I have experienced this also, on two different machines with recent installs on trying to launch gnome-session or xfce4-session
an older machine that hasn't been updated in a while runs just fine. I found that switching from vnc4server back to tightvncserver ("fixes" isn't the right word) removes the problem for me. -- vnc4server does not start Desktop environment after security update https://launchpad.net/bugs/78282 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs