Greeter Application Appears To Be Crashing Attempting to Use a Different One

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Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10
SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop 10

Situation

When loading SLES 10 servers from the GUI an error occurs. The screen flickers around a little after pressing OK a login prompt is displayed but no opportunity to login is allowed. The error returned is "Greeter Application Appears To Be Crashing Attempting to Use a Different One". When clicking "ok" the screen flickers again and then the error message will return. The only way to login is a clean start/restart of the server.

Resolution

The most probable cause is that an antivirus program is deleting the gdm socket in /tmp.
Make sure that /tmp/.gdm_socket is not removed.

To create it again do one of the following:
Reboot the system and it will recreate it.
Or
Get to a console prompt and login as root, then run:
#rcxdm restart

Cause

The gdm socket no longer exists. Rebooting the system causes the gdm socket to be recreated.

Additional Information

Disclaimer

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