No auth dialog in absence of stored passwords

Help
1

After installing the newest version (1.13.+) of Obsidian and launching to the main window, its interface “greets” me now with a keyring auth dialog! Hey what’s “that”?

All I can say is “NO to this politics” this step is invading my local and private space.
Is Obsidian really local first?

Point one (1): Passwords are mainly a feature used to protect us from harm - from bad actors (AI, hackers, sniffing organizations, etc) on the internet.

I don’t use Obsidian in a public space, but only on my local machine.

Most of my time, I don’t want a time wasting and freaking “info” washing internet news on my computer.

Point two (2): But wait there’s more:
I don’t have any secrets managed by plugins and won’t download ever any plugin asking me to input some authorization tokens.

Still, Obsidian asks for a dumb protocol I don’t even use.

Point three (3): Other important question:
Why should I store passwords / sensible data in any applications?
Are you kidding me? Read further:

Anybody with some grasp about security does-not-store-passwords-in any-applications. What’s “any”?

Are we still in stone age with security and are unable to use password managers ? Are we or aren’t we smart?

Summarizing

The main point about authentication is:
Authorization is required for accessing, using internet services:

installing such politics on my local machine and local apps, is a violation of my freedom how I’m using software. Why? I don’t want apps witch are asking me all times for passwords!

I’m not sure what path Obsidian is going, but this is looking creepy; to force users to input passwords. Distrust is a concept by modern computers, internet and in line with current “political correctness”, I know where the wind blows from.

Solution

Everything internet related should be removed from Obsidian, exception the community store where we can download local only plugins.

2

There isn’t a lot of actionable info for others to help out here.

  • What’s your OS?
  • Is this on a specific device or all devices? (if you use multiples ones)
  • What community plugins are installed and enabled in your main vault?
  • Does it happen when only opening the Sandbox vault?
  • Did you follow the troubleshooting guide (linked in the template)?

Things like that could help. The more info you can share the better.

FWIW, I’ve never seen anything like this on macOS or Windows, and I’ve been using the Obsidian 1.13.x beta from it came out.

3

Hi,
I’m using Obsidian on my Linux mint PC only (flatpak), my installed plugins don’t use internet and didn’t ask for a password, ever.

Before Obsidian 1.13.x nothing (Obsidian or its plugins) caused any auth request.
Also, I didn’t update my plugins together with Obsidian 1.13.x. so this isn’t related to plugins.

But this issue isn’t a plugin issue and I
agree with you, sandbox mode is a good point. Surprise: even in sandbox mode, I get this auth dialog, exactly 3 times. Since I’m logging in to my OS automatically, the local keyring doesn’t unlock automatically.

I posted under the help section first, to get opinions and insights. I’ll open a bug report if my issue is really a bug: so far, it looks for me like a bug, because Obsidian shouldn’t be asking for credentials in absence of plugin passwords or other application components for internet which I don’t use by choice.

Thanks for looking into my post, Ariehen. And I’ll say it to anybody else who helps me to solve this nagging auth request.

Edit
Starting Obsidian from terminal

flatpak run md.obsidian.Obsidian
[2:0828/121131.306218:ERROR:dbus/bus.cc:405] Failed to connect to the bus: Failed to connect to socket /run/dbus/system_bus_socket: Datei oder Verzeichnis nicht gefunden
Updates disabled.
2026-08-28 10:11:31 Loaded main app package /app/resources/obsidian.asar
Gtk-Message: 12:11:31.341: Failed to load module "xapp-gtk3-module"
Removing partition for vault mx-player-030d18c07919a113
Removing partition for vault mx-player-1bcdb746c8442dad
Removing partition for vault mx-player-1db4cab17042fd80
Removing partition for vault mx-player-21d3184db2b29780
Removing partition for vault mx-player-4d68392e5288b51f
Removing partition for vault mx-player-56092012beff70a2
Removing partition for vault mx-player-73e9835e2a2bde8a
Removing partition for vault mx-player-7b2b789fb889d5ff
Removing partition for vault mx-player-7c78524652113472
Removing partition for vault mx-player-85c8f92fe73350cb
Removing partition for vault mx-player-900f896c7c17dae2
Removing partition for vault mx-player-af5c63ee98aebe16
Removing partition for vault mx-player-c4742dbf957b2b5a
Removing partition for vault mx-player-f56323721151b255

I tried with Obsidians’ Appimages, various versions. Same, all versions ask for keychain access.
Well, Obsidian puts some password in my keychain, why is outside of my understanding.
Since Obsidians’ vault is an open folder, asking for passwords “adds on top” of this " concept" to ridicule users.

Now, somebody could say, then add your damn password on Os login. Whats the deal? well, I don’t see why I should login on my local machine in my local space when I’m using Obsidians only locally and without internet.