KWallet blocking Wi-Fi setup is pushing new users away from KDE Plasma

Brainstorm
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Hello everyone,

I’d like to report a usability issue that has affected me and my family, and I believe it affects many new users who try KDE Plasma for the first time.

Recently, both my father and my wife tried using Linux with KDE. When they attempted to connect to a Wi-Fi network, a KWallet prompt appeared asking them to create a password. Neither of them understood what this was, or why a “wallet” was required just to connect to the internet. They got stuck, couldn’t finish what they were doing, and eventually gave up and went back to Windows.

I’m an experienced Linux user, and even I had trouble recently: while using CachyOS during an important exam, I tried connecting to the Wi-Fi at the location and the KWallet dialog appeared. I didn’t know how to handle it at that moment and lost time. It was extremely frustrating.

I understand that KWallet provides important security features. However, making it mandatory with no clear explanation or a simple option to skip it creates a huge barrier for new users. At first glance, it looks like an error or something broken.

My suggestion is:
Please consider disabling KWallet by default for basic Wi-Fi usage, or offering a clear option like “Skip / Don’t use KWallet now” during the first setup.
This would drastically improve the first-time experience without harming security for users who want to enable it later.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I really appreciate the work the KDE community does, and I hope this feedback helps KDE Plasma become even more welcoming to newcomers.

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Huh… i have Kwallet installed, and never had to manually set up kwallet or its password for Wifi or other things, as far as i’m aware. In spite of that, after installing wallet manager, my network passkeys are in there.

I’m running Arch though, so it could be a configuration matter on my end, but i did use archinstall, instead of running things manually. I can’t fathom why it would be a default behavior on other systems and not through the automated install on Arch.

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I second this, especially since on other platforms—especially iOS/Mac—a “wallet” dialog implies that a financial transaction is about to take place.

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On some distros, setting up desktop autologin breaks the kwallet autologin. When doing this after the install, you do get messaging about this in System Settings, but if you set this up during the OS install, you don’t see this at all.

But I think mentioning that Kwallet provides password manager functions in the popup would be much more useful.

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I’ll agree here as well, as just a few weeks ago I had a friend trying a Linux desktop with a new Kubuntu for the first time, and he had what sounds like the same issue that went through this fighting with Kwallet.

After updates and reboot, it locked his network settings, signal, and other stored secrets, and just confused him, thinking of it as a keepass-style password manager, then after popping up constantly. It then conflicted with his user pass, then didn’t let him access his stored settings, no idea that the wallet was related, and just frustrated him to finally bug me about it. I wasn’t sure as I haven’t setup a fresh ubuntu/kde in forever to run into this, but recommended chatgpt which seems gets asked this a lot and knew how to deal with it, which I think just needed setting the pass the same as the user account.

However Kubuntu or Plasma itself is handling new-user onboarding with kwallet, it seems simply more confusing than it ought to be for new users. I remembered running into this ages ago myself when still using Ubuntu with some old Plasma, but with Arch for the past 7-8 years haven’t run into fighting with kwallet.

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i’m using kubuntu 24.04 and i’ve never had to deal with kwallet at all… and that’s the way i like it.

when i go to kwallet manager i get this message

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if i wanted to use kwallet, then i would activate it.

this default should be the standard KDE recommended default unless a distro wants to change it.

hopefully kubuntu 26.04 will keep the same defaults as i have now.

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Being a very new user, I can confirm that calling the functionality ‘wallet’ is an unfortunate choice.

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I don’t have a problem with the name kwallet (and I don’t feel a name change is needed, after all Kwallet has been around since 2004 - KDE 3.2), but new users seem to need what it is spelled out more clearly (for whatever reason a quick internet search to figure out what kwallet is isn’t thought of, but even if the user does they shouldn’t have to.) When clicking Help :right_arrow: About Wallet Manager, may I suggest it add: password manager

So it would say something like: KDE Wallet Management Tool. KDE’s password manager.

I also noticed clicking help leads to a webpage that says:
The application kwalletmanager could not be found. Please check if you entered the name correctly, or use the navigation on the left to access the complete KDE User Documentation. Even a very brief description without full explicit instructions yet added would be helpful I think.

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oh, it’s a kwallet wallet …. that clears things right up :slight_smile:

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there is room for improvement here.

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My understanding from blogs over the last couple of months is that the default approach for WiFi secrets will be to store them on the system level instead of the user level.

That sounds like a bad idea for several reasons.

As a user you don’t want to have any of your passwords stored in some unprotected way and you would only delay the setup to the next program that wants to store login information.

Ideally this would have been set up during account creation because then the password store can have the same password as the login credentials and there is already a system in place to unlock password storage on login if that is the case.

That’s essentially what it is.
Just an alternative implementation of a so-called “secred service”.

There are currently considerations to move to a different default provide for this so that different desktop projects share the same one instead of each having their own.

The desktop specific services, like KWallet or GNOME Keyring, are mostly a legacy from early times when no standard interface had been agreed yet.

At this point that is mostly a transitional problem.

Applications are being ported from a KWallet specific API to a more generic Secrets API.
The store service might also be consolidated or provided by a third party (e.g. KeePass) depending on user choice.

See also Marco’s blogs around these changes

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Hi.
I made an account here only for this problem.

“Progress is good” and whatever, but to be good, as said above, it must be user friendly.

I was trying to help “another user in my home” (my computers, all with Fedora KDE) to use its guest account with the WI-FI, and while updates just install (because for some reason, which is impossible for a normal user to figure out, the WI-FI connected) but things like Brave Browser can’t use the internet connection…

Let me paint you (plural) a picture:

I am a 2+ years Linux user, and suddenly something which looks like an internet scam ad, [kdeWALLET], pops up, without explanation, without reason, and without any tutorial for the user, keeping the use of the internet connection hostage.

This thing doesn’t seem to work properly.
I tried to input both the Admin password and the Guest password (“root” is the admin profile, the first I made, because yes) and neither of them work.

The Admin profile can just go online without any issue, but now, AND JUST NOW, as this KDEwallet nonesense came into the picture, the Guest account can’t, and this is bad because I don’t know how to fix it, making that PC functionally useless for that user.

Is there any way I can fix this?
And PLEASE don’t send me to The Realm Of Pain And Despair (a documentation page with 200 pages of small-format simple text without pictures), but rather send me to a video or something like that, also because I have an handicap where “if text is too compact, lines blend together”.

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FELLAS I NEED TO FIX THIS.
Could somebody, please, drop me a walkthrough?
I DON’T HAVE TIME TO FIGURE THIS OUT ON MY OWN!

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I had built out a kubuntu 24.04 desktop recently to test out an application on making use of secrets access, and the goal was to just use default kde/kwallet secrets after install, and instead it just didn’t work after install. I couldn’t unlock it with kwalletmanager or kde settings. The keyfile seemed mostly just busted that was created however from kubuntu install, but it’s the same complaint I generally see, it doesn’t unlock, can’t access it, never set a password, breaks wifi, etc. There’s definitely something kubuntu is doing wrong.

I use arch, and remember having gone through this at various times, but don’t often reinstall arch (joys of rolling distros). I finally had to ask chatgpt how to fix kubuntu, which it told me to delete the kdewallet files and let it recreate them after logging out and back in on the VM, and it’s worked normally since.

I had a friend trying Linux for the first time months ago trying Kubuntu that ran into this breaking his wifi, he said he never fixed it until I told him what I did and chatgpt recommended.

Still, it’s certainly wonky on fresh install even. Not sure how much is kde vs kubuntu team (canononical?) that packages it that breaks the initial file creation, but this seems the friction that new people are running into the most common means of getting kde with (k)ubuntu.

Stop services (may depend some here, but close):

kquitapp6 kwalletmanager
pkill kwalletd6

Move old wallets out of the way (or delete):

mkdir -p ~/.local/share/kwalletd-backup
mv ~/.local/share/kwalletd/* ~/.local/share/kwalletd-backup/

Log out completely and log back in.

You should be prompted to create a new wallet (mine created one automatically).

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In my PC’s problem it arose after I changed the guest’s password.

I’d like to not reinstall from 0 the entire OS (maybe since it’s a guest account I can delete it and then recreate it as guest_2) AND the KDE people can take advantage of situations like mine:

I am a free guinea pig. Ask me to test things and I shall.

[Fedora KDE]

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Same experience. Archinstall, never been bothered by kwallet.

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Respectfully, I disagree. The name of a program, folder, etc. should be a clear nod to its purpose/function. Semantic names make things clear at a glance and significantly reduce cognitive friction for users.

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“New users are limited to 3 messages in the same issue-” fellas this is not a social network.
If I have ONE problem with ONE thing I am not gonna waste my time going around the website to randomly interact with other posts…
But I had to…

I tried deleting the post above to write this one like an ouroboros, but it didn’t work, so I had to post 4 junk messages on other issues.

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I would have liked to “interact” with the posts I NEED TO alone, thank you.

Can’t agree more…

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I tend to agree, but there are many programs, apps, etc with names that don’t exactly make a clear not to it’s purpose/function.

Say if a person wasn’t into gaming, if they saw the Steam icon or folder labelled as, it’s a good chance they’d be equally confused. But here’s the thing, that friction is quickly removed, it’s basically a one time learning experience, this is why I don’t think it’s such a big deal.

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There’s a big difference between “a guy who googles how to game on PC” (also because this still happens mostly on Windows) and a grandpa/ma getting a 2013 PC as a gift getting flashbanged by “KDEwallet”.

“The PC wants my wallet!? Nephew! Nephew! I got a virus!!!”

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:roll_eyes:
So if grampa/ma used your computer, would they know what steam is? Chances are no.

Anyway these are just program names, I think you’re making a bigger deal out of it than necessary.