Ubuntu 'white screen' when switching users

[Joe of loath]

hi all;

this is really bugging me. whenever I switch users the person logging in gets some kind of 'white screen of death'. you get a cursor and nothing else. I assume it's a problem with X or gnome. I can ctrl-alt-F1 to another virtual terminal and execute commands there, but I'm not sure what I'm looking for.

can anyone help me? I have had quite a few threads go unanswered, and I would be very grateful if someone could help me out.

thanks,
Joe

[Joe of loath]

please?

or I migrate to openSUSE