Unlock the 'default' keyring at startup: SOLVED!

[Douglas S. Saylor]

   The short solution: the keyring NAMED "default" needs to be deleted &
the "login" keyring need to be SET to default. WOW, what a blunder this
doesn't happen at install! 

("SirGe" writes on http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1739932)

Setting empty passwords for keyrings or storing passwords outside of
keyrings is inherently insecure: anyone, that can access the machine,
can get to the info. If that's OK, just skip the rest of this post.

The login keyring is unlocked when you log in. Unfortunately, gnome uses
the default keyring to store passwords. The default keyring is named
'Default'. This can be fixed in the 'Passwords and Encryption Keys'
applet.

1. right-click on the 'login' keyring and set it as default.
2. unlock the 'Default' keyring and make sure you have a record of all
the passwords in there; note each application that needs these
passwords. In my case there are passwords for wireless networks and the
Ubuntu Software Center (because I left a comment on a package, which
requires an identity).
3. Right-click the 'Default' keyring and delete it.
4. Go into each app, that had a password stored, and get it to ask you
to enter the password. It will be stored in the new default keyring -
the one named 'login'.

Done. Now your login keyring is also the gnome keyring. Sorry, there
appears to be no support in Seahorse (that's the applet) to
export/import or copy/paste passwords between keyrings - corresponding
menu entries are disabled.

Hope this works for you as well as it did for me.