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0e1f616
(Get the code!)
This sounds like an issue I've had with KDE in the past.
What caused the issue then was running the KDE control centre using sudo on the command line (if I remember correctly). The ownership for the ~/.ICEauthority (and some .DCOP files) were changed from my user to be owned by root.
The next login then failed, as my user did not have permission to write to the root-owned files in the user's home directory.
If you can log in without using Gnome/KDE (e.g. ICE Window manager or simply the command line), in a terminal type
ls -lad ~/*
This will show the ownership of all files/directories in your home directory (without recursing through the directories themselves) - make sure that files like ~/.ICEauthority are owned by yourself.
If they are not, you will need to change the ownership back to yourself to regain permission to write to them, and hence the ability to log into Gnome/KDE. This will need to be done by root, since by not owning them you are not permitted to alter their ownership:
sudo chown <your_username> file1 file2 ....
If any directories have been altered, add the -R option to recurse through:
sudo chown -R <your_username> file1 file2 dir1 ....
or if everything inside your home should be owned by you (I'm not sure whether any config files or mail files for other programs would expect to be owned by some system user....can anyone confirm this is ok?)
sudo chown -R <your_username> /home/<
The last sets *everything* inside your home directory to be owned by yourself, which I would expect to be ok.