I had to go from TouchID Macbook back to pre-touch ID Macbook and now I am on a new Macbook with TouchID. When I moved back to my 2015 MBP I was getting a touched error on startup. I still get this error message when I log in with my new MBP with touch ID enabled. How can I fix?
Hi @sarahmcvean
Thank you for using Codebook and posting to the discussion forum, although I’m sorry to hear about the trouble.
When you enable Touch ID within Codebook for macOS, Codebook stores your Codebook Master Password in the secure enclave to be retrieved using your fingerprint to login to Codebook. When transferring to a new device, this secure enclave doesn’t transfer. So from your description, I think this is an expected error:
Codebook still has the Touch ID setting enabled, but there is no record in the secure enclave to retrieve.
Not to worry though, you can use these instructions to re-enable it:
- Login to Codebook using your Codebook Master Password.
- Go to Codebook menu > Preferences > Locking Tab
- Uncheck the “Enable Touch ID Login” checkbox, then re-check it.
- Quit and re-launch Codebook and it should properly prompt you for Touch ID Login
Let me know if that does the trick. Thanks!
That fixed it, thank you!
Glad I could help! Please feel free to reach out again if you have any further questions.
Have a nice day!
FYI, this issue happened to me, but for a different reason. I injured the finger I normally use for TouchID, so I added a new fingerprint in my Mac’s Security settings. This seems to have invalidated TouchID entries for various software, including Codebook, leading to the above error.
I am glad this thread was here, because I couldn’t figure out how to re-enable TouchID within Codebook. So you fixed my problem, too. Thanks!
Thanks for posting with your experience, and glad this post helped you to re-enable Touch ID within Codebook.
Codebook does intentionally invalidate your keychain item for Touch ID Login when adding or removing a finger as a security measure. It may be helpful to add instructions to the error message for how to re-enable Touch ID when this occurs (i.e. Codebook menu > Preferences > Locking Tab > Uncheck/Recheck enable Touch ID Login).
I’ll bring this up with the rest of the team and we’ll add it in a future update if everyone agrees it’s appropriate. Thanks!
I, for one, think that your original reasoning for invalidating is sound thinking. Without it, a bad actor could merely register his own finger after the owner’s fingerprint and break codebook security.
Perhaps an admonition to users to always register two or more fingers when creating a biometric login might be appropriate
Absolutely. I wasn’t suggestion on adjusting that behavior, apologies if my previous post was unclear about that. What I was suggesting was potentially including additional details for the error message when the keychain item doesn’t exist (after adding or removing a fingerprint for example) to direct the user on how to re-enable it within Codebook.