[hardy] broken X session, can't login

By the way, at the moment my update status is weird, with some conflicts between packages. I can't tell if this is related is some way and it will be fixed when the packages get sorted out:

~$ sudo aptitude dist-upgrade
Reading package lists... Done
Building dependency tree
Reading state information... Done
Reading extended state information
Initializing package states... Done
Writing extended state information... Done
Building tag database... Done
The following packages are BROKEN:
  compiz compiz-core compizconfig-settings-manager system-tools-backends
  ubuntu-sounds
The following packages are unused and will be REMOVED:
  compiz-fusion-plugins-extra compiz-fusion-plugins-main libcdio6
  libiso9660-4 libntfs-3g14 libpt-plugins-alsa libpulsecore4
  python-compizconfig
The following NEW packages will be automatically installed:
  gnome-audio libpulsecore5 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils
The following NEW packages will be installed:
  gnome-audio libpulsecore5 pulseaudio-module-x11 pulseaudio-utils
The following packages will be upgraded:
  bsdutils compiz-dev compiz-gnome compiz-plugins ghostscript ghostscript-x
  libgs8 libpulse-browse0 libpulse-dev libpulse-mainloop-glib0 libpulse0
  libsdl1.2-dev libsdl1.2debian libsdl1.2debian-alsa mount pulseaudio
  pulseaudio-esound-compat pulseaudio-module-gconf pulseaudio-module-hal
  util-linux util-linux-locales
25 packages upgraded, 4 newly installed, 8 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 8408kB of archives. After unpacking 7311kB will be freed.
The following packages have unmet dependencies:
  ubuntu-sounds: Conflicts: gnome-audio but 2.0.0-2 is to be installed.
  system-tools-backends: Breaks: gnome-system-tools (< 2.21) but 2.20.0-0ubuntu2 is installed.
  compizconfig-settings-manager: Depends: python-compizconfig (>= 0.6.99) but it is not installable
  compiz: Depends: compiz-fusion-plugins-main (>= 0.6.99) but it is not installable
          Depends: compiz-fusion-plugins-extra (>= 0.6.99) but it is not installable
          Depends: libcompizconfig0 (>= 0.6.99) but 0.5.2+git20070919-0ubuntu3 is installed.
  compiz-core: Breaks: libcompizconfig0 (< 0.6.99+git20071127-0ubuntu1) but 0.5.2+git20070919-0ubuntu3 is installed.
Resolving dependencies...
The following actions will resolve these dependencies:

Remove the following packages:
compizconfig-settings-manager

Keep the following packages at their current version:
compiz [1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1 (now)]
compiz-core [1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1 (now)]
compiz-dev [1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1 (now)]
compiz-fusion-plugins-extra [0.6.0+git20071121-0ubuntu1 (hardy, now)]
compiz-fusion-plugins-main [0.6.0+git20071027-0ubuntu1 (hardy, now)]
compiz-gnome [1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1 (now)]
compiz-plugins [1:0.6.2+git20071119-0ubuntu1 (now)]
gnome-audio [Not Installed]
libpulsecore4 [0.9.7-3ubuntu2 (hardy, now)]
pulseaudio [0.9.7-3ubuntu2 (now)]
pulseaudio-module-x11 [Not Installed]
system-tools-backends [2.4.0-0ubuntu1 (now)]

Score is 538

Accept this solution? [Y/n/q/?] n

I managed to run Compiz, after I changed the $GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID to skip the check in the /usr/bin/compiz script...

After RsomeFM, I'm taking a look through ~/gnome2/session

What I found so far:

I have lines for "4,Program=deskbar-applet", "5,Program=vino-session", "
8,Program=evolution-exchange-storage" but the corresponding executables aren't in $PATH. However, some of them are running. I can't tell if the lines in the session file are redundant or if gnome-session translated them to use python. deskbar was started with "/usr/bin/python /usr/lib/deskbar-applet/deskbar-applet --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:Deskbar_Applet_Factory --oaf-ior-fd=33"; There's also "/usr/lib/evolution/2.22/evolution-exchange-storage --oaf-activate-iid=OAFIID:GNOME_Evolution_Exchange_Connector_BookFactory:1.2 --oaf-ior-fd=30"

I've checked all of the startup programs in the session file, none of them seem to have suid or guid set. Any ideas where I can look next?

Weird. After a reboot it seems to be working. Unless someone things this might be useful to track down some bug, feel free to close the report.

It seems to be an issue with the startup of Xgl session.

Disabling Xgl autostart (create a file named ~/.config/xserver-xgl/disable) solves this issue.
The way xgl starts has changed recently. I'm trying to find out why it works just after boot time and not after the next logout/login.

If you want to help the script to investigate is /usr/share/xserver-xgl/Xgl-session. Seems to be a pb with acquiring a free display number.

By the way in my case disabling it enables NV-GLX extension instead of SGI-GLX.

I doubt it's that. First of all, there are several error messages before starting Xgl.

Second of all, after another reboot I could log-in normally. Xgl actually started, but it was much too slow, so I just uninstalled it.

Now I can log-in, but I have other issues with compiz (other bug). Unless someone else still has the same symptoms, I think it was a temporary settings mess-up.

Well it's a little bit weird.

After further investigation I've found that after the second login Xgl is way too slow to start and gnome-session starts _before_ Xgl (in Xgl-session Xgl is started in the background)

A workaround is to add a "sleep 5" in /usr/share/xserver-xgl/Xgl-session after the line "$XGL_WRAPPER $XGL_DISPLAY $XGL_ACCEL_OPTS $XGL_OPTS &"

Now I've to find out why Xgl is so slow on second startup and next.

The other message in .xsession-error are just GTK warnings and doesn't affect session startup.

The error in your .xsession-errors is the same as the one in Bug #176515. A patch has been added to solve an issue in Xgl startup script. Could you please check of it solves this bug too ?

It probably does; as I said, I managed to login once by chance, Xgl started sooner probably, but it was too slow in working (no idea why), so I have uninstalled it.

I can confirm this.
(xserver-xgl was really fast for me in gutsy, but slow in hardy anyone experienced the same?)