4.4rc1 works for root but not for user

[Peter N. Spotts]

Folks,

I'm trying to troubleshoot a problem inn SuSE 10.1 that began somewhat
simply -- an inability to call up the xfce settings window -- and has
now escalated to a puzzling inability to call up xfce at all as user. 

I've tried uninstalling, then reinstalling XFCE 4.4rc1 both with and
without the compositor function. 

The symptoms:

Calling up xfce under level 3 at a system prompt using startxfce4
gave me the opening splash screen, then a "frozen" screen with a
montage of partial images of just about every program that had been
running the last time I ran XFCE -- kinda like a scrambled screenshot.
The only way to get rid of it was ctrl-alt-bksp to return me to the
system prompt. Yet -- when I logged in as root, start-up was virtually
flawless -- except for an error message saying Thunar couldn't connect
to Trash. And I could activate the settings window (my original
problem as user).

When I looked at xsession-errors that first time around, things seemed
to hang up with the compositor. So I uninstalled XFCE and reinstalled
it without the compositor. I also shifted back to run level 5 so I could
use an alternate window manager if necessary. 

At RL 5, I tried to activate XFCE and again got the splash screen.
Instead of ending up at XFCE, however, I got returned to the log-in
screen with no fill-in sections for user name and password. I got the
labels, but no place to enter the information. And I got an x error
message, to wit: gkrellm segmentation fault:(create_monitor). So, I
removed Gkrellm, just for laughs, and the error message went away, but
I still got kicked back to the long-in screen sans fill-in fields. Here
is the contents of xsession-errors:


/etc/X11/xim: Checking wether an input method should be started.
INPUT_METHOD is not set or empty (no user selected input method).
Trying to start a default input method for the locale en_US.UTF-8 ...
There is no default input method for the current locale.
/usr/local/bin/startxfce4: X server already running on display :0
Agent pid 3277
Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine
Not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine

=================================================================
Got a SIGSEGV while executing native code. This usually indicates
a fatal error in the mono runtime or one of the native libraries 
used by your application.
=================================================================

Stacktrace:

in (wrapper managed-to-native) Gtk.Clipboard:gtk_clipboard_wait_for_text (intptr) <0x4>
in (wrapper managed-to-native) Gtk.Clipboard:gtk_clipboard_wait_for_text (intptr) <0xffffffc5>
in Gtk.Clipboard:WaitForText () <0x1d>
in Novell.Zenworks.Gui.ZenTrayIcon:.ctor () <0x14c>
in Novell.Zenworks.Gui.ZenUpdater:Main (string[]) <0x2ef>
in (wrapper runtime-invoke) System.Object:runtime_invoke_int_string[] (object,intptr,intptr,intptr) <0x50c84d56>

Native stacktrace:

	zen-updater(mono_handle_native_sigsegv+0xbb) [0x8150c2b]
	zen-updater [0x811fee0]
	[0xffffe440]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 [0xb6d2a5ec]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 [0xb6d2c1bb]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libgdk-x11-2.0.so.0 [0xb6d2c55f]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_context_dispatch+0x16d) [0xb7e79abd]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0 [0xb7e7ccbf]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libglib-2.0.so.0(g_main_loop_run+0x1a9) [0xb7e7d069]
	/opt/gnome/lib/libgtk-x11-2.0.so.0(IA__gtk_clipboard_wait_for_text+0x7d) [0xb6dfbbfd]
	[0xb699077d]
	[0xb6990716]
	[0xb698ec4d]
	[0xb7452b70]
	[0xb7451874]
	zen-updater(mono_runtime_exec_main+0x9f) [0x80d659f]
	zen-updater(mono_runtime_run_main+0x152) [0x80d67d2]
	zen-updater(mono_main+0xef9) [0x805dae9]
	zen-updater [0x805c702]
	/lib/libc.so.6(__libc_start_main+0xdc) [0xb7cef87c]
	zen-updater [0x805c651]
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
The application 'xfce4-session' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed
the application.
The application 'Thunar' lost its connection to the display :0.0;
most likely the X server was shut down or you killed/destroyed
the application.
Agent pid 3277 killed


The "not initializing the Gtk-Qt theme engine" catches my eye. But
I'm not sure what to do about that. And as before, I *could* activate
XFCE as root (again, with the Thunar error message). Any suggestions
for how to fix this?

With best regards,

Pete
-- 
Peter N. Spotts | Science reporter
The Christian Science Monitor
One Norway Street, Boston, MA 02115 USA
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