DCOPserver gradually fails?

[John O'Hagan <johnohagan@iprimus.com.au>]

Hi all,

A strange annoyance: during KDE sessions (3.3.2, testing), I find that various 
KDE programs begin to load slower and slower, till they won't start at all. 
It usually begins with kwrite being unlaunchable from a root konqueror, then 
spreads to other programs and services, for example the print manager, until 
at last even konqueror will not start. It doesn't seem to affect non-KDE 
programs.

The initial error messages say "kdeinit could not launch [program]".

At first restarting X fixes it; then not; eventually X will not restart, 
complaining about DCOPserver and/or ICEauthority; I must then either reboot 
or, if that doesn't fix it, log in to a console and remove ~.DCOPserver* and 
sometimes ~.ICEauthority as well.

I have noticed that the permissions on these files are sometimes wrong.

I have seen similar problems posted before, but have not found a permanent 
solution yet.

Does anyone know what causes this and how to prevent it?

Thanks,

John O'Hagan

P.S. Please CC me.