Terminal and gnome-terminal crashing X in Xfce

Warren Watts · 12-11-2007, 10:15 PM

Whenever I try and execute either Terminal or gnome-terminal in Xfce, X crashes and returns me to the GDM login screen.

xterm executes and runs just fine.

here are the errors I get:

Code:

Dec 11 16:42:06 gconfd (warren-7273): starting (version 2.20.1), pid 7273 user 'warren'
Dec 11 16:42:07 gconfd (warren-7273): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 0
Dec 11 16:42:07 gconfd (warren-7273): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/warren/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 1
Dec 11 16:42:07 gconfd (warren-7273): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2
Dec 11 16:42:13 arch gdm-binary[6548]: WARNING: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0
Dec 11 16:42:29 arch gdm-binary[7282]: WARNING: Couldn't authenticate user
Dec 11 16:42:37 gconfd (warren-7273): GConf server is not in use, shutting down.
Dec 11 16:42:37 gconfd (warren-7273): Exiting
Dec 11 16:42:58 gconfd (warren-7354): starting (version 2.20.1), pid 7354 user 'warren'
Dec 11 16:42:58 gconfd (warren-7354): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only configuration source at position 0
Dec 11 16:42:58 gconfd (warren-7354): Resolved address "xml:readwrite:/home/warren/.gconf" to a writable configuration source at position 1
Dec 11 16:42:58 gconfd (warren-7354): Resolved address "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only configuration source at position 2
Dec 11 16:43:00 arch gdm-binary[7282]: WARNING: gdm_slave_xioerror_handler: Fatal X error - Restarting :0
Dec 11 16:43:28 gconfd (warren-7354): GConf server is not in use, shutting down.
Dec 11 16:43:28 gconfd (warren-7354): Exiting

What in the heck is a gdm_slave_xioerror_hander error?

I tried reinstalling GDM via pacman, didn't help.

Any ideas?

slackie1000 · 12-12-2007, 07:55 AM

hi there,
what happens if you clean your $HOME/.g* files?
regards,
slackie1000

Warren Watts · 12-12-2007, 02:15 PM

I renamed the .gconf and .gconfd directories .gconf.old and .gconfd.old respectively, same problem.

None of the other ".g" directories/files in my home folder seemed related (.gimp, .gftp, etc..) to the issue...

Warren Watts · 12-12-2007, 11:33 PM

Problem resolved!

Turns out there is a bug in Xorg that affects certain graphic chipsets in Xfce.

http://bugzilla.xfce.org/show_bug.cgi?id=3130

The only workaround at present seems to be to drop the default color depth from 24 bit to 16 bit in xorg.conf .

After changing to 16 bit color, both Terminal and gnome-terminal work just fine...