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How to disable Master password timeout?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
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  • Last reply by Alesak

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Since couple of months ago, FF started to ask for master password after 30 minutes of inactivity. I have auto-refresh for some tabs which use Basic Authentication. After 30min those tabs stops refreshing and FF opens multiple (5) dialogs for master password. This secondary layer of security is pretty annoying as I have my computer secured on multiple levels by multiple factors already. I am getting very annoyed by this, is there any way to disable this "feature"? I have security.ask_for_password = 0 and signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms = 0 but it keeps asking (now bit less often but still does). I just want master password entered once when I start the session and keep it open until I quit the browser.

Since couple of months ago, FF started to ask for master password after 30 minutes of inactivity. I have auto-refresh for some tabs which use Basic Authentication. After 30min those tabs stops refreshing and FF opens multiple (5) dialogs for master password. This secondary layer of security is pretty annoying as I have my computer secured on multiple levels by multiple factors already. I am getting very annoyed by this, is there any way to disable this "feature"? I have '''security.ask_for_password = 0''' and '''signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms = 0''' but it keeps asking (now bit less often but still does). I just want master password entered once when I start the session and keep it open until I quit the browser.

Chosen solution

It looks like dev version of FF 92 is not requesting PP anymore , FF 91 still does. Probably some already fixed bug. Thanks for the pref explanation.

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As far as I know then there isn't a timeout for the Primary Password. You only logout if you cancel a PP prompt.

The signon.masterPasswordReprompt.timeout_ms pref is for reprompting to enter the PP if you had canceled the PP the last time Firefox asked for it because it needed to unlock the logins and this pref defaults to 15 minutes.


  • 1673632 - Support toolkit-wide timeout/expiration of primary password (previously called master password)

(https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/page.cgi?id=etiquette.html)

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Chosen Solution

It looks like dev version of FF 92 is not requesting PP anymore , FF 91 still does. Probably some already fixed bug. Thanks for the pref explanation.