Re: Gnome hang on logout / kill.

[MHR <mhullrich gmail com>]

On Feb 12, 2008 11:09 PM, Jason Cipriani <jason cipriani gmail com> wrote:
> I am running Gnome 2.20.3 on a Gentoo machine. I just recently updated
> from a previous version of Gnome (I do not remember what the previous
> version was but it was at least 4 or 5 months old). I do not use a
> graphical log in. I am not logging in to a remote machine, this is all
> local.
>
> Since updating, when I kill the X server with Ctrl+Alt+Bkspc, or when
> I log out properly via System -> Log Out, everything disappears
> (including the mouse cursor) except for the desktop background, and
> then it gets stuck. I know the machine is not completely hung, because
> if I press Ctrl+Alt+Del the system will shut down properly and reboot
> -- although the desktop background will remain on the screen until the
> reboot actually happens. When it is in this state, I can't switch to
> text terminals, or do anything at all (including Ctrl+Alt+Bkspc). I've
> given it at least 5 minutes to exit but it does not (I remember having
> issues logging out with the old version where gconfd or something
> would stay running for a long time after the gnome desktop ended -- I
> do not know if this is related; that didn't cause me problems logging
> out but it did cause me problems if I tried to restart gnome again too
> quickly before gconfd had died).
>
> This problem happens 100% of the time. It does not seem to be a
> general X problem, because I can use other desktops and window
> managers (and just X by itself) with no issues. This problem did not
> happen at all before I updated Gnome.
>
> I am not familiar enough with Gnome to know where to start looking.
> What I found on Google either didn't match my description or was a
> problem with remote connections. Nothing in /var/log or my user dir
> jumped out at me either. What is a good starting point for
> investigating? Please let me know if you need any other system
> information, I'm not sure what is relevant.
>

I am having a similar, but not identical, problem on CentOS 5.1 with
Gnome 2.16.0 - when I try to log out or shutdown/reboot, the
logout/shutdown applets hang when either a button is selected or the
applet times out.  The only way I can log out is to kill the
gnome-session process, and to reboot or shutdown, I either have to run
'shutdown' or 'reboot' in a terminal window, or "log out" (i.e., kill
the session process) and then click on the shutdown or reboot link on
the login screen (at least those still work).

I've mentioned this here before, but haven't found (or seen) any answers yet.

Ritesh has been working with me on and off about this for a fair
amount of time, but we haven't found anything that works (yet).   (I
confess, I haven't tried his last suggestion - soon....)

mhr