When I try to login into my Linux Gnome based desktop system, I get the following error from GDM :
gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256
How do I fix this problem?
If you see an error about gconf-sanity-check-2, apply the following solutions (note you may need to apply all the solutions):
Fix #1: /tmp permission
You need to make sure /tmp permissions are with the sticky bit mode. An access-right flag on /tmp can be set as follows.
# ls -ld /tmp/
Sample outputs without sticky bit:
drwxr-xr-x 27 vivek users 12288 Jul 18 15:20 /tmp/
Set the correct permission and stick bit as follows (run it as root user):
# chown -R root:root /tmp
# chmod 1777 /tmp
Verify new permissions:
# ls -ld /tmp/
Sample outputs:
drwxrwxrwt 27 root root 12288 Jul 18 15:25 /tmp/
Fix #2: /home permission
Make sure /home has correct permission set. A typical set of permission looks as follows on /home
$ ls -ld /home/
Sample outputs:
drwxr-xr-x 4 root root 4096 May 5 16:29 /home/
If permisions are not as above set it as follows (run it as root user):
# chown root:root /home
# chmod 0755 /home
Try rebooting the system after applying above two solutions. If you still getting the message, empty the gdm home. Run it as root (this for gdm3):
# rm -rf /var/lib/gdm3/.*
For older gnome version (gdm 2) try:
# rm -rf /var/lib/gdm/.*
References:
- Arch Linux wiki gnome documentation.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Thank you…. this procedure fixed my problem …
Another problem is one of your directories under /etc/gconf may be missing some entries that are cached under /var/lib/gdm. The sanity check compares the settings under etc with the cached values, and if they are different will throw this error.
Example: manually removing /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory folder will cause that exact error as well; especially if you had settings in this folder prior to the error.
Running gconftool-2 to update/unapply the current config should help as well.