Weird GNOME behaviour (in Dapper and Edgy)

[Severin Schoepke]

Thanks for this suggestion Chris... Yes, indeed I get my network 
configuration via DHCP. And yesterday I had this 'sleeping/freezing' 
problem again... So I checked the system protocol and there were a lot 
of DHCP related messages (no errors or warnings though). The only 
'errors' I spotted were the following: Nov 22 18:00:06 schoepke-laptop 
kernel: [17190159.340000] do_drive_get_GTF: Run _GTF error: status = 0x5 
Nov 22 18:01:02 schoepke-laptop gnome-power-manager: (schoepke) Critical 
error: Cannot connect to DBUS Session Daemon Nov 22 18:01:26 
schoepke-laptop gconfd (schoepke-4500): Die Adresse 
»xml:readwrite:/home/schoepke/.gconf« wurde an der Position 0 zu einer 
schreibbaren Konfigurationsquelle aufgelöst Does anyone know what these 
mean? Are they indications for problems (sounds like)? Or are they 
'normal'? In the meantime I try to use a static IP (no DHCP) at home and 
see if this solves the problem... I can't remember to have had this 
problem at university (where I use a network with DHCP over WLAN), so it 
might is related to my network configuration at home... Thanks again for 
the tip! cheers, Severin Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2006 22:24:07 -0600 From: 
"Christofer C. Bell" <christofer.c.bell at gmail.com> Subject: Re: Weird 
GNOME behaviour (in Dapper and Edgy) To: "Ubuntu user technical support, 
not for general discussions" <ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com> Message-ID: 
<143f0f6c0611222024l4354096bpa3ea5dbf4a719747 at mail.gmail.com> 
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed On 11/19/06, 
Severin Schoepke <severin.schoepke at gmail.com> wrote:

> >
> > But I have a weird problem with both installations: Sometimes Gnome
> > doesn't allow the creation of new windows: When I'm working and want to
> > start a new app or open a folder, it happens from time to time that the
> > app/folder is not started/opened. There's a new entry in the task bar in
> > the likes of 'Mozilla Firefox wird gestartet...' (FF is being started in
> > english) that just disappears after a few seconds. I then can't start
> > applications, be it via the start menu, a panel launcher, a starter on
> > the desktop or from a terminal that is already open... Then suddenly,
> > after 10 minutes or so, the apps finally start/the windows get opened...
>   

Is your network providing DHCP services to your system?  If so, it
sounds as if perhaps the hostname is changing.  When that happens,
GNOME applications may either refuse to start or may start after a
long timeout which seems to be your symptom.

When you start up, run 'hostname' and make a note of the name.  Then
keep a terminal open.  When you see the issue again, run 'hostname'
again and see if the name has changed.  You may need to configure your
DHCP client to ignore hostname configuration from your DHCP server.

-- Chris