I'm writing a script to add a new public user, deny permissions for most applications, etc. I'm using adduser rather than useradd due to the useradd man page specifically stating to use adduser on Ubuntu based distros. The problem comes when logging in. The X session loads and then this error shows:

GError in Zorin Menu: Configuration server couldn't be contacted: D-BUS error: Can't overwrite existing read-only value: Value for `/apps/zorinmenu/orientation' set in a read-only source at the front of your configuration path

Here is the traceback for that error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/awn/extras/awnlib.py", line 1590, in init_start
applet_class(applet)
File "/usr/share/avant-window-navigator/applets/ZorinMenu/ZorinMenu.py", line 40, in __init__
backend.save_setting('orientation', 'bottom')
File "/usr/lib/zorinmenu/backend.py", line 38, in save_setting
gconf_client.set_string(gconf_app_key + '/' + name , str(value))
GError: Configuration server couldn't be contacted: D-BUS error: Can't overwrite existing read-only value: Value for `/apps/zorinmenu/orientation' set in a read-only source at the front of your configuration path

At this point the AWN menu and panel are totally unusable - the 'z' icon on the menu launcher is replaced by a red circle with a white line. Applications are launchable (ctrl+alt+T, etc.) but the menu is unavailable. Upon trying to create a workaround for the issue, I noticed the .directories are also not available in /home/Public\ User/ - I had to run chown to provide ownership to public user to get those to show up with ls -a. Additionally, I have searched high and low for /apps/zorinmenu/orientation and that directory does not exist on either the administrator account or the new public user account.

Screenshot:

http://imgur.com/YQpgkjU

Has anyone ever seen this issue and straightened it out?