[FreeNX-kNX] unable to start rootless gnome-session

Wed Jul 8 09:06:18 UTC 2009

Hi all, 

I am currently trying to open a session, in rootless mode, but it desperately fails... Using either the freenx or nomachine NX server, and the standard nomachine client, server and client being Ubuntu Jaunty.
First, I did put "/usr/NX/bin/nxclient" in .Xsession
The client opens, we launch the connection, everything is fine and as soon as the session is established, the command (nxclient) returns, thus GDM (session manager) closes the session as for him, ".Xsession returns" means "end of session".
To avoid this, I added (in .Xsession) a sleep until nxssh closes. This is an ugly but working workaround.

The problem is that the session itself does not work at all. I set nx client to start /usr/bin/gnome-session, it seems to do so, but :
-the top/bottom panels are all gray
-one can click on them, thus making the menus appear, launch apps, close the session...
-Fast user switch applet (logically) crashes, I removed it
-few things that look like very small windows appear on the left of the screen, with window name like "panel", "gnome-setting-daemon", ...

I may add that the server is a fresh install of ubuntu, I created the users (in client and server) for the purpose of the test, did not (and did... with the same result) open a session locally, and that if I open the session in normal (non-rootless) mode or by ticking "Disable X agent encoding", the session opens normally (but terribly slowly...).

Below is part of the "clients" log, loccated in ~/.nx/session-name/
I removed the hundreds of "Xlib:  extension "Generic Event Extension" missing on display ":10XX.0".". They are partly relevant, but are too many to be kept :-)

--------------------------------START OF LOG----------------
gnome-session[22311]: WARNING: GSIdleMonitor: IDLETIME counter not found
GNOME_KEYRING_SOCKET=/tmp/keyring-Wxhihf/socket
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-Wxhihf/socket.ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_PID=22324

** (gnome-settings-daemon:22323): WARNING **: Unable to start xrandr manager: unhandled X error while getting the range of screen sizes
not present. 
xset q doesn't reveal the location of the log file. Using fallback /var/log/Xorg.0.log 
No whitelisted driver found     --> I think it tried to load compiz
aborting and using fallback: /usr/bin/metacity 
indow manager warning: Failed to read saved session file /home/test/.config/metacity/sessions/10b74c3254f739e633124704092776528900000223110019.ms: Failed to open file '/home/test/.config/metacity/sessions/10b74c3254f739e633124704092776528900000223110019.ms': No such file or directory
Window manager warning: Broken client! Window 0xc00001 (Panel) changed client leader window or SM client ID
Window manager warning: Broken client! Window 0xc00001 (Panel) changed client leader window or SM client ID
gnome-session[22311]: CRITICAL: gs_idle_monitor_add_watch: assertion `GS_IS_IDLE_MONITOR (monitor)' failed
** (nm-applet:22359): DEBUG: applet_common_device_state_changed
** (nm-applet:22359): DEBUG: old state indicates that this was not a disconnect 0
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
I: caps.c: Dropping root privileges.
I: caps.c: Limited capabilities successfully to CAP_SYS_NICE.
** (gnome-panel:22352): DEBUG: Adding applet 0.
** (gnome-panel:22352): DEBUG: Initialized Panel Applet Signaler.
** (gnome-panel:22352): DEBUG: Adding applet 1.  --> 2, 3.....->12
(gnome-panel:22352): Gtk-WARNING **: gtk_widget_size_allocate(): attempt to allocate widget with width -5 and height 24
** (nautilus:22353): WARNING **: Unable to add monitor: Not supported
(gnome-panel:22352): libglade-WARNING **: Unexpected element <requires-version> inside <glade-interface>.
** (gnome-panel:22352): DEBUG: Adding applet 12.
evolution-alarm-notify-Message: Setting timeout for 56629 1247097600 1247040971
evolution-alarm-notify-Message:  Thu Jul  9 02:00:00 2009

evolution-alarm-notify-Message:  Wed Jul  8 10:16:11 2009

Window manager warning: CurrentTime used to choose focus window; focus window may not be correct.
Window manager warning: Got a request to focus the no_focus_window with a timestamp of 0.  This shouldn't happen!
(I went to System/Log out and closed the session)
** (gnome-panel:22352): DEBUG: Removing applet 12.
(...)
** (gnome-panel:22352): DEBUG: Removing applet 0.
gnome-session[22311]: GLib-GObject-CRITICAL: g_object_unref: assertion `G_IS_OBJECT (object)' failed

--- Hash table keys for warning below:
--> x-nautilus-desktop:///
--> file:///home/test/Desktop

(nautilus:22353): Eel-WARNING **: "nautilus-metafile.c: metafiles" hash table still has 2 elements at quit time (keys above)

(nautilus:22353): Eel-WARNING **: "nautilus-directory.c: directories" hash table still has 2 elements at quit time
gnome-settings-daemon: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :1032.0.
bluetooth-applet: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :1032.0.
nm-applet: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :1032.0.
update-notifier: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :1032.0.
gnome-screensaver: Fatal IO error 11 (Resource temporarily unavailable) on X server :1032.0.
You are not authorized to perform this action.
--------------------------------END OF LOG----------------

Well, that's quite big of a log, but I don't really see anything that looks like "unrecoverable errors"...
Any help would be greatly appreciated, I'm sure it is possible to launch gnome-session in rootless mode, and don't really see what prevents it from working...
I tried several combinations, and even put "xterm" as a session to launch manually (in that order) dbus, gnome-keyring-aemon, gnome-settings-daemon, metacity, nautilus and gnome-panel, but with no real success...

Thanks again for your help (and your work), and don't hesitate asking for more debug log, I'll be happy to produce them..

Frédéric Grelot