Thanks for all the suggestions. I finally nailed it. After creating a new user and logging in the new user had metacity. I had renamed the new users .local folder to .local-original, then copied my .local folder to the new user. After logging out and back in again as the new user metacity failed to load. Therefore, I knew the problem was in my .local folder. After much use of diff and trying things I focused on .local/share/applications/metacity.desktop. This file did not exist in the new user's original .local folder. I tried renaming it, but Nautilus steadfastly refused to accept any changes. However, from the command line root was able to rename it to metacity.desktop.old. Then I rebooted. And after logging in metacity launched as it is supposed to. Everything else seems to be working normally. I have no idea what rogue process created this file. It is a text file that can be opened with Gedit. Looking at the contents I see nothing that says "don't launch metacity for this user." If any of the Gnome users on this list have such a file, it would be interesting to compare notes. I feel an obligation to file a bug report, but I in order to make the bug report useful I need to figure out what is the purpose of the file, what created it, and where it went wrong. _______________________________________________ gnome-list mailing list gnome-list@xxxxxxxxx http://mail.gnome.org/mailman/listinfo/gnome-list
