Gnome Settings Daemon failed to start

[Bill Moseley]

Every once in a while when I start up Gutsy I get a message saying
the Gnome settings daemon failed to start.  My desktop theme does not
start (I guess I get some default theme) and sometimes my desktop
background also does not start.  (I've even had a few times when my
desktop is blank with no icons).

But other than the theme not showing up, the machine seems to run
normally.

There are a number of bugs on Launch Pad that discuss this or related
issues, but I haven't found one that matches exactly what I'm seeing
(but might have missed someting, of course).

My question is what can I look at on my machine to see what's
happening?  What would be helpful is if I understood what steps are
leading up to that message (what process is running the settings
daemon so that I can try and run it manually and see what's failing --
perhaps running it with strace).

Thanks,


-- 
Bill Moseley
moseley at hank.org