I think I found the reason for the bug, however I don't have a satisfactory solution.
It seems that when removing / renaming the file '.Xmodmap' (which is located in the user's home directory) so that gnome doesn't find it anymore when logging in, gnome-settings-daemon gets started correctly. Found this out my successively removing dot-files in my home directory until it worked (very frustrating). However, now I don't have .Xmodmap anymore :-( -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Desktop Bugs, which is subscribed to gdm in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/649809 Title: the session settings manager can try starting before the login screen one exits -- desktop-bugs mailing list desktop-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/desktop-bugs