originally reported at: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/+bug/468372

"If empathy cannot access the keyring to fetch a password, then the account vanishes from the accounts list until the authorization is granted.

1. Set your keyring password to be non-empty.
2. Add a number of accounts to empathy.
3. Log out. Log back in. Start empathy.
4. Pick 'deny' each time empathy prompts for the keyring password.
5. empathy will now give you the initial setup dialogue, acting as if there are no accounts. If you get past this and look at the accounts page, it will indeed be empty.
6. Quit empathy. Start t up again. The accounts page will still be empty.
7. Log out. Log back in. Start empathy.
8. Give authorization when prompted.
9. The accounts will have returned.

This is particularly awkward as it's tempting to add all your accounts to empathy again when they are apparently 'deleted'. This'll end up having multiple copies of each account, and as removing accounts in empathy is extremely non-obvious (#441409), it's decidedly not a good user experience.

empathy ought to just mark them disabled if it can't log them in (as Pidgin does)."