I'm guessing the change linked to in #33 that fixes this is: * Remove 90qt-a11y: Qt accessibility is not stable enough in Oneiric to be enabled by default for all applications. A patch for unity-2d specifically enables accessibility for it so that the desktop remains accessible. (LP: #877358) And the next change: * Actually remove 90qt-a11y if it is already installed. I just upgraded to 12.04 and at-spi2-core version 2.4.0-1 and the 90qt-a11y file is back and exhibiting the same symptoms. So far I have found (always using an LDAP/Kerberos user with a Kerberised NFS4 home directory): Logging into the virtual console, and running the gsettings command from #3 and it prints "false" and hangs. Running gsettings under strace on the virtual console, it exits fine. Running gsettings from a terminal in X, it exits fine. Next I ran an instance at the virtual console and left it hung, then (after fetching the debug symbols) attached to the hung process with gdb. I find there's two threads: (gdb) thread find .* Thread 2 has target name 'dconf worker' Thread 2 has target id 'Thread 0x7f51717b5700 (LWP 22479)' Thread 1 has target name 'gsettings' Thread 1 has target id 'Thread 0x7f51779fc7c0 (LWP 22478)' Thread 1 (which is the one gdb chooses when you attach), shows a backtrace of: (gdb) bt #0 __unregister_atfork (dso_handle=) at ../nptl/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/unregister-atfork.c:117 #1 0x00007f5174fe8716 in __do_global_dtors_aux () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss_ldap.so.2 #2 0x00007ffffa9b0430 in ?? () #3 0x00007ffffa9b0600 in ?? () #4 0x00007f5174ff5371 in _fini () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libnss_ldap.so.2 #5 0x000000000000002c in ?? () #6 0x00007f517780992d in _dl_fini () at dl-fini.c:259 Backtrace stopped: previous frame inner to this frame (corrupt stack?) Thread 2 shows a backtrace of: (gdb) bt #0 0x00007f517675e89c in __lll_lock_wait () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 #1 0x00007f517675a065 in _L_lock_858 () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 #2 0x00007f5176759eba in pthread_mutex_lock () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 #3 0x00007f5174feab78 in _nss_ldap_enter () at ldap-nss.c:597 #4 0x00007f5176c680c5 in __libc_fork () at ../nptl/sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/../fork.c:96 #5 0x00007f517758a249 in fork_exec_with_pipes (intermediate_child=0, working_directory=0x0, argv=0x7f516c004830, envp=0x0, close_descriptors=1, search_path=1, stdout_to_null=0, stderr_to_null=0, child_inherits_stdin=0, file_and_argv_zero=0, child_setup=0, user_data=0x0, child_pid=0x7f51717b4a68, standard_input=0x0, standard_output=0x7f51717b4a60, standard_error=0x7f51717b4a64, error=0x7f51717b4ba8) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gspawn.c:1232 #6 0x00007f517758aa44 in g_spawn_sync (working_directory=, argv=, envp=, flags=, child_setup=, user_data=0x0, standard_output=0x7f51717b4b38, standard_error=0x7f51717b4b40, exit_status=0x7f51717b4b4c, error=0x7f51717b4ba8) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gspawn.c:285 #7 0x00007f517758b149 in g_spawn_command_line_sync (command_line=, standard_output=0x7f51717b4b38, standard_error=0x7f51717b4b40, exit_status=0x7f51717b4b4c, error=0x7f51717b4ba8) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gspawn.c:722 #8 0x00007f5177013629 in get_session_address_dbus_launch (error=0x7f51717b4ba8) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./gio/gdbusaddress.c:1052 #9 0x00007f517701507a in get_session_address_platform_specific (error=0x7f51717b4ba8) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./gio/gdbusaddress.c:1149 #10 g_dbus_address_get_for_bus_sync (bus_type=G_BUS_TYPE_SESSION, cancellable=, error=0x7f51717b4c88) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./gio/gdbusaddress.c:1232 #11 0x00007f517701de4e in get_uninitialized_connection (bus_type=G_BUS_TYPE_SESSION, cancellable=0x0, error=0x7f51717b4c88) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./gio/gdbusconnection.c:6750 #12 0x00007f517702535b in g_bus_get_sync (bus_type=, cancellable=0x0, error=0x7f51717b4c88) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./gio/gdbusconnection.c:6807 #13 0x00007f5175416caa in dconf_settings_backend_send (dcsb=0x112b010, dcem=0x7f51717b4cd0, callback=0x7f5175417570 , user_data=0x11174e0) at dconfsettingsbackend.c:144 #14 0x00007f5175417087 in dconf_settings_backend_subscribe_context_func (data=0x11174e0) at dconfsettingsbackend.c:612 #15 0x00007f517754cc9a in g_main_dispatch (context=0x112b800) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gmain.c:2515 #16 g_main_context_dispatch (context=0x112b800) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gmain.c:3052 #17 0x00007f517754d060 in g_main_context_iterate (dispatch=1, block=, context=0x112b800, self=) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gmain.c:3123 #18 g_main_context_iterate (context=0x112b800, block=, dispatch=1, self=) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gmain.c:3060 #19 0x00007f517754d45a in g_main_loop_run (loop=0x7f516c0010c0) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gmain.c:3317 #20 0x00007f517541698b in dconf_context_thread (data=) at dconfcontext.c:11 #21 0x00007f517756e9b5 in g_thread_proxy (data=0x1126de0) at /build/buildd/glib2.0-2.32.0/./glib/gthread.c:801 #22 0x00007f5176757e9a in start_thread () from /lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/libpthread.so.0 #23 0x00007f5176c9c4bd in clone () at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/x86_64/clone.S:112 #24 0x0000000000000000 in ?? ()