Bug#358941: Many errors from gdmsetup "Could not access configuration key"

[Lupe Christoph]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.13.0.10-2
Severity: minor

I haven't used gdmsetup for a long time, so I'm not sure if the is a new
problem in 2.13.0.10-2.

Running gsmsetup with either the minimal gdm.conf included in the
package or with the gdm.conf created by gdmsetup itself causes it to
spew many error messages of the form

  Version check failed, bad version
Could not access configuration key <daemon/Greeter=/usr/lib/gdm/gdmlogin>
Using compiled in value </usr/lib/gdm/gdmlogin> for <daemon/Greeter=/usr/lib/gdm/gdmlogin>

The error messages appear after these:
Could not access xserver configuration
Command failed, no data returned
  Trying failed command again.  Try 2 of 5.

I straced gdmsetup, and it looks like the messages are caused by
the running old gdm process. I will have to kill my entire X desktop to
restart it, and I don't want to do that now.

It should have been possible to issue a more descriptive error message
like "you are still running an older GDM version. This gdmsetup needs a
more current gdm to retrieve information from the running process". Or
suchlike ...

If this is not the cause, I will add to this bug report.

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers testing
  APT policy: (990, 'testing'), (100, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Shell:  /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash
Kernel: Linux 2.6.12-lpc.2.k7
Locale: LANG=en_US, LC_CTYPE=en_US (charmap=ISO-8859-1)

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser              3.85                Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf [debconf-2.0 1.4.71              Debian configuration management sy
ii  gksu                 1.3.6-1             graphical frontend to su
ii  gnome-session        2.12.0-4            The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-te 2.12.0-2            The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  libart-2.0-2         2.3.17-1            Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0          1.10.3-1            The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libattr1             2.4.31-1            Extended attribute shared library
ii  libc6                2.3.6-3             GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libcairo2            1.0.2-3             The Cairo 2D vector graphics libra
ii  libdmx1              6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      Distributed Multihead X client lib
ii  libfontconfig1       2.3.2-1.1           generic font configuration library
ii  libglade2-0          1:2.5.1-2           library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0         2.8.6-1             The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0    2.12.0-2            A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgtk2.0-0          2.8.13-1            The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libpam-modules       0.79-3.1            Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime       0.79-3.1            Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g             0.79-3.1            Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0        1.10.4-1            Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0             1.7-5               lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  librsvg2-2           2.12.7-5            SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  librsvg2-common      2.12.7-5            SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libselinux1          1.28-4              SELinux shared libraries
ii  libwrap0             7.6.dbs-9           Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6             6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxau6              6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Authentication library
ii  libxcursor1          1.1.3-1             X cursor management library
ii  libxdmcp6            6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Display Manager Control Protocol
ii  libxext6             6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii  libxi6               6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Window System Input extension li
ii  libxinerama1         6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Window System multi-head display
ii  libxml2              2.6.23.dfsg.2-2     GNOME XML library
ii  libxrandr2           6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      X Window System Resize, Rotate and
ii  libxrender1          1:0.9.0.2-1         X Rendering Extension client libra
ii  lsb-base             3.0-16              Linux Standard Base 3.0 init scrip
ii  metacity [x-window-m 1:2.12.3-3          A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  multi-gnome-terminal 1.6.2-11.1          Enhanced the GNOME Terminal
ii  sawfish [x-window-ma 1:1.3+cvs20050709-6 a window manager for X11
ii  xbase-clients        6.9.0.dfsg.1-4      miscellaneous X clients
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.3-9           compression library - runtime

Versions of packages gdm recommends:
ii  dialog                    1.0-20060221-1 Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  gdm-themes                0.5            Themes for the GNOME Display Manag
ii  whiptail                  0.51.6-31      Displays user-friendly dialog boxe
ii  zenity                    2.12.1-2       Display graphical dialog boxes fro

-- debconf information:
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm