FC7 user dead

[Joe Barnett]

Perry Myers wrote:
> Antonio,
> 
> I've seen this happen as well, and it wasn't disk related for me either.  What I did find though was that there was a correlation between having esd enabled and the locking up on login.  
> 
> Try editing:
> .gconf/desktop/gnome/sound/%gconf.xml
> 
> in the user's home directory (from either root or a console login) and set event_sounds and enable_esd to false.  They try logging in again.
> 
> If this works please let me know...
> 
> Perry
> 
> antonio montagnani wrote:
>> 2007/6/7, mack <mack.sessoms at gmail.com>:
>>> in this situation, i usually log in as root and go after everything in
>>> /tmp
>>> that has the non-working userid in the file or directory name, log out
>>> root,
>>> try to log back in as user
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> what is strange is that if I log as root I find many processes still
>> running under the sleeping user (i.e.gam_server, esd,
>> bonobo-activation-server, nautilus)
>>
>> And after logging out from that user also the session closure window
>> freezes and the only way to log out is by Ctrl+Alt+Backspace!!!
>>
>> Maybe the only way is to delete the user and re-create it, using all
>> backup files..
>>
> 

I, too, have been experiencing similar problems.  Bad enough to make
Fedora 7 unusable.  I can get in and out of X two or three times
before it becomes unusable.  Even then, it might take two or three
attempts to "startx" before a usable desktop appears.

After those first few times, X/Gnome simply will not complete it's
startup -- usually hanging with only the background image visible
(in this case, the default Fedora 7 desktop image).
CTRL+ALT+BCKSPACE usually gets me out.

I started with an upgrade from Core 6, then cleaned out my entire
home dir, then finally did a completely fresh install.  All times
the same thing happens.

All the while I *can* get into X as root, though an occasional
CTRL+ALT+BKSPACE is needed to get out.

I have tried with and without sound enabled, with and without
livna's kmod-nvidia*, and with varying levels of customization to my
desktop.  Each time it is the same.

(*On a side note, this is the first release in quite some time which
works on this machine without kmod-nvidia.)

Otherwise, the machine is responsive, so if I cannot
CTRL+ALT+BKSPACE out of X/Gnome, I can ssh from another machine and
at least perform a relatively clean shutdown.

Windows, Ubuntu, and OpenBSD operate on this machine without issue,
as did Core 6.  It has been so long since I have had to debug
something like this that I can barely remember where to find logs
and such.  Nothing in /var/log contains anything which would
indicate a problem with X/Gnome, is there another location where
such logs might be kept?

What to know about this machine?  AMD Athlon 64 4000+ (2.4GHz),
1.5GB RAM, nVidia sound (onboard stuff), nVidia 7600GT video.
Plenty of space on the machine, including some 60GB free space on
the /home partition.

Anyone else dealing with something like this?

Thanks,

Joe
-- 
E-mail: joe.barnett at mr72.com
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