kde programs, including the kcalc program and konqueror now display an insane (nonsense) new error message dialog. Fortunately, after said dialog, they run anyway, though they look funny. Seems as if they are not using the kde skins (not necessarily a bad thing!).

Error message is:
Riiiight.

So now what?

I've googled this and found two or three different solutions. Of course, they don't work (for me) ... what else is new?

So ... how do I fix this?

Thanks in advance.

Solutions will not involve compiling the kernel or changing distro.

A solution could involve a kludge process that lurks in the background and auto grabs & kills error dialog windows, similar in function to popup stopper programs in windows. I'm not interested in understanding the cause of the problem, just eliminating its effects.

Does killing X, removing said files "~/.DCOP*" and restarting KDE help?
Have you run out of space on hard drive, by chance?

There are a whole bunch of things that can cause this error so, in order of most common causes:

-- Remove spaces from your hostname (this is by far the most common cause).
-- Check permissions and ownership on all files in the home directory.
-- Check to make sure the /etc/hosts file is configured correctly with a fully qualified domain name (whether or not it is a member of a domain).
-- Delete the iceauth and dcopserver directories/files in the home directory to allow them to be rebuilt, especially if you change the host name.

See this link for more info, I recommend trying any or all of the methods found there, regardless of distro:

http://dot.kde.org/1021838067/1022774059/

Nope. Even did a reboot. Still the error dialog occurs.

Checked the drive. It has free space. also I checked that it has not been remounted read-only by the kernel.

Tired all the methods you listed. No change. Checked the thread. Those that could be tried, I tried. One method that I could not try involved setting a symlink, but it was unclear as to the directory of the from and to so i did not try it. In all cases, all that I tried failed.

Thanks everyone for the replies so far. there were lots of things to try.

This linux has existed for quite some time and only recently has this problem started. I suspect that the ownership, protection, or attributes of a file has been randomized. Or maybe a data file somewhere has been deleted or damaged. of course, as to where/what, I have no idea.