Bug#266169: can't start gnome-session in normal user. (.. suppose as following..) recently I wiped out of a ll my OSs. and reinstalled Debian with sarge-nightly- build netinstall-cd (128MB). As I loved sid, up graded upto sid(unstable) too.

[gnome-session]

Package: gnome-session
Version: 2.6.2-5
Severity: important

# `startx` --> `startx` as root was successful! but I was disappointed,
because `startx` as normal user was not successful!

the symptom I found was:
if start X (with startx script or display-manager), just the X-only
start! ;-( except that nothing float on root window.

`startx` with ~/.xinitrc (openbox or pwm or other WM-series) worked
well. but "gnome-session"(GNOME v2.6) do nothing. also gnome-related
conf files were not created. So I `touch`-ed .gnomerc to mimic
/etc/X11/Xsession.d/55gnome-session-gnomerc & startx again.
but the result is same. ;-/

Does what happened on my lovely_gnome2.6?
this is not kinds of locale problem. with LANG=C environment, everything
is the ssssammeeeeee!!!!!

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 3.1
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.7-1-386
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=C

Versions of packages gnome-session depends on:
ii  desktop-base              0.3.14         common files for the Debian Deskto
ii  libart-2.0-2              2.3.16-6       Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0               1.6.1-3        The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libaudiofile0             0.2.6-4        Open-source version of SGI's audio
ii  libbonobo2-0              2.6.2-5        Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0            2.6.1-1        The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                     2.3.2.ds1-16   GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libesd0                   0.2.34-1       Enlightened Sound Daemon - Shared 
ii  libgconf2-4               2.6.3-2        GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.4.5-2        The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0               2.6.1.2-2      The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0         2.6.1.1-2      A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0              2.6.1.1-4      The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0            2.6.2-1        The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.4.4-2        The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6                   4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2                 1:2.10.2-1.1   libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpango1.0-0             1.4.1-1        Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0                  1.7-4          lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  libsm6                    4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System Session Management
ii  libwrap0                  7.6.dbs-5      Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6                  4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxml2                   2.6.11-3       GNOME XML library
ii  libxmu6                   4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System miscellaneous util
ii  libxrandr2                4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System Resize, Rotate and
ii  libxrender1               0.8.3-7        X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  libxt6                    4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 X Toolkit Intrinsics
ii  xlibs                     4.3.0.dfsg.1-6 X Window System client libraries m
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.1.1-5    compression library - runtime

-- no debconf information