“Back Up Now” Button is Disabled in Ubuntu’s Déjà Dup Application

Ubuntu includes a backup utility called Deja Dup that can be used to backup and restore user data within an Ubuntu partition. The app can be located in Unity’s Application Lens (Windows/Super key + A) by typing “deja dup” or “backups”. Deja Dup is primarily a wrapper for the duplicity command line utility which provides its core file operations and encryption capabilities. Duplicity uses GnuPG with a symmetric cipher for its encryption and signing operations. The encryption key is based upon a user-entered password which can be stored in the GNOME keyring if desired.

The configuration was simple. The only issue I ran into was a little back and forth with the app when setting the network backup location. After everything was set, I returned to the main page to manually initiate the first backup but noticed the Back Up Now button was disabled.

The fix was pretty simple. From a prompt, run:

pkill deja-dup

…then restart the app. There are some reports of also have to kill the duplicity process, but that wasn’t required in my case.

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