CronJob problem

Hello devs,

I'm trying to fix an application for Ubuntu 8.10 (Ibex) running gconf
2.24.0

The project for this application is here:
https://edge.launchpad.net/gnome-wallchanger

It's very simple, it controls a cron job which when fired changes the
desktop background.

Logging has shown this error to be the problem:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/share/wallpaper-changer/random-wallpaper.py", line 72, in
<module>
client.commit_change_set(changeSet, True)
glib.GError: Failed to contact configuration server; some possible
causes are that you need to enable TCP/IP networking for ORBit, or you
have stale NFS locks due to a system crash. See
http://www.gnome.org/projects/gconf/ for information. (Details - 1: Not
running within active session)

And investigation of this shows that in the new versions of gconf, the
information about a users screen and a number of other environment
variables must be present for gconf to be contactable by the above
application.

The problem is that it's running from a cronjob and as such is not privy
to the new requirements. The rationale for using user-cron is one of
resources, better to be using the cron daemon than wasting resources on
yet another daemon to wait and do something at a specific time.

So far I have only been able to find out that my project will not be
able to be fixed and should be abandoned.

Before I scrap this project, can you gconf developers offer any
salvation?

Best Regards, Martin Owens