Freeze on login to Gnome in Edgy

Binary package hint: gnome

I am running Ubuntu Edgy, and last downloaded updates 2006-10-01.

I was using Gnome as usual, and logged out, leaving a Nautilus window open (and possibly a gnome-terminal window too?).

Now, when I try to log in to Gnome it freezes with a white rectangle in the top left, and dark red everywhere else. After a delay (several minutes?) I see an error message saying:

"There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon.

Some things, such as themes, sounds, or background settings may not work correctly.

The last error message was:

Did not receive a reply. Possible causes include: the remote application did not send a reply, the message bus security policy blocked the reply, the reply timeout expired, or the network connection was broken.

GNOME will still try to restart the Settings Daemon next time you log in."

NOTE: the first time the freeze happened, I deleted all the dotfiles from my home dir, and deleted everything inside /tmp, and tried again. So it's possible doing this caused the above error? Anyway, the freeze happened before I tried anything "clever".

Do ask if you need more info.

Thanks very much, Andy