Gnome hang

Question

Hi,
Having some trouble with gnome hanging and it has quickly gone beyond my knowledge, wandering if anyone can set me off in the right direction.  Only odd thing here is I am running it in a virtual box VM with the virtual box tools (its got plenty of RAM / space assigned to it)
Basically it hangs in two ways:
On power on, the background comes up but never reaches the login screen (this is GDM isnt it...).  This generally happens ~50% of the time.  When it happens, if I change to a different terminal, sudo pkill X, then the login screen loads every time.  I know when its going to crash as when the backgournd displays for the first time it gets shaded dark then bright as the login screen kicks in, when it crashes it never goes dark.
Then, when I login ~80% of the time it hangs.  My desktop appears but nothing else, then after 30s or so an Oops something went wrong message pops up and I am taken back to the login screen.  Generally I know when its going to work as I get some darkening / the login desktop and my desktop are 50% transparent for a second or so then the destop bars / panels pops up.
Has anyone experienced this or know how to fix or where to start looking?
I have tried looking through xorg logs but have not seen anything.  Recently learning things about the session its running but not getting anywhere with that.  I've looked on this forum for something similar and have tried things like deleting my session preferences in .config etc but nothing is working.  Oddly enought, when I first installed the VM it was running fine so I do not know what has changed, I've updated maybe 2 or 3 times since.
Any help would be great thanks,
Jon

Answer 1

hmm, discovered the .xsession-error log
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Beginning session setup...
localuser:jon being added to access control list
/etc/gdm/Xsession: Setup done, will execute: /usr/bin/ssh-agent -- gnome-session
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/gpg:0:1
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/gpg:0:1
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/gpg:0:1
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/ssh
GNOME_KEYRING_CONTROL=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w
GPG_AGENT_INFO=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/gpg:0:1
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/keyring-TI4d4w/ssh
(gnome-settings-daemon:2583): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_variant_new_string: assertion `string != NULL' failed
(gnome-settings-daemon:2583): color-plugin-WARNING **: failed to get profile checksum: failed to load: not an ICC profile
gnome-session[2554]: WARNING: Application 'gnome-shell.desktop' failed to register before timeout
Initializing tracker-store...
Tracker-Message: Setting up monitor for changes to config file:'/home/jon/.config/tracker/tracker-store.cfg'
Tracker-Message: Setting up monitor for changes to config file:'/home/jon/.config/tracker/tracker-store.cfg'
Starting log:
  File:'/home/jon/.local/share/tracker/tracker-store.log'
Initializing tracker-miner-fs...
Tracker-Message: Setting up monitor for changes to config file:'/home/jon/.config/tracker/tracker-miner-fs.cfg'
Starting log:
  File:'/home/jon/.local/share/tracker/tracker-miner-fs.log'
Failed to play sound: File or data not found
** Message: applet now removed from the notification area
(nm-applet:2657): libnotify-WARNING **: Failed to connect to proxy
** (nm-applet:2657): WARNING **: get_all_cb: couldn't retrieve system settings properties: (25) Launch helper exited with unknown return code 1.
** (nm-applet:2657): WARNING **: fetch_connections_done: error fetching connections: (25) Launch helper exited with unknown return code 1.
** (nm-applet:2657): WARNING **: Failed to register as an agent: (25) Launch helper exited with unknown return code 1