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I'm having problems with kdeconnect on Lubuntu and the only error I see when I execute the daemon with --replace is the inablility to launch kuiserver:

Couldn't start kuiserver from org.kde.kuiserver.service: QDBusError("org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.ServiceUnknown", "The name org.kde.kuiserver was not provided by any .service files")

I have it in qdbusviewer list on my main installation (it's a separate machine) but can't find what package it's from, what file provides this service. There is no file named like this and I can't even find anything with grep kuiserver -ri in select system directories.

Note that ideally the answer should be generic as I'm interested not only in solving this particular problem but in learning how to solve problems like this one in general.

Systems in question are 20.04 but the question itself is not about 20.04, thus no tag. plasma-workspace package does not provide this service, I tried installing in on Lubuntu and even rebooting after this.

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  • 1
    Does this answer your question? How do I find the package that provides a file?
    – N0rbert
    Jun 17, 2020 at 7:39
  • 2
    No, I don't know what file it is, that's the point. apt search, locate and even trying to find something in system directories didn't help so far.
    – int_ua
    Jun 17, 2020 at 8:28
  • @N0rbert The author says that the linked question didn't help so far, so it might be better to retract the close vote rather than drag it out closing from one bad duplicate link, then reopening after 4 more bad close votes, failing to reopen it the easy way, and dragging it all the way through Meta. This way I only need to delete this one dumb comment instead of incurring massive overhead.
    – karel
    Jun 17, 2020 at 12:52
  • While I disagree with the dup closing vote too, karel, I think your reply is too impolite, please tone it down.
    – int_ua
    Jun 18, 2020 at 6:22
  • If kuiserver is visible on qdbusviewer, why is kdeconnect complaining about the service not being provided? Jun 19, 2020 at 5:23

2 Answers 2

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+100

Despite what the other answer says you do not need plasmashell to use KDE Connect.

TL;DR You can ignore the error

kuiserver provides a way for applications such as KDE Connect to report progress for jobs (such as file transfers) to Plasma. Plasma then embedds a progress bar in the panel.

When kuiserver is not available, i.e. when not using Plasma, KDE Connect falls back to displaying the transfer progress in a standalone window. Not as pretty as the progressbar integrated into Plasma, but perfectly functional.

Source: I am a KDE Connect and Plasma developer

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    Thank you! The first answer is correct in the part that is main to this particular question: identifying process that provides a dbus service, so it will remain the accepted one. But I'll reward this answer too, it's good to know this.
    – int_ua
    Jul 8, 2020 at 17:31
  • Have to wait 24 hours to reward :/
    – int_ua
    Jul 8, 2020 at 17:33
  • 1
    I've corrected the info in my answer, thanks. Jul 8, 2020 at 18:07
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+50

You can get the PID of the process owning a DBus socket:

dbus-send --session --print-reply --dest=org.freedesktop.DBus / org.freedesktop.DBus.GetConnectionUnixProcessID string:org.kde.kuiserver

then when you have the PID, just ps -fp PID

alternate:

find the string "kuiserver" in /usr/bin:

for exe in /usr/bin/*; do sudo strings -f "$exe"; done | grep "kuiserver"

(sudo is required because your user may not have read permissions for many executables)

for more specificity you could also grep for "org.kde.kuiserver.service"


Although you can safely ignore the kuiserver error, it shouldn't affect KDE Connect.

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  • @int_ua the dbus command was wrong, sorry. I've edited it, please see that (note the space between / and org....) Jun 19, 2020 at 6:18
  • Meanwhile I've found a match in libkf5kiowidgets5 package with strings. Trying the updated command.
    – int_ua
    Jun 19, 2020 at 6:35
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    Hmm, it being provided by plasmashell implies you need to actually be running KDE in order to use that service. But kdeconnect shouldn't depend on running KDE... you might want to check out github.com/sandsmark/kuiserver-standalone - I'll add an edit about that to my answer Jun 19, 2020 at 6:43
  • 1
    @int_ua this is late, but I've started using KDE Connect recently too, and I've found that KDE Connect GUI doesn't send files for me either (Xfce), but using kdeconnect-cli -d your_device_id --share /path/to/file works perfectly. I think this is a bug in KDE connect, I'll report it later. Jun 27, 2020 at 5:18
  • 1
    @int_ua the bug has been fixed. now to wait for Ubuntu to package the latest version... Jul 19, 2020 at 6:34

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