root unable to log in to GNOME, undefined symbol error in .xsession-errors

This document (7013143) is provided subject to the disclaimer at the end of this document.

Environment

SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2

Situation

libgpg-error0-1.6-8.6

root login via gdm (local display as well as via VNC) fails and the GNOME session does not load, no error is displayed. In the file "/root/.xsession-error" the following error is seen:

/usr/bin/gpg-agent: symbol lookup error: /lib64/libgcrypt.so.11: undefined symbol: gpg_err_set_errno

SSH login works as expected.

Resolution

Update libgpg-error0 and libgpg-error0-32bit to the respective SLES 11 SP2 version (the ones shipped with the DVD). Please also check whether the system was fully patched to SLES 11 SP2. To do so run the command:

sam -vvv --no-log-timestamp --no-rpm-verify

and check the listing for "core packages installed in version unsupported in SP2" around the end of the output.

Cause

SLES 11 SP2 is running an older version of libgpg-error0 which is missing symbols libgcrypt11 is looking for. Most likely an incomplete update to SP2 is the case and probably more packages may not have been installed on a SP2.

Additional Information

As a side effect to the issue described above, zypper actions fail with:

Refreshing service 'nu_<domain>_com'.
Retrieving repository 'SLES11-SP2-Updates' metadata [......error]
Repository 'SLES11-SP2-Updates' is invalid.
[|] Valid metadata not found at specified URL(s)
Please check if the URIs defined for this repository are pointing to a valid repository.
Warning: Disabling repository 'SLES11-SP2-Updates' because of the above error.

The following error can be found in /var/log/zypper.log:

2013-08-26 11:07:03 <5> Linux(32028) [zypp] Exception.cc(log):137 RepoManager.cc(refreshMetadata):1037 CAUGHT: File /var/tmp/TmpFile.uI7Nwt doesn't contain public key data

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