After upgrading to Thunderbird 3.0, some users have found that Thunderbird requests a Master Password as follows:
Please enter the master password for the Software Security Device
even when no Master Password was set in Thunderbird 2.
Some other manifestations of this problem:
- cannot open the dialog on stored passwords
- cannot set a new master password
- Set Master Password dialog will not save and close
This is a bug in the Password Manager module that is shared by SeaMonkey and Thunderbird. It does not affect all users. It is being tracked in bug # 506638.
Work-Around
There are two ways to work around this bug.
Reset via Error Console
- Select Tools | Error Console from the Thunderbird menu.
- Paste the following text into the Code field and press Evaluate.
openDialog("chrome://pippki/content/resetpassword.xul")
This will open the Reset Master Password dialog. Press Reset.
Delete key3.db file
- Close Thunderbird.
- Delete the file key3.db. This file is located in the Thunderbird directory for the profile under which the current session of Thunderbird was opened. Some examples:
- Windows 7: C:\Users\<user_name>\AppData\Roaming\Thunderbird\Profiles\<profile_name>\
- Mac OS X: ~/Library/Application Support/Thunderbird/Profiles/<profile_name>/
- Linux: ~/.thunderbird/<profile_name>/
You may have to search the filesystem to find the location of key3.db on your system.