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Troubleshooting

Temperature Shows "--"

Cause: The widget couldn't find a temperature source on your system.

Fix: Check which thermal sources are available:

# Check thermal zones
cat /sys/class/thermal/thermal_zone*/type 2>/dev/null

# Check hwmon
for d in /sys/class/hwmon/hwmon*/; do
    echo "$(cat "$d/name" 2>/dev/null): $d"
done

# Check lm-sensors
sensors 2>/dev/null | head -20

AMD Systems

If you're on AMD, make sure k10temp or zenpower kernel module is loaded: 

sudo modprobe k10temp
To load it automatically on boot, add k10temp to /etc/modules-load.d/k10temp.conf.

RAM Shows Empty (versions ≤ 1.4.0)

Cause: On versions before 1.4.1, RAM was read by parsing the free command, which translates its output headers (e.g. Mem:) based on your system locale. Non-English locales caused the parser to match nothing.

Fix: Update to KVitals 1.4.1+, which reads directly from /proc/meminfo (always English, locale-independent).

Battery/Power Shows Nothing

Cause: No battery detected (e.g., desktop systems without a battery or UPS).

Behavior in KVitals (v2.2.0+): The widget uses KDE's native SensorTreeModel to dynamically scan your system's hardware tree for any connected battery (including BAT0, BAT1, BATT, CMB0, macsmc-battery, etc.). If nothing shows up, it means the KDE ksystemstats daemon cannot find a battery API on your machine.

Note

This is expected behavior on desktop systems. Disable battery and power metrics in Settings → Metrics tab to hide the empty entries.

Network Speed Shows 0

Cause: Wrong network interface selected.

Fix:

  1. Open Settings → Metrics and ensure the network interface is set to auto.
  2. If you want to monitor a specific connection, select it from the dropdown list.

Tip

If you use multiple connections (WiFi + Ethernet), set the interface manually to the one you want to monitor.

GPU Shows Only Usage (or Missing VRAM/Temp)

Cause: GPU sensor availability depends on your driver/backend. Some systems expose only usage, while VRAM or temperature sensors are missing or report no data.

Behavior in KVitals: The widget now shows only the GPU fields that are available on your system (no placeholder ... / -- for unsupported GPU sub-metrics).

Fix/Debug: List GPU sensor IDs reported by Plasma KSystemStats:

qdbus --literal org.kde.ksystemstats1 /org/kde/ksystemstats1 org.kde.ksystemstats1.allSensors \
  | rg -o '"gpu/[^"]+"' | tr -d '"' | sort -u

Then test a specific sensor value:

qdbus --literal org.kde.ksystemstats1 /org/kde/ksystemstats1 org.kde.ksystemstats1.sensorData gpu/all/usage

Tip

On multi-GPU systems, per-GPU sensors such as gpu/gpu1/* may exist even when aggregate sensors are partial.

Widget Shows "KVitals" or "..."

Cause: The KSysGuard daemon hasn't returned sensor data yet.

Fix: Wait a few seconds for the data to populate. If it still doesn't, try restarting the plasma-ksystemstats service: 

systemctl --user restart plasma-ksystemstats.service

Icons Not Visible on Panel

Cause: Icons are rendered with isMask: true (monochrome). If your panel background is the same color as the text color, icons may be invisible.

Tip

Try switching to a different Plasma theme, or adjust the panel opacity. You can also switch to Text display mode if icons aren't working well with your theme.

Settings Dialog Shows Warnings in Journal

Harmless Warnings

You may see cfg_*Default warnings in the journal. These are harmless Plasma 6 KCM warnings about default property injection and do not affect functionality.

Widget Not Appearing After Install

Fix:

  1. Restart plasmashell: 
    kquitapp6 plasmashell && kstart plasmashell &
  2. If still missing, check the install path: 
    ls ~/.local/share/plasma/plasmoids/org.kde.plasma.kvitals/

Warning

If the directory doesn't exist, the install failed. Re-run bash install.sh from the project directory.

Custom Font Not Applying

Cause: The font name might not match exactly.

Fix:

  1. Check available fonts: fc-list | grep -i "font-name"
  2. In settings, use the exact family name from the dropdown
  3. Font size 0 means "use system default" — set a specific value if needed

Tip

The font dropdown is searchable — start typing the font name to filter the list. You can also type a custom font name directly.