uncommenting the ls alias causes the errant behavior for me, and was the only line in my profile when I encountered this. commenting it out also fixes the symptoms.
-- gnome-session fails when "alias ls='ls --color'" in .profile https://launchpad.net/bugs/48876 -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
