Merged, now it seems.
Bear in mind I have XFCE on Mint and since ditching Ubuntu years ago I made it a priority on Xubuntu (where XFCE was a default I think), Arch and now Mint to have this desktop environment. So you need to tweak Gnome/Ubuntu settings to get around the problem.
This is what the Team Leader says:
I remember struggling with this years ago, but now a chat bot (ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, ClaudeAI) will tell you what to change in your OS settings.
For anyone finding this, the workaround is to start obsidian with the option --password-store=basic
Be aware though that this will mean that any secrets will be stored unencrypted, so this should only be used if you are not storing secrets.
Hi, Iād like to clarify a couple of assumptions in this explanation, because they donāt seem to hold in non-GNOME environments.
āGenerally, the keyring managed by the desktop environment is unlocked when you login with a password.ā
This is not universally true. For example, on systems using XFCE, the keyring (typically GNOME Keyring) is not automatically unlocked unless PAM integration is explicitly configured. A user can log in with a password and still have a locked keyring.
āSince you have set up login without a password, you are asked to enter the password to unlock this functionality.ā
This is also not necessarily correct. A keyring prompt can appear even when:
the user logs in with a password
but the keyring password differs from the login password
or the keyring is not configured to auto-unlock via PAM
or the desktop environment does not manage keyring unlocking at all
In other words, a locked keyring does not imply passwordless login.
Additionally, there seems to be an implicit assumption that a system keyring is always present and intended to be used.
On many setups (minimal systems, XFCE, i3, etc.), users:
intentionally do not use a keyring at all
or remove gnome-keyring
or prefer alternative mechanisms (e.g. plaintext storage, pass, or ssh-agent)
In these cases, applications relying on the Secret Service API will still trigger prompts or fallback behavior, which may be unexpected from the userās perspective.
Iām not suggesting changing the default behavior, but it would be helpful if:
the explanation didnāt assume GNOME-like environments
documentation (or error messaging) acknowledged these alternative setups
and the most importantly: there were a user-facing configuration option to disable keyring usage entirely (equivalent to --password-store=basic), so that users donāt have to rely on CLI flags or modifying launchers
This would make the behavior clearer and easier to manage for users on non-GNOME desktops and minimal systems.
Yes, this is why I prefaced with āGenerallyā.
No, thereās no implicit assumption. If the system keyring is not present, Obsidian uses basis storage and shows a warning within the settings.