DBUS_LAUNCHD_SESSION_BUS_SOCKET

[Robert J. Hansen]

When I try to start gnome-session from an xterm, I get the following error:

bash-3.2$ Failed to start message bus: launchd's environment variable DBUS_LAUNCHD_SESSION_BUS_SOCKET is empty, but should contain a socket path.

EOF in dbus-launch reading address from bus daemon

... and it abruptly exits.  Searching Google has not given me much help: it advises that I sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist, which I've done, but to no avail.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to resolve this?