trouble starting Gnome session through XDMCP

["Woods, Jeff" <jwoods sfwmd gov>]

I am having problems with a single user establishing a Gnome session on
an X server using XDMCP.  At the same time, I have a number of other users
who are connecting to the same server without any difficulty.  My Gnome
installation is on a stock RHEL4 WS workstation.

 

There are no local graphical logins on this server -- it strictly serves
XDMCP sessions for about a dozen users.  The one user I am having trouble
with gets through gdm successfully, but then the session hangs and is
eventually reset, returning her to the login screen.

 

Things I have tried to this point include:

 

1.  renaming the .gnome, .gnome2, and .gnome2_private directories so that
they no longer exist and will be recreated.

 

2.  Removing all xauthority files.

 

3.  renaming the user's home directory and replacing it with an empty home
directory.

 

4.  Logging onto a second server which shares the same home directory is
only partially successful.  The gnome session will start, but the menu bars
at the top and bottom of the screen are only partially initialized.

 

There are no messages in any log file that I have found which would indicate
any problem.  The /var/log/messages file shows that a session was opened and
closed for the user.

 

This problem is not limited to a single X server:  I have tried running
Xnest from a Linux client and both Xming and Reflections from a Windows
client.  As I mentioned above, this is the only user on the server who is
having trouble getting an XDMCP session -- other users connect without any
problems.

 

I have noticed that while the login is in its "hung" state (after
authenticating the user but before returning to the login manager), it
creates dozens of gnome_segv processes.  At times, a core file is left in
the user's home directory, but this is not done consistently.

 

I'm out of ideas.  It doesn't seem to be the user's account since this
behavior continues when run from an empty home directory.  It doesn't seem
to be the server or the software installation since it works for other users.