# Running ansible-vault gives a TypeError: can only join an iterable

**URL:** <https://forum.ansible.com/t/running-ansible-vault-gives-a-typeerror-can-only-join-an-iterable/18454>\
**Category:** Ansible Project\
**Created:** [June 10, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/running-ansible-vault-gives-a-typeerror-can-only-join-an-iterable/18454 "2015-06-10T01:08:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Paul\_DeBruicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dc4da7/32.png) [@Paul\_DeBruicker](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Paul_DeBruicker)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 1:08am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/running-ansible-vault-gives-a-typeerror-can-only-join-an-iterable/18454/1 "2015-06-10T01:08:43Z")

</div>

On Mac OSX 10.10.3, after having installed from source I get:

me:$ ansible-vault create a.yml

Traceback (most recent call last):

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/bin/ansible-vault”, line 66, in

sys.exit(cli.run())

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/cli/vault.py”, line 79, in run

self.execute()

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/cli/ **init**.py”, line 96, in execute

fn()

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/cli/vault.py”, line 85, in execute\_create

this\_editor.create\_file()

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/vault/ **init**.py”, line 249, in create\_file

self.\_edit\_file\_helper(cipher=self.cipher\_name)

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/vault/ **init**.py”, line 230, in \_edit\_file\_helper

enc\_data = this\_vault.encrypt(tmpdata)

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/vault/ **init**.py”, line 126, in encrypt

enc\_data = this\_cipher.encrypt(data, self.password)

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/vault/ **init**.py”, line 535, in encrypt

key1, key2, iv = self.gen\_key\_initctr(password, salt)

File “/Users/paul/src/ansible/lib/ansible/parsing/vault/ **init**.py”, line 523, in gen\_key\_initctr

count=10000, prf=pbkdf2\_prf)

File “/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/Crypto/Protocol/KDF.py”, line 110, in PBKDF2

password = tobytes(password)

File “/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/Crypto/Util/py3compat.py”, line 85, in tobytes

return ‘’.join(s)

TypeError: can only join an iterable

What can I do to attempt to fix my install so ansible-vault works as described in the docs?

Thanks

Paul

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Brian\_Coca](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6de8d8/32.png) [@Brian\_Coca](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Brian_Coca)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 1:34am UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/running-ansible-vault-gives-a-typeerror-can-only-join-an-iterable/18454/2 "2015-06-10T01:34:01Z")

</div>

i cannot reproduce this with stable nor current devel.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Paul\_DeBruicker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/dc4da7/32.png) [@Paul\_DeBruicker](https://forum.ansible.com/u/Paul_DeBruicker)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2015, 9:45pm UTC](https://forum.ansible.com/t/running-ansible-vault-gives-a-typeerror-can-only-join-an-iterable/18454/3 "2015-06-10T21:45:10Z")

</div>

I wiped my source install and installed via

pip install ansible

and the problem is fixed. Not sure how things got out of whack. Thanks for taking a look.