Windows 10 will reach EOS (end of support) on October 14, 2025. For more information, see this article.

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox is asking for primary password once in a while

more options

A week ago I got a BSOD that ruined the settings of most of my extensions and some of the Firefox's settings (at least it erased my custom findbar.matchdiacritics value, but most likely not just that). After that I moved Firefox's folder and re-installed it. Extensions were also reinstalled.

Before that, Firefox would ask the primary password only when I open it or when I try to reveal a password in the password manager. Now it may (or may not) ask the primary password before an autofill or even for no apparent reason. How can I get back the old behavior?

I tried to set signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms to 0, but it didn't seems to help.

A week ago I got a BSOD that ruined the settings of most of my extensions and some of the Firefox's settings (at least it erased my custom '''findbar.matchdiacritics''' value, but most likely not just that). After that I moved Firefox's folder and re-installed it. Extensions were also reinstalled. Before that, Firefox would ask the primary password only when I open it or when I try to reveal a password in the password manager. Now it may (or may not) ask the primary password before an autofill or even for no apparent reason. How can I get back the old behavior? I tried to set '''signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms''' to 0, but it didn't seems to help.

All Replies (1)

more options

Disable "Require device sign in"

Recent versions of Firefox have a new security setting that requires you to enter your system password to access your stored passwords, including during autofill.

Open Firefox and go to the Settings menu. Click on Privacy & Security in the left-hand panel. Scroll down to the Logins and Passwords section. Look for the setting that says "Require device sign in to fill and manage passwords." Uncheck this box.

After unchecking this, restart your browser and see if the issue is resolved.

2. Adjust the Password Timeout Setting

You mentioned trying signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms. While you had the right idea, this setting controls the timeout after you have already entered the primary password once. The value is in milliseconds.

To set it to ask for the password once per session, the correct behavior is that the timeout value doesn't matter, as long as the first prompt is accepted.

You can double-check its value by typing about:config into your address bar and searching for signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms. The default value is 900000 (15 minutes). Setting it to 0 would mean it asks for the password every time it's needed, which is the opposite of the behavior you want.

Helpful?

Ask a question

You must log in to your account to reply to posts. Please start a new question, if you do not have an account yet.