gdm: failsafe dialog failed

[Hartmut Henkel <hartmut_henkel gmx de>]

Hi,

i can't get rid of a gdm startup problem here, with gnome 64, gdm
2.6.0.6-1 as of current/today's debian-sarge i686:

After /etc/init.d/gdm start, the greeting screen does not appear, but
instead the tiny rotating clock appears in front of neutral moire
background, the monitor switches 6 times back and forth between graphics
and char mode, finally a window in char mode tells that the X server has
been shut down 6 times and next try would be done in 2 minutes...

The /var/log/daemon.log tells:

gdm[24293]: failsafe dialog failed (inhibitions: 0 0)
gdm[24293]: failsafe dialog failed (inhibitions: 0 1)
gdm[24293]: failsafe dialog failed (inhibitions: 1 1)

No idea what to infer from this error message, but it seems to be
connected to the problem.

There is no error in the XFree86.0.log. The debian installation is
clean, no broken or incompletely installed packages.

I'm stymied. Any help/hint how to get gdm starting is greatly
appreciated.

Best Regards

Hartmut Henkel