Xfce Wouldn't Start For One User -- Why?

[Rich Shepard]

   It took my software engineer/SysAdmin friend and I two hours today to solve
the problem of why X won't start for one user, but will for everyong else. I
hope someone here can explain what might have happened so we can try to avoid
this problem in the future.

   After a lot of Google searches and trials of a bunch of different things,
we finally deleted ~/.cache/ and ... X started once again!

   What could have become corrupted in that user's .cache/ directory that
prevented xfce4.2.2 from fully loading? We'd get the black background, the
cursor arrow (which could be moved with the track-point nipple), and a blank
taskbar at the bottom of the screen, but that's all. As soon as the .cache/
directory was removed, startx completed.

   Any insight would be appreciated.

Rich

-- 
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President     |   Author of "Quantifying Environmental
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM) |  Impact Assessments Using Fuzzy Logic"
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>     Voice: 503-667-4517         Fax: 503-667-8863