Comment 31 for bug 556255

Same problem here. I replaced /usr/bin/gnome-screensaver with a shell script that dumped ps details to a file. It appears to run five times in total - I'm guessing three times on boot, and another two times on login given the 21 second lag.

-rw-r--r-- 1 sarah sarah 14707 2010-07-08 08:41:24.000000000 +1000 gnome-start.1315
-rw-r--r-- 1 sarah sarah 14707 2010-07-08 08:41:24.000000000 +1000 gnome-start.1320
-rw-r--r-- 1 sarah sarah 14588 2010-07-08 08:41:24.000000000 +1000 gnome-start.1323
-rw-r--r-- 1 sarah sarah 17531 2010-07-08 08:41:45.000000000 +1000 gnome-start.1465
-rw-r--r-- 1 sarah sarah 17363 2010-07-08 08:41:45.000000000 +1000 gnome-start.1471

 Below is the shell file I used
#!/bin/sh

ps auxwf >> /var/tmp/gnome-start.$$
cat /proc/self/status >> /var/tmp/gnome-start.$$

Attached are the outputs from a single boot cycle. It's definitely being started by dbus. Any pointers on where to look next are welcome.