Bug#481030: It looks like this bug is actually with 'gnome-session'

[Dominique Brazziel]

I looked at the source for gnome-session and function 
'gsm_gsd_start' of source module 'gsm-gsd.c' is where
g-s-d is started via dbus.  The error message is issued
in a few places, one of which is if a dbus connection
cannot be established:

static void
gsd_error_dialog (GnomeSettingsData *gsd, const char *error)
{
  static GtkWidget *dialog = NULL;
  GString *msg;
  
  /*
   * it would be nice to have a dialog which either:
   *
   * 1.  lets you change the message on it
   * 2.  lets you append messages and has a "history"
   *
   * for now, we just kill the old dialog and pop up a new one.
   */

  msg = g_string_new (_("There was an error starting the GNOME Settings
Daemon.\n\n"
                        "Some things, such as themes, sounds, or
background "
                        "settings may not work correctly."));

...

connection = dbus_g_bus_get (DBUS_BUS_SESSION, &error);
  if (connection == NULL)
    {
      gsd_set_error (&gsd, error->message);
      gsd_error_dialog (&gsd, NULL);
      g_error_free (error);
    }

Curious thing about the source - there is an error message defined 
that would be issued after too many retries but there is no loop
in the source module to try 

I think gnome-session underwent a substantial rearrangement in unstable,
it's been there for a very long time.  Hopefully this problem gets fixed
there.