IMac sometimes asks for WiFi, SMTP passwords... why?

My father is running Safari, and I am 200 miles away and unable to get him back up and on the internet. It's really frustrating.
The symptom is that his WiFi is asking him for a password (that no one knows -- it's not clear who put any security on the thing) and his SMTP provider also challenges for a password that should be on a keychain somewhere.
Caveats: he is 76 years old, and not conversant with the Mac. It takes me 20 minutes to have him reset his iMac -- a process usually ending with a powercord being removed from the wall (Apple usability... call me sometime and I'll show you how much work remains to be done for older users). It might be that there was a system update and he answered some random way the keychain question.
I have no idea how to fix this without being in front of the machine personally. Last time it happened, it automagically rectified itself for no reason.
Recommendations for how to make a Mac STOP fumbling the keychain passwords? Has anyone NOT wanted to update keychains?
tone

AFAICT, it's associated with a .Mac account: DM = dotMac. Apparently, you have a .Mac account and are mounting an iDisk. I don't have such an account, so I can't help with solving your problem, but this should point you in the right direction.

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IMac is asking for admin login password upon startup when it never did before, settings are still on auto login. Why is it doing this out of the blue?

iMac is asking for admin login password upon startup when it never did before, settings are still on auto login. Why is it doing this out of the blue?

Is sounds like it might for some reason booting into Safe Mode, which does prompt for a password.
Try a PRAM reset:
Shut down the computer.
Locate the following keys on the keyboard: Command, Option, P, and R. You will need to hold these keys down simultaneously in step 4.
Turn on the computer.
Press and hold the Command-Option-P-R keys. You must press this key combination before the gray screen appears.
Hold the keys down until the computer restarts and you hear the startup sound for the second time.
Release the keys.
If that doesn't help, restart holding down the option key which should take you to the startup manager. Select Macintosh HD (you may need to use the arrows on the keyboard if the kb is Bluetooth), tap 'enter'. Does it boot normally now?

My imac keeps asking for it's password.

If my iMac is idle for any short length of time it goes blank and asks for my password. this is really annoying. How can I stop this?

Uncheck this

IMac keeps asking for user account password when changing Airport

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Suggest that if you haven't already taken the next steps....open System Preferences > Network > AirPort and delete the current wireless connection by highlighting the name of the network, then clicking the - (minus) button at the bottom of the connection list. Click OK and then Apply.
Open Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > KeyChain Access and locate the name of the wireless network, then highlight and delete that entry.
Restart your Mac to see if that will allow you to start fresh.
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Message was edited by: Bob Timmons

All of a sudden, when I log in, my iMac is asking for my iCloud password. Every time!

This started earlier this week. Ive never had a problem before. Was there an update that broke some thing. I can't seem to get it to remember it.

I didn't think to look in the keychain. I don't really use it for keeping passwords and the like. I use a separate app for that. I found an expired certificate of some kind, deleted it, logged out of iCloud in the system preferences and let it do all of the deleting it wanted to. Logged back in and bingo, no message. However, for some reason it enabled the Guest user access on my computer. No big deal, just turned it back off.
Thanks for the clue.

Owned an iMac for 5 years - have no idea what my password is for my AirPort Express which I set up about 3 years ago My wife has just purchased an iPad 2 and it is asking for my forgotten password - how do I retrieve it ?

How do I recover my password set up when I added AirPort Express to my iMmac a few years ago.. My wife has just purchased an iPad and it is asking for that "forgotten" password to make the Wi Fi connection ?

From the airport express user manual:
If You Forgot Your Network or AirPort Express Password
You can clear the AirPort network or AirPort Express password by resetting AirPort
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To reset your password:
1 Use the end of a straightened paper clip to press and hold the reset button for one
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Â Reset the AirPort Express password.
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Why it is keep asking for Username and Password but i didn't use any username and password with my database.

Why it is keep asking for Username and Password but i didn't use any username and password with my database. Please help me i m very frustrated right now please help anybody. I m new in this.,

Hi,
Please check below threads:
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New Imac. I get rid off login password from security and account and restart. Now it asks for username and password and it's not acepting anything. Any ideas?

New Imac. I get rid off login password from security and accounts and restart. Now it asks for username and password and it's not acepting anything. Any ideas?

First, reset your password as follows.
Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
When the OS X Utilities screen appears, select Utilities ▹ Terminal from the menu bar.
In the Terminal window, type this:
resetpassword
That's one word with no spaces. Then press return. A Reset Password window opens.
Select your boot volume if not already selected.
Select your username from the menu labeled Select the user account if not already selected.
Follow the prompts to reset the password. It's safest to choose a password that includes only the characters a-z, A-Z, and 0-9.
Select  ▹ Restart from the menu bar.
You should now be able to log in with the new password, but you won't be able to unlock the Keychain. If you've forgotten the Keychain password (which is ordinarily the same as your login password), there's no way to recover it. You’ll need to reset your keychain in the preferences of the Keychain Access application.
If you're being prompted to authenticate when making changes to files inside your home folder, continue as follows.
Back up all data now.
This procedure will unlock all your user files (not system files) and reset their ownership and access-control lists to the default. If you've set special values for those attributes on any of your files, they will be reverted. In that case, either stop here, or be prepared to recreate the settings if necessary. If none of this is meaningful to you, you don't need to worry about it.
Step 1
Launch the Terminal application in any of the following ways:
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Drag or copy — do not type — the following line into the Terminal window, then press return:
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Boot into Recovery by holding down the key combination command-R at startup. Release the keys when you see a gray screen with a spinning dial.
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Why is my iPhone asking for my iTunes password randomly and repeatedly?

I have seen this question in several discussions, but all are archived. None had an answer. I have 3 iPhone 4S's and 3 iPod Touch 4g's. All, radomly but frequently enough to be annoying, display a pop up screen when first using the iPhone/Pod Touch (normally from sleep mode) asking for your iTunes password. It gives you the option to select "cancel" or "enter"and sometimes I just hit cancel b/c I am so fed up with this. I notice no problems if I do not enter my password and hit "cancel." But, who knows if something is compromised by not giving the device what it "wants." So, most of the time I enter my password hoping that will satisfy the "beast" and it will not ask for it anymore. No luck.
I hope someone knows the answer to this before the "Gods of Archive" close this question/discussion. I have to believe something is going on that is not right.
One iPhone 4S and iPod Touch 4g is running off a MacBook Pro running Lion 10.7.3
Two iPhone 4s's and two iPod Touch 4g's are running off MacBook Pros running Snow Leopard 10.6.8
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Best, Mr. Luigi

For those who might be experiencing this same problem, I'll pass on the things I try and whether it meets with any success or not.
Here is my latest idea:
As I mentioned earlier, our family of 3 shares 1 itunes account for apps, music...This way, one song, one app, whatever purchased by one of us can be used on the other's iDevices. Up until recently we had 8 devices sharing this one account:
3 MacBook Pros
3 iPhone 4S's
1 iPad Original + 3g
1 iPad 2 +3g
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I thought that perhaps having all our iDevices (8 of them) set to "Automatically Sync New Apps" was confusing iTunes because that meant I was asking it to Sync New App to 11 total devices (including my 3 computers).
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All I can hope is that I am now confused at a higher level, and about more appropriate things so that eventually I may figure this out. Bye.

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Does anyone know what this is? What is it looking for?

Has anyone else figured this out? I'm getting it on every machine I upgrade and I have about 18 more to go and would like to fix it.
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At just about the end of the transfer the new Mac pops up this error and waits until an action is taken. I've tried every password it could have been on the previous users machine to no avial. The only option appears to be hitting cancel and movi ng on but I'd like to know what is breaking when this happens becase the machines exhibit a strange spinning wheel hang when logging in afterwards?
Here's a screen shot of the new iMac and the problem:
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My iMac running 10.7.5 has suddenly developed the habit of asking for my keychain password every 10 minutes or so. iTunes, mail and airport are the usual requesters. I have not recently changed my password.

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Hello dowaco
Try running Keychain First Aid on your keychain or just rese your Keychain to create another keychain to see if that resolves the issue of the repeated prompts for the password.
Resetting your keychain in Mac OS X
http://support.apple.com/kb/ts1544
Regards,
-Norm G.

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Because your mail server keeps rejecting it.

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GCG

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Back up all data before proceeding.
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IMac sometimes asks for WiFi, SMTP passwords... why?

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