gconf halting during red hat gdm login

Hello -

	Maybe you can offer some insight into a problem I've been having.  My  
machine is a RedHat 8.0 machine with the stock GConf-1.0.9-6 rpm.  It is  
set to boot into a gdm.  After entering username/password and clicking log  
in, my machine halts at the Red Hat loading dialog (before any of the  
progress icons load).  I'm fairly sure it is halting at gconf activation.   
Based on the user syslogs, it seems to be a lockfile issue.  Nfslock is  
running, and nfs is not being used.  I've deleted/renamed all the  
pertinent . directories in the home directory - it seems this problem  
occurs regardless of the user, whether or not they have ever attempted to  
log in before.  I tried the GCONF_LOCAL_LOCKS technique to no avail.   
Thanks in advance for any help!

-Alex

Some pertinent information -

Output of ps jaxwww | grep gconf-

     1   962   895   895 ?           -1 S        0   0:00  
/usr/libexec/gconfd-2 9
   828  1044  1043   828 tty1      1043 S        0   0:00 grep gconf

Output of gconf-sanity-check-1 or gconf-sanity-check-2 - [nothing] (at one  
point it was complaining about lockfiles, this disappeared by the time I  
decided to write this email)

tail -n [a good sized number] /var/log/user (you can see a couple attempts  
to log in, usually ended by killing X and gdm) -

Sep 22 10:12:14 goby gconfd (root-8605): starting (version 1.2.1), pid  
8605 user 'root'
Sep 22 10:12:14 goby gconfd (root-8605): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 10:12:14 goby gconfd (root-8605): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 10:12:14 goby gconfd (root-8605): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2
Sep 22 10:16:14 goby gconfd (root-8605): Performing periodic cleanup,  
expiring cache cruft
Sep 22 10:16:14 goby gconfd (root-8605): No log file saving needed in  
periodic cleanup handler
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Received signal 1, shutting down  
cleanly
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Saving listener gnome-session  
(2684354563) to log file
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Saving listener gnome-session  
(2667577346) to log file
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Saving listener  
gnome-settings-daemon (2717908997) to log file
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Saving listener  
gnome-settings-daemon (2701131780) to log file
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Saving listener gnome-session  
(2650800129) to log file
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Unloading XML backend module.
Sep 22 10:16:50 goby gconfd (root-8605): Exiting
Sep 22 10:17:48 goby gconfd (root-9044): starting (version 1.2.1), pid  
9044 user 'root'
Sep 22 10:17:48 goby gconfd (root-9044): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 10:17:48 goby gconfd (root-9044): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 10:17:48 goby gconfd (root-9044): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2
Sep 22 10:27:46 goby gconfd (root-9513): starting (version 1.2.1), pid  
9513 user 'root'
Sep 22 10:27:46 goby gconfd (root-9513): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 10:27:46 goby gconfd (root-9513): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 10:27:46 goby gconfd (root-9513): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2
Sep 22 10:27:46 goby gconfd (root-9513): Unable to open saved state file  
'/root/.gconfd/saved_state': No such file or directory
Sep 22 10:32:38 goby gconfd (root-10019): starting (version 1.2.1), pid  
10019 user 'root'
Sep 22 10:32:38 goby gconfd (root-10019): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 10:32:38 goby gconfd (root-10019): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 10:32:38 goby gconfd (root-10019): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-9044): Received signal 15, shutting down  
cleanly
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-9044): Exiting
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-9513): Received signal 15, shutting down  
cleanly
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-9513): Failed to give up lock on XML dir  
`/root/.gconf': Failed to link  
'/root/.gconf/%gconf-xml-backend.lock/2t1095874447ut200822u0p9513r1725151468k3221223676'  
to '/root/.gconf/%gconf-xml-backend.lock/ior': No such file or directory
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-9513): Error releasing lockfile: Failed  
to link  
'/root/.gconfd/lock/3t1095874447ut202320u0p9513r351185447k3221223916' to  
'/root/.gconfd/lock/ior': No such file or directory
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-9513): Exiting
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-10019): Received signal 15, shutting  
down cleanly
Sep 22 10:34:07 goby gconfd (root-10019): Exiting
Sep 22 10:34:11 goby gconfd (root-10072): starting (version 1.2.1), pid  
10072 user 'root'
Sep 22 10:34:11 goby gconfd (root-10072): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 10:34:11 goby gconfd (root-10072): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 10:34:11 goby gconfd (root-10072): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2
Sep 22 10:36:11 goby gconfd (root-10072): GConf server is not in use,  
shutting down.
Sep 22 10:36:11 goby gconfd (root-10072): Exiting
Sep 22 10:52:59 goby gconfd (root-10376): starting (version 1.2.1), pid  
10376 user 'root'
Sep 22 10:52:59 goby gconfd (root-10376): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 10:52:59 goby gconfd (root-10376): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 10:52:59 goby gconfd (root-10376): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2
Sep 22 11:05:46 goby shutdown: shutting down for system reboot
Sep 22 11:07:09 goby xfs: listening on port 7100
Sep 22 11:07:10 goby xfs: ignoring font path element  
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/cyrillic (unreadable)
Sep 22 11:07:10 goby xfs: ignoring font path element  
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/fonts/local (unreadable)
Sep 22 11:07:50 goby gconfd (root-962): starting (version 1.2.1), pid 962  
user 'root'
Sep 22 11:07:50 goby gconfd (root-962): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.mandatory" to a read-only config source  
at position 0
Sep 22 11:07:50 goby gconfd (root-962): Resolved address  
"xml:readwrite:/root/.gconf" to a writable config source at position 1
Sep 22 11:07:50 goby gconfd (root-962): Resolved address  
"xml:readonly:/etc/gconf/gconf.xml.defaults" to a read-only config source  
at position 2