So when you run with -vvv and you press Next/Previous most of the time you don't get anything at all on the console, is that right (except one time)?
It seems that Variety is not picking the GUI event at all... Does any of the items in the Image submenu work? What if you enable quotes (Preferences/Effects/Quotes) - a Quote submenu will appear - please try if any of the menu items there will work.
The xfconf error is expected, ignore it.
So when you run with -vvv and you press Next/Previous most of the time you don't get anything at all on the console, is that right (except one time)?
It seems that Variety is not picking the GUI event at all... Does any of the items in the Image submenu work? What if you enable quotes (Preferences/ Effects/ Quotes) - a Quote submenu will appear - please try if any of the menu items there will work.