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A dialog box "Please enter the master password for the FIPS 140 Cryptographic, Key and" will not go away.

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I do not have a Master Password that I am aware of.

i got an email from Google that someone had tried to hack into my account and to change my password immediately.

When I tried to follow their instructions on how to change a Password this dialog box came up and I cant cancel it.

Any help greatly appreciated

I do not have a Master Password that I am aware of. i got an email from Google that someone had tried to hack into my account and to change my password immediately. When I tried to follow their instructions on how to change a Password this dialog box came up and I cant cancel it. Any help greatly appreciated

Isisombululo esikhethiwe

I think that the FIPS state is stored in the key3.db file or the secmode.db file and such files can hardly be modified by accident. You can usually only do this via the button in the "Options/Preferences > Advanced : Encryption: Security Devices" window.

Funda le mpendulo ngokuhambisana nalesi sihloko 👍 1

All Replies (14)

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Hmm, first, never trust email links urging you to reveal your password (in the process of changing it). Always go to the site through your usual means when you need to access your account. Please do that now and make sure you can update it as you usually would.

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Do you recall what the email steps were? Did you install any new software or add-ons? Did you change any settings in Firefox?

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Thanks for replies. I did go through the usual means to access my account. I also got the message on my back up email address . Addressed to me personally. So it appears to be genuine. My problem now is that I can not use Firefox with this dialog box up. How can I get rid of it. Should I just uninstall and download a new Firefox browser ? I am using the hated Internet Explorer until this gets fixed.

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Uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox usually doesn't wipe out problems, unless the problem is that Firefox itself is corrupted. I don't think that is the issue here.

If you can't cancel the dialog, you may need to "kill" Firefox using the Windows task manager. You can pop that up using Ctrl+Esc. Then click the Applications tab and try to End Task on the Firefox window(s).

This thread has next steps: getting rid of enter master password FIPS140 Cryptographic,Key and. Two notes:

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When I "kill" Firefox the dialog box returns as soon as I open up the browser again and thus locking me out of performing any other tasks on Firefox. If I click on "cancel" rapidly about ten times the dialog box will disappear allowing me to open up another tab etc, but as soon as I try to make a search on Google, it reappears. Which virtually shuts me out of Google - including my email! I guess I'll just have to go back to IE or Chrome which I really didnt want to do. Can't believe there's no way to cancel this crap. Considering I didn't even have a "master password" in the first place.

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Ok! For some reason FIPS was enabled in tools> options>advanced>Security devices> security modules and devices. When I click on "disable" the dialog box disappears. Thank you for your help but it should not be this difficult to get to the bottom of such an obvious answer. Firefox should be on top of this and make it easier for their customers to fix problems. Now I still have the problem of changing my ""master password". Any ideas?

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You probably will have to delete the two files signons.sqlite and key3.db to recover from this.

Rename the key3.db and signons.sqlite files in the Firefox profile folder. You can add .old to the file names (key3.db.old and signons.sqlite.old) or move them to another folder to make it possible to undo the action. You need to set a new Master Password after renaming or deleting key3.db and all currently saved passwords are lost. If that has worked then you can remove the renamed files that are no longer needed.

You can use this button to go to the currently used Firefox profile folder:

  • Help > Troubleshooting Information > Profile Directory: Show Folder (Linux: Open Directory; Mac: Show in Finder)

See also:

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Ok I cold rebooted again after disabling the FIPS and magically I can now change my Google password without having to change any files! Thanks everyone for your help! I appreciate my iPad even more now.

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Hi cornawilla, unfortunately add-ons and external software can update Firefox's main settings file on disk (and create other overriding files) to force FIPS or other settings. Perhaps that's how it got set in the first place?

Mozilla doesn't supply an external editor to view and repair those settings files. It might be a useful tool for someone to put together.

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Isisombululo Esikhethiwe

I think that the FIPS state is stored in the key3.db file or the secmode.db file and such files can hardly be modified by accident. You can usually only do this via the button in the "Options/Preferences > Advanced : Encryption: Security Devices" window.

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There seems to be a relation to RoboForm. When I attempt to load Firefox I not only get the dialogue box, I am also taken to the page/site "start.roboform.com" Can't do anything there either.

I'm not even sure if I have Firefox installed.

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Hi dhilberg

Could you please start a new thread for your question?

Then you can provide more information like your operating system and installed extensions and installed plugins.

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Most of the potential solutions given here seem to involve being able to utilize functions of firefox, Thanks very much for your ideas. The problem is that the "FIPS 140..." message does not allow any access to the firefox program.

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The only way to get rid of (disable) FIPS 140 once enabled is to delete the logins.json and key3.db files and start with a fresh password list because doing this will remove all stored passwords.