gconf-sanity-check-2 exits with code 256 on Xorg start

I had the same problem after upgrading from jaunty to karmic alpha 1 and added a comment on bug 380234 for this. But I'm not sure if the issues described there are exactly the same as the issue described here so I won't mark it as a duplicate. Instead I marked bug 383434 as a duplicate of this bug since this bug contains more information about the issue.

I get the same error dialog during start. But when I run gconf-sanity-check-2 from a terminal I get no output and it exits with code 0.

@Michael: I got the same when trying that after I was logged in. Try it when you're on the gdm screen and change into a tty (Ctrl+Alt+F1 for example) and rund the sanity check there.
My guess for the exit code 0 is that the sanity check doesn't work anymore after gconf is loaded on login.

This is because a line in gconfd still references that directory. Whenever it receives a org.gnome.GConf.Default.SystemSet signal, it notifies listeners of that directory that it changed. But when it does so, if the directory is missing, it creates it with 0700 permissions (i.e. drwx------).

So two things are wrong there: (1) It should be referencing gconf.xml.defaults not .system and (2) it *seems* like it should be creating the directory with 0755 permissions. But issue (2) is moot if we fix (1). Still might be worth an upstream bug though.

Additionally, we should probably now add a line to the packaging fixing this issue for people that upgraded to Karmic by fixing the permissions on that directory. Also, the package should own/create that directory, since gconf-sanity-check doesn't like the directory to be missing if we're going to add it to our default path (as we do).

Here's a patch that does 3 things:
1) Fixes the directory permissions for anyone upgrading from the broken version
2) Creates the directory if it doesn't exist
3) Fix the reference in code from xml.system to xml.defaults

Oh, and there's also a bzr branch for the fix.

Thank you for your work there

This bug was fixed in the package gconf - 2.26.2-0ubuntu2

---------------
gconf (2.26.2-0ubuntu2) karmic; urgency=low

  * Fix LP: #383461 by correcting references to gconf.xml.system:
  * debian/gconf2-common.dirs:
    - Add /etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system. Since we reference it in
      default.path, we ought to create it
  * debian/gconf2-common.postinst:
    - Fix the permissions on gconf.xml.system for anyone that upgraded
      to a buggy version of gconf
  * debian/patches/02_gconf2-pk-default-path.patch:
    - Change another instance of gconf.xml.system to gconf.xml.defaults

 -- Michael Terry <email address hidden> Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:00:38 -0400

Able to reproduce the in Karmic Alpha 2

(gconftool-2:6270): GConf-WARNING **: Failed to load source "xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system": Failed: Could not make directory `/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.system': Permission denied

I also still have this issue. here's my setup:

manu@hobbes:~$ ls -l /etc/gconf/
total 20
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-07-19 14:38 2
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-04-23 18:15 gconf.xml.defaults
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2006-10-25 15:31 gconf.xml.mandatory
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2008-09-11 14:38 gconf.xml.system
drwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4096 2009-04-18 10:28 schemas

manu@hobbes:~$ dpkg -l "gconf*"
Souhait=inconnU/Installé/suppRimé/Purgé/H=à garder
| État=Non/Installé/fichier-Config/dépaqUeté/échec-conFig/H=semi-installé/W=attend-traitement-déclenchements
|/ Err?=(aucune)/H=à garder/besoin Réinstallation/X=les deux (État,Err: majuscule=mauvais)
||/ Nom Version Description
+++-======================-======================-============================================================
ii gconf-defaults-service 2.26.2-1ubuntu1 GNOME configuration database system (system defaults service
ii gconf-editor 2.26.0-1ubuntu1 An editor for the GConf configuration system
ii gconf2 2.26.2-1ubuntu1 GNOME configuration database system (support tools)
ii gconf2-common 2.26.2-1ubuntu1 GNOME configuration database system (common files)

I had issue also
gconf-sanity-check-2 exited with status 256

problem was wrong /tmp directory permissions (for some reason wasn't drwxrwxrwxt and owner wasn't root.root)