Note: This web page was automatically created from a PalmOS "pedit32" memo.

Troubleshooting a gnome problem early in the login


1) ypcat passwd | grep '^enduser:' >> /etc/passwd

2) Change the user's password in the local password file

3) Enable XDMCP in /etc/X11/gdm/gdm.conf

4) Send a HUP signal to the top-level gdm process

5) Xnest -query remote.host.uci.edu
(You may have to spec a :2 or :5 something on this command to avoid
conflicts with other X servers on the XDMCP -client- system)

6) Log in as the user you need to test, using the alternate password you set

7) Study the errors, &c

8) If they're fairly inscrutible, this worked well for me.

9) Switch to logging in under the "failsafe" option

10) This should produce an xterm, with no window manager.  Within that
xterm, run "gnome-session".

11) That command should allow you to see the errors gnome-session is
experiencing.  In my case, it reported a bunch of unresolved externals
in dcslib, which pointed at an LD_LIBRARY_PATH problem, and sure enough,
the user in question had a bad setting of LD_LIBRARY_PATH in his ~/.cshrc.
Comment that out, log out and back in, and all was well.

12) Other things to try with strange gnome problems are
gconf-sanity-check-1 (comes with FC2 and up, but not RHEL 3) and oaf-slay.

13) Another good thing to try when gnome is misbehaving, is mv'ing out
of the way, all of a user's gnome-related subdirectories of their home
directory.
 


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