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Enabling kwallet after accidentally disabling it

·242 words·2 mins·

Although I use GNOME 3 as my desktop environment, I prefer KDE’s kwallet service to gnome-keyring for some functions. The user interface is a little easier to use and it’s easier to link up to the keyring module in Python.

Accidentally disabling kwallet #

A few errant mouse clicks caused me to accidentally disable the kwalletd service earlier today and I was struggling to get it running again. The daemon is usually started by dbus and I wasn’t entirely sure how to start it properly.

If I start kwalletmanager, I see the kwallet icon in the top bar. However, it’s unresponsive to clicks. Starting kwalletmanager on the command line leads to lots of errors in the console:

kwalletmanager(20406)/kdeui (Wallet): The kwalletd service has been disabled
kwalletmanager(20406)/kdeui (Wallet): The kwalletd service has been disabled
kwalletmanager(20406)/kdeui (Wallet): The kwalletd service has been disabled

Manually running kwalletd in the console wasn’t successful either.

Using kcmshell #

KDE provides a utility called kcmshell that allows you to start a configuration panel without running the entire KDE environment. If you disable kwallet accidentally like I did, this will bring up the configuration panel and allow you to re-enable it:

kcmshell4 kwalletconfig

You should see kwallet’s configuration panel appear:

kwallet-control-module-e1453998029696.png
KDE wallet control module for kwallet

Click on Enable the KDE wallet subsystem and then click OK. Once the window closes, start kwalletmanager and you should be able to access your secrets in kwallet again.

Photo Credit: Wei via Compfight cc