Locks not being released - read through documentation - still no luck

["Lee PHP" <leephp gmail com>]

Hi there,

First of all, I've through the information @
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ thoroughly, and Googled for
solutions, but nothing is helping me so far. I would really appreciate
some help/guidance.

I've been experiencing a problem lately where some of my sudo windows
appear either empty, or appear normally, but fade to gray after a few
seconds and become unusable. I believe this is an issue with GCONF
(well, my lack experience with Ubuntu really).

I am finding the following error with `gconf-sanity-check-1`:
=> Failed to get a file lock: Failed to lock '/tmp/gconfd-lee/lock/ior'.

To remedy this, I tried renaming/deleting this file and restarting the
session, but the problem persists. AFAIK, I'm not using NFS mounts
(used the default Ubuntu 7.04 installation). I tried seeting
GCONF_LOCAL_LOCKS=1 obviously (that's why the lock files are in /tmp)
and restarting, but it's still not working.

Here is the specific information about my problems that might be able
to shed some light on the matter:

* Exact error messages from any applications.

=> The following comes from /var/logs/messages (it can also be find in
/var/log/user):

Jun 13 08:31:25 lee gconfd (lee-5715): starting (version 2.18.0.1),
pid 5715 user 'lee'
Jun 13 08:31:25 lee gconfd (lee-5715): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only
configuration source at position 0
Jun 13 08:31:25 lee gconfd (lee-5715): Resolved address
"xml:readwrite:/home/lee/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at
position 1
Jun 13 08:31:25 lee gconfd (lee-5715): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only
configuration source at position 2
Jun 13 08:31:25 lee gconfd (lee-5715): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/var/lib/gconf/debian.defaults" to a read-only
configuration source at position 3
Jun 13 08:31:25 lee gconfd (lee-5715): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/var/lib/gconf/defaults" to a read-only configuration
source at position 4
Jun 13 08:31:29 lee gconfd (lee-5715): Resolved address
"xml:readwrite:/home/lee/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at
position 0
Jun 13 08:31:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): starting (version 2.18.0.1),
pid 5838 user 'root'
Jun 13 08:31:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only
configuration source at position 0
Jun 13 08:31:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): Resolved address
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at
position 1
Jun 13 08:31:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only
configuration source at position 2
Jun 13 08:31:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/var/lib/gconf/debian.defaults" to a read-only
configuration source at position 3
Jun 13 08:31:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): Resolved address
"xml:readonly:/var/lib/gconf/defaults" to a read-only configuration
source at position 4
Jun 13 08:32:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): GConf server is not in use,
shutting down.
Jun 13 08:32:43 lee gconfd (root-5838): Exiting

* Exact version of GConf 1 and GConf 2 that you have installed.

=> I'm running version 2.18.0 according to `gconf-editor`->Help->About.

* Output of ps jaxwww | grep gconf.

=> lee lee:~$ ps jaxwww | grep gconf
   1  5715  5671  5671 ?           -1 S     1000   0:00
/usr/lib/libgconf2-4/gconfd-2 6
5671  5732  5671  5671 ?           -1 S     1000   0:00 /bin/sh
/usr/bin/compiz --sm-client-id default0 gconf
5732  5745  5671  5671 ?           -1 RL    1000   0:02
/usr/bin/compiz.real --no-fbo --ignore-desktop-hints --sm-client-id
default0 gconf gconf
5878  6557  6556  5878 pts/0     6556 S+    1000   0:00 grep gconf
lee lee:~$

* Output of gconf-sanity-check-1 or gconf-sanity-check-2 if any.

=> lee lee:~$ gconf-sanity-check-1
Please contact your system administrator to resolve the following problem:
Failed to get a file lock: Failed to lock '/tmp/gconfd-lee/lock/ior':
probably another process has the lock, or your operating system has
NFS file locking misconfigured, or a hard NFS client crash caused a
stale lock (Resource temporarily unavailable)

* What operating system are you using, and what version of it.

=> Ubuntu 7.04.

* What appears in the user.* syslog (see above for how to turn on
user.* syslog).

=> See above.

I don't have a sys admin to help me with this issue; can someone tell
me how to resolve it?

WHAT HAVE I DONE THAT MIGHT HAVE CAUSED THIS PROBLEM?

I installed Ubuntu on Friday; on Monday, I started experiencing these
problems. Up until then e.g. `sudo gedit` would work fine, but from
there onward, the gedit window would appear, but then fade to gray.
Another example is when I try to adjust the time. I right click, click
on Adjust Date and Time, and empty window appears with the title 'Time
and Date Settings'.

o I've been playind around with desktop effects (cube/wobble). I've
used the gconf-editor, but AFAIK, I've only touched the cube effect.
o I've downloaded a couple of login themes, icons, etc.
o I ran `chattr -i /etc/resolv.conf` to stop it being overwritten.

Thanks for taking the time to read this, and thanks in advance for any
thoughts you might have.

Cheers,
 LeePR