[gdm-list] GDM does not start Gnome-session

[Milo van der Zee <milo vanderzee org>]

Dear list members,

I'm new to this list so please forgive me if I do something incorrectly.

The problem I have is that GDM most of the time is not able to start
gnome-session. The gdmgreeter is shown fast enough but after entering my
password nothing happens.

In the logs I see messages like:
19:10:48 gdm[3171]: Sending LOGIN == <secret> for slave 3171
19:10:48 gdm[3142]: Got LOGIN == xxx
19:10:58 gdm[3171]: Timeout occurred for sending message LOGIN 3171 xxx
...
19:10:58 gdm[3171]: Sending GREETPID == 0 for slave 3171
19:10:58 gdm[3142]: Handling message: 'GREETPID 3171 0'
19:10:58 gdm[3142]: Got GREETPID == 0
19:11:08 gdm[3171]: Timeout occurred for sending message GREETPID 3171 0

Strange thing is that the client seems to receive the message but that
somehow a kind of acknowledgement is never received.

`gdmflexiserver --command=VERSION` shows `GDM 2.20.11` and so the
messaging seems to work at least a little.

If this happens the gdmgreeter enters [defunct] state and can't be
killed. Even not with 'kill -9'.

Starting gnome-session with startx works fine.

All problems started after my last update. I tried to install Gnome-3
but Gentoo does not fully support it yet and so went back to Gnome-2. 
Before my upgrade attempt I started migrating from init.d to systemd and
reverted back to init.d again. I did a full system rebuild. That helped
a little to let `exit` in gnome-terminal close the terminal again. And
ctrl-c/ctrl-d started working again also.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

MAG,
Milo