Disabled XFCE Session Manager, now can't login

[Chris G]

On Thu, Feb 26, 2009 at 04:43:07PM +0530, Jay Mistry wrote:
> >> >> > If you see the splash screen, then the session manager is already enabled.
> >> >> >  Something's causing it to quit.  You'll want to look at console output.
> >> >> >  Try logging in directly to a virtual console (not through GDM or some other
> >> >> > display manager) and running 'startxfce4' from the command line.  That might
> >> >> > help you figure out what's going wrong.
> >> >> >
> >> >> >        -brian
> >> >>
> >> >> I logged in as a regular user at RL 3 from grub boot menu. After
> >> >> entering 'startxfce4', the same thing happened as earlier. The XFCE
> >> >> Splash Screen (with mouse) appeared and there was a display at the
> >> >> bottom of the same stating what modules were loading. The XFCE desktop
> >> >> came on very briefly for about a second before crashing, after the HP
> >> >> SysTRay load message. After this, it went back to console-view and
> >> >> displayed about 20 lines of Error Message, am not sure where they
> >> >> would be so unable to post them here. Looked in Yast -> System Log,
> >> >> but the console error messages were not there.
> >> >>
> >> > How about looking in ~/.xsession-errors in a console session, that
> >> > might well give you a clue.
> >>
> >> AFAIK ~/.xsession-errors is a Debian-based distro thing only, and also
> >> only works when using a display manager like gdm.
> >>
> > I'm sure I used to look in ~/.xsession-errors when I ran Slackware and
> > on our Solaris boxes at work.  A quick Google suggests that it does
> > get written in just about every distribution, I spotted Mandrake,
> > Fedora and Suse at least.
> >
> > You're probably right about it being set up by the display manager
> > though but I thought from the thread that the OP was running a session
> > manager.  The problem was in fact that he wasn't running from a
> > terminal and thus couldn't see the errors, the display manager
> > redirects stdout/stderr to ~/.xsession-errors for this very reason.
> 
> I don't have a ~/.xsession-errors (or even ~/.xsession, though there
> is ~/.kde4 and ~/.gnome2 - using openSUSE 11.1 & kdm3).  Is there any
> other place to look in ?
> 
> Or is ti possible to re-enable the Session Manager by editing a System
> File (I am quite sure that this is the cause of the problem, as that
> was the only system change I made before the problem appeared).
> 
Does anything more sensible happen if you try 'startx' rather than
'startxfce4' from the console/terminal?

-- 
Chris Green