Windows not saving passwords over a reboot

P

peter.cruickshank

This is a problem I've had for several months now.

Running a browser under Windows 10 prompts for saving passwords which I complete & accept, they appear correctly in credential manager as Web passwords but do not always auto fill in when I return to those sites in another Windows 10 session.

I've tried this with Edge, IE 11 and Chrome all suffer from the same defect.

Also to further investigate I went to a web site I know asks for username/password which was already in credential manager's list using Google Chrome. It prompted me for a username/password without filling it in. I logged & and allowed it to save my credentials (AGAIN) and then logged out and closed the browser. On revisiting the page in a new session using Chrome it remembered/autofilled the username/password. In the same windows session I tried the same with IE 11 and if completed the credentials correctly too. On restarting the PC it was back to square one asking to enter username/password with blank fields.

So it seems credentials are stored in credential manager but not available to browsers for auto filling in if not in the same windows session. Or its caches elsewhere during the windows session and that is used, not the entry that appears in credential manager.

Note credential manager correctly shows the username & password before and after restarting Windows.

Possibly related to this there is an similar password problem with Outlook under Office Professional Plus 2013.

I start windows & then Outlook & get prompted for passwords for all of my email accounts (various service providers / email server types incl an Outlook.com account).

If I complete them then its ok for the remainder of the Windows session even if I restart Outlook.

However if I do not provide the passwords & close Outlook (cancelling the prompts - not completing them). Then wait about 10 mins & try again - It works & passwords are ok (without the need to type them in).

Alternatively if I just start windows & do nothing with Outlook for about 10-15 mins then it starts fine without prompting for passwords.


Clearly there's some process which runs after approx 10 mins or takes that long to complete before passwords for email accounts are accessible to Outlook. I've looked for it by monitoring the running processes / checking delayed starting services etc. and cant find it. Could this be some semaphore lock that prevents Outlook getting the password details immediately so gives up and prompts the user for one?


I suspect both these complex sequences (sorry for that) are related although the first one doesn't seem to fix itself after 10 mins.


BTW please, no suggestions to rebuild the PC, re-install Office etc. as I've tried all that. Also Windows update is bang up to date including Septembers 2020's 2nd Tuesday of month update.


Peter

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