Login keyring prompt opening Chrome on Guest account after update

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Hello!
I use xubuntu 22.4 in a school lab. Kids use the guest account. I just updated the lab, and I am getting the login keyring prompt when Chrome is opened.

I had gotten rid of that prompt last year, by creating a regular user account, deleting the keyrings and creating a blank password.
I then copied the regular user .local and .config to the /etc/skel folder
This used to work in getting rid of it, but now it does not.
Any ideas on getting rid of this login prompt for a Guest account?
Chrome works if you cancel it, but it is kind of a pain for users.

pete

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Chrome only pops that box because it’s trying to open the GNOME Keyring (the thing that stores saved passwords). A guest-session has no login password, so the keyring never “unlocks” and Chrome asks for one.

Quick fix: tell Chrome not to use the keyring

Make a tiny wrapper script the kids will click instead of the normal launcher.

sudo mkdir -p /usr/local/bin
sudo nano /usr/local/bin/chrome-no-keyring

Paste:

#!/bin/sh
exec /usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --password-store=basic "$@"

Make it executable

sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/chrome-no-keyring

Point the desktop icon at it (system-wide):

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop /usr/local/share/applications/
sudo sed -i 's|^Exec=.*|Exec=/usr/local/bin/chrome-no-keyring %U|' \
    /usr/local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

Now every user—guest included—launches Chrome with --password-store=basic, which keeps its stuff in a plain JSON file under ~/.pki/ and never asks for a keyring.

Other routes (if you prefer)

Install a real password for the guest keyring*each time with a login script—but that defeats the point of “guest”.
Purge gnome-keyring entirely, but some apps rely on it.
Switch to Chromium snap: it already defaults to --password-store=basic in a confinement that wipes data on logout.

1 Like
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If you do not need Chrome to store passwords anyway you may try to disable ‘Offer to save passwords’ and similar options within ‘chrome://settings’. Maybe this stops Chrome from accessing keyring but I do not know.

2 Likes
4

Why this complex procedure with script? Why not simply add --password-store=basic to exec line of file google-chrome.desktop?

2 Likes
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You can add password-store=basic directly to /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop, and it will work just remember Chrome updates will overwrite that file, so you’ll have to re-edit it each time. The wrapper script avoids that by pointing to a file Chrome never touches.

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If the desktop file gets overwritten by Chrome updates also the changes pointing to the script will get overwritten. And if copying the desktop file to another location solves this then this should also work without ‘wrapper’ script. But maybe I’m missing something.

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You’re right about the desktop file search order:

Desktop-file priority:/usr/local/share/applications/ is read before /usr/share/applications/.If you copy google-chrome.desktop there and add–password-store=basic, Chrome updates won’t overwrite it.

The wrapper script is just an extra convenience when you:

want one place to tweak flags for several Chrome channels (stable/beta), or
might add more options later without touching the desktop file again.

So you have two solid choices:

Copy & edit the .desktop file only

sudo cp /usr/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop /usr/local/share/applications/
sudo sed -i 's|Exec=.*|Exec=/usr/bin/google-chrome-stable --password-store=basic %U|' \
    /usr/local/share/applications/google-chrome.desktop

Point that copied desktop file to a wrapper script (for future flexibility).

Either approach beats editing the vendor file in place, which really will get clobbered on every Chrome update.

2 Likes
8

These are internet only machines, basically internet kiosks. I have no apps the kids can click on but Chrome, so I tried the apt purge gnome-keyring and it got rid of the error logging in as guest. Thanks so much.

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I am happy that we solved the issue. You are welcome. Take care!

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To prevent this you can simply copy the original file to ~/.local/share/applications and do your edits there, this path will take precedence and won’t get overwritten by app updates