Keychain popup window hangs

Question

Returning to my MBP after a longer pause one or more keys are locked. That's normal and I want it like that.
But sometimes when I access Mail or a browser I get the popup window asking me to unlock the keychain containing the passwords for the current application. I enter the password and hit the return key. The password and the controls in the popup window gets greyed out but after that, nothing happens. I cannot switch application, I cannot force quit the current app, I cannot abort and I cannot start new applications, including Keychain Access and Activity Monitor.
The systems is not working harder, no spinning wait cursor appears and the fans are spinning normally.
I cannot log out or switch user and the only way to "get out" is a hard reboot.
This does not happen every time I unlock the keychain but often enough to interrupt me in my work.
Am I the only one with this problem? Or is it an acknowledged problem?
//Marcus

Answer 1

Just to keep the thread alive (read: no chance that anyone will diagnose or fix this problem!)
It is possible to get keychain to hang with a popup password window unresponsive. Keychain itself cannot be quit and requires force quit. After this there may be trash in the 'Keys' portion of keychain.
Running keychain first aid does not reveal any problems. The trash is seen when you choose 'All items' and search for the name of the popup window, typically the keychain item name.
If you try to delete the trash there will be a strongly worded warning about doing damage to authentication -- but this is just the usual Apple boilerplate warning, not specific to your circumstances. Deleting the trashed stuff did no damage to the rest of my keychain.
Why it works this way, no one knows or will say.
Keychain is an excellent means for generating and keeping track of good (long patternless) passwords but it's not perfect.  Most services for which passwords are required have some recovery or reset feature that makes it feasible to generate a new password if your keychain data gets hosed.  This is true even for banks and credit cards. The recent experience with Apple's insecure approach to Apple ID is apainful reminder that all the admonitions about using good passwords is really a distraction from the poor security provided by websites -- including those of the biggies who ought to know better.
An index card with your really important passwords written down by hand is still a good backup plan. Now if I can just remember where I put mine!
YMMV