"clock appears to be wrong" dialog prevents gnome session from starting

[Peter Cordes]

Binary package hint: gnome-control-center

 I'm not sure this is the right package: maybe gnome-session is really at fault here.

I have an old AMD K7 machine with a probably-dead CMOS battery, so it often boots up with the hw clock set to the year 2000. I just put Ubuntu Gutsy (i386) onto it.

 After logging in through gdm (or booting from the Gutsy live CD), Ubuntu's default desktop session pops up a dialog that reads:
"The computer clock appears to be wrong" ... Ignore / Adjust the Clock.

 All is well if I select Ignore.

 However, selecting adjust fails: You get a dialog that says:
"The configuration could not be loaded
 You are not allowed to access the system configuration.
    [close]"

 After closing the dialog, it just sits there doing nothing, with the orange background and a mouse cursor, but _nothing_ else. All I can do is switch to a text console to debug it: gnome-settings-daemon is still running. Neither x-window-manager nor metacity are running. Maybe gnome-session is waiting for gnome-settings to exit...

 In case it matters, hw is Athlon (original) 650MHz, 256MB RAM, ATI AIW Radeon 7200 (32MB RAM) plugged into a CRT that supports DDC properly, so that's all good. IDE hard drive, XFS root filesystem (yes, I had to install grub manually). An ne2kpci ethernet card is installed, but NetworkManager doesn't even try to bring it up because it can't detect whether there is a link. (This is a separate bug that I'll report...) So the machine has eth0 UP BROADCAST RUNNING MULTICAST, but with no IP. netstat doesn't show any socket activity, so I don't think anything's just waiting for a net timeout.

[Peter Cordes (peter-cordes)]

just noticed my .xsession-errors contains:

(process:12519): Gtk-WARNING **: This process is currently running setuid or setgid.
This is not a supported use of GTK+. You must create a helper
program instead. For further details, see:

    http://www.gtk.org/setuid.html

Refusing to initialize GTK+.

(process:12523): Gtk-WARNING **: This process is currently running setuid or setgid.
This is not a supported use of GTK+. You must create a helper
program instead. For further details, see:

    http://www.gtk.org/setuid.html

Refusing to initialize GTK+.
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
SESSION_MANAGER=local/quixote:/tmp/.ICE-unix/12516

 processes 12523 and 12519 are not running any more (at the empty screen stage.)

[TenLeftFingers (tenleftfingers)]

I'm having the exact same problem on a Pentium III 800Mhz laptop with 512MB ram - about 6 years old. It's a Dell Inspiron 4000. The laptop battery is dead but I run from mains always. If I can give anymore info please ask.

[Psykotik (linux-ikiru)]

I confirm also this error message, but can't confirm it affects any process. I have this very error, but I do not experiment any issue. Well, if so, it is not obvious.

As written by Peter, processes contained in .xsession-errors are already down when checking them.

But unlike to him, it doesn't affect gnome.

[Pobice (robert-pobice)]

I've just had this problem too - it appears to be because its running time-admin as the user, rather than via sudo.

[Hew (hew)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release, Hardy Heron? Thanks in advance.

[Peter Cordes (peter-cordes)]

It's fixed in Hardy. The time-admin gui runs with root privs, so I can set the clock and then get to the normal gnome desktop.

[Hew (hew)]

This bug report is being closed due to your last comment regarding this being fixed with an update. For future reference you can manage the status of your own bugs by clicking on the current status in the yellow line and then choosing a new status in the revealed drop down box. You can learn more about bug statuses at https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Status . Thank you again for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. Feel free to submit any future bugs you may find.