Password prompt for Favorites shows twice at startup

[neogrande]

Hi,

I have a fairly fresh installation of Windows 10 and Veracrypt 1.16. My system volume is not encrypted, but I have several encrypted partitions on different harddisks. One of these is saved as Favorite Volume (D:). I configured Veracrypt to mount favorite volumes on windows startup.
Evertime I start windows, the password popup for this volume shows twice (it shows the same harddisk number as title). I can enter my password in the first or second, It doesn't matter which one I take, the volume gets mounted correctly.

I had the same issue already with Windows 7 and Truecrypt, but thought, I might have messed up my start configuration. But with this fairly new system I doubt that.

Has anyone any ideas?

[Enigma2Illusion]

Check your Settings > Preferences and disable:

"Mount all device-hosted VeraCrypt volumes"

[neogrande]

This option is already disabled (find overview of my current settings attached).

I also tried to disable the new "Fast start" feature of Windows, because I feared, that this feature would load all running programs in addition to the autostart programs, but it didn't change anything.

[Enigma2Illusion]

Did you have TrueCrypt previously installed on this system?

Did you upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 or perform a clean installation of Windows 10?

[neogrande]

This Windows 10 installation is clean.
I ran TrueCrypt without installation to mount old partitions and transfer the data to the new Veracrypt partitions, but it was never running in autostart and was never configured to automatically mount things...

[Enigma2Illusion]

To avoid possible issues, let us manually remove the drive definitions from both VeraCrypt and TrueCrypt from the registry.

Use VeraCrypt 1.16 or higher if available.

With the all volumes dismounted, perform the following.

Using a modified version of Idrassi's instructions:

Check the registry key "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices" using regedit. Scroll down and you'll find entries starting with "\DosDevices\" which indicate the drive letters that are taken by the system. Before mounting any volume, double click on each one and remove the ones contains the name "VeraCrypt" and "TrueCrypt".
Also, there are other entries whose name start with "#{" and "\??\Volume{": double click on each one of them and remove the ones whose data value contains the name "VeraCrypt" and "TrueCrypt".
.
Reboot PC.

[neogrande]

Unfortunately the issue still remains. These were my steps
1. Unmount all devices and close VeraCrypt
2. Open regedit as admin, find the registry keys and delete them (there were many keys, but none with the problematic volume)
3. Restart & Mount the Device
4. Open regedit again, find exaclty 3 keys for the problematic volume
5. Unmount again
6. Notice, that only the "\DosDevices\" key gets removed and delete the 2 other
7. Reboot again
8. Mount dialogs shows twice again

[Enigma2Illusion]

Can you clarify your statement below?

Evertime I start windows, the password popup for this volume shows twice (it shows the same harddisk number as title). I can enter my password in the first or second, It doesn't matter which one I take, the volume gets mounted correctly.

Since you are not using system encryption, you should not be automatically prompted for the password unless you attempt to mount the Favorite Volumes by the following settings or methods shown below.

• Favorites > Mount Favorite Volumes
• Favorites > Organize Favorite Volumes > Mount selected volume upon login
• Favorites > Organize Favorite Volumes > Mount selected volume when its host device gets connected
• Hot key to mount your Favorites.
• Settings > Preferences > Mount all device-hosted VeraCrypt volumes

Do you have hot key setup for Favorites?

Settings > Hot Keys

Are you mounting the volume on the same PC from different Windows accounts using Favorites or have enabled mounting through the preferences?

The reason I ask is a TrueCrypt user had the same problem at the link below which appears to be a bug in TrueCrypt and hence in VeraCrypt. Scroll to the bottom to read about his solution.

http://codeverge.com/grc.security.software/truecrypt-requires-password-twice/1660790

[neogrande]

I only use "Favorites > Organize > Mount selected volume upon login". No Hotkeys, no other options, no manual actions.
I have an admin account with the same favorite volume, but without auto-mount enabled. I removed the volume from the favorites of admin, but I still got the 2 password prompts, when logging in with my normal account.
So I did the following steps, but still have the problem:

1. Uninstall VeraCrypt as Admin user
2. Clear Registry like described above
3. Logout and Login with normal user
4. Install VeraCrypt (requested admin password) and disabling the "install for all users" option
5. Add the volume to favorites and double-check correct options
6. Additionally disable the "Actions to perform upon logon to Windows -> Start VeraCrypt Background Task" checkbox (the "VeraCrypt Background Task -> Enabled" checkbox above still is checked)
7. Restart PC
8. Login as normal user => Boom, 2 password prompts

When I open Task Manager during the startup time, I see "VeraCrypt.exe" twice in there. After entering the password, one disappears. So for me it looks more like a Windows autostart problem than a VeraCrypt problem.

I checked Registry HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run and found key VeraCrypt having data C:\Program Files\VeraCrypt\VeraCrypt.exe" /q preferences /a logon /a favorites. For me that looks correct.

[Mounir IDRASSI]

Can you please launch Windows Task when you see those two prompt and note for which user name each one of them is associated as shown in the screenshot below?
I just want to confirm that both processes are associated with the normal user or if two users are involved.

VeraCrypt doesn't launch itself so something in the machine is launching it twice...

[neogrande]

Hi,
yes, during restart I have two VeraCrypt.exe from my normal user. Both have very similar memory usage indicators (around 1,024 K, but not exactly the same).
Do you know of any way to detect, where they were started?

[Enigma2Illusion]

Is it possible that there is some incompatibility with your AntiVirus or Malware Prevention software?

I saw a posting for TrueCrypt where a user had a problem with Avast Deep Screen option being enabled.

Which AntiVirus and/or Malware Prevention software are you running on the Windows 10 PC?

[neogrande]

I used Avira Antivirus. I uninstalled it.
I disabled all Autostart programs except VeraCrypt.
I disabled all automatic services except the "svchost.exe" ones.
Problem still appears.
Very strange...

[Sourcerer]

Do you know of any way to detect, where they were started?

Try Autoruns:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902

[neogrande]

Wow, thank you.

Autoruns showed only two entries for VeraCrypt: The exe and the sys file. I disabled the exe and (as expected) after a reboot VeraCrypt didn't show up at all.

I enabled it again and voilà - only one popup showed up after a new reboot.
Problem solved after 3 years or so. But I still don't know, why :(

[Peter Ridge]

VeraCrypt started double-prompting me when Favorites automount after login (Windows 10). Turning off the veracrypt.exe for Run in the registry via SysInternals Autoruns tool, restarting Windows, then turning it back on and restarting also fixed it for me.

It's still odd that it works, but it fixed it four years after neogrande, above.