked me if it wanted me to have the new computer inherit the Time Machine backups from the old computer, perhaps this will allow me to finally have access to the old backups?

Also I was just chatting with Apple Care before the conversation got cut off and he wanted me to take the letter/number folders, put on desktop, go into Time Machine to an older backup find one of the letter/number folders and hit restore, don't know if that was going to be the last step.

 

[MacGekko]

Thank you for putting up with my lack of knowledge, when I connected my Time Machine backup and turned on Time Machine the computer asked me if it wanted me to have the new computer inherit the Time Machine backups from the old computer, perhaps this will allow me to finally have access to the old backups?

Also I was just chatting with Apple Care before the conversation got cut off and he wanted me to take the letter/number folders, put on desktop, go into Time Machine to an older backup find one of the letter/number folders and hit restore, don't know if that was going to be the last step.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6500398

That is the more relevant link and again the advice given has to do with Icloud, how can that solve the problem if I have never used Icloud in the past?

 

[Weaselboy]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6500398

That is the more relevant link and again the advice given has to do with Icloud, how can that solve the problem if I have never used Icloud in the past?

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7083407

I'm referring to the post above you linked earlier from Linc Davis. Do what he describes starting at step 4 to get the keychain you moved in from backup to replace the existing one.

 

[MacGekko]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7083407

I'm referring to the post above you linked earlier from Linc Davis. Do what he describes starting at step 4 to get the keychain you moved in from backup to replace the existing one.

OK, I will follow it from step #4 today but one more thing happened, as I was trying to figure this thing out I changed the password on 4 websites and saved them to the new local folder on Keychain, after installing the latest Yosemite security update and restarting the computer, it erased those 4 website passwords from the Local Keychain, does that change anything, will it erase it every time I restart?

Update: Step 4 (Linc Davis) advice did not work, restoring the system.keychain from a time machine back up did not work, changing permissions on those files to allow my non admin account read/write access did not work.

I might have to start from scratch and use Dashlane but the problem is I have some very important information in those secure notes, live and learn.

Update: Dashlane, forget that, they automatically synched my passwords to their website and their 2 factor authentication requires a smart phone. Lastpass might be the only free option but I am surprised nobody else here has a solution or has experienced the above problem.

 

[MacGekko]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7083407

I'm referring to the post above you linked earlier from Linc Davis. Do what he describes starting at step 4 to get the keychain you moved in from backup to replace the existing one.

OK, anybody reading this is annoyed at me already, my apologies but I am trying everything, based on when I started using Kechain to save all of my passwords and the last change I made before my Macbook Pro died, I think I found the file, it is one of those random number/letter folders inside the Keychain folder but not present in any Time Machine backup. It is entitled keychain-2.db-wal but when I clicked it, it said there were no programs associated to open it and it only let me open it with Text Edit and not with Keychain. Since I can't hit restore, how do I bring this to Keychain and I believe when I restarted the Macbook Pro after the Yosemite update it created a new letter/number folder, so again I don't know if this will continue to happen. (actually it did not create a new one, it was the exact copy of one of the two folders I brought to the desktop)

 

[MacGekko]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/5773587?tstart=0

Perhaps I finally have the answer based on this link above, the forum member states that the letter/number combination is a unique keychain folder wedded to your computer, now when I originally took both of my number/letter folders onto the desktop, later on I saw one of them reappear right into the keychain folder, presumably this is for the new Macbook Pro, so if this is true how do you get the information into the new folder and this still does not explain why it erased the 4 websites saved in the local keychain on the new computer when I restarted it.

And if the person who wrote the link below is correct then I have found the right file.

http://talk.tidbits.com/Backup-iCloud-keychain-td4662419.html

 

[MacGekko]

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7083407

I'm referring to the post above you linked earlier from Linc Davis. Do what he describes starting at step 4 to get the keychain you moved in from backup to replace the existing one.

The Linc Davis advice is not relevant as it has to do with turning off local keychain prompt requests for passwords.

The link below is exactly the problem I am dealing with.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/6543257

There has to be a solution for this issue.