meld stopped working when run as root

[Grant Edwards <grant b edwards gmail com>]

I used to use meld regularly on different versions of system
config files (that are only readble by root).  However,
sometime recently meld stopped working when run as root:

   Traceback (most recent call last):
     File "/usr/bin/meld", line 90, in <module>
       meldapp.main()
     File "//usr/lib/meld/meldapp.py", line 982, in main
       app = MeldApp()
     File "//usr/lib/meld/meldapp.py", line 562, in __init__
       self.prefs = MeldPreferences()
     File "//usr/lib/meld/meldapp.py", line 435, in __init__
       super(MeldPreferences, self).__init__("/apps/meld", self.defaults)
     File "//usr/lib/meld/prefs.py", line 92, in __init__
       self._gconf.add_dir(rootkey, gconf.CLIENT_PRELOAD_NONE)
   glib.GError: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details -  1: Failed to get connection to session: Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.)

Is there any way to get meld working again for root? What's a
"configuration server"?  I already build it withough gnome
support (Gentoo gnome USE flag is unset).

-- 
Grant Edwards                   grante             Yow! !  The land of the
                                  at               rising SONY!!
                               visi.com