Can't - sometimes - leave kde

[Martin Kho]

Hi,

This is a really weird issue. Sometimes when I want to reboot, shutdown or log 
out ('f' -> Leave -> Log out / Restart / Shut Down) nothing happens (the count 
down messagebox doesn't appear) . Lock, Sleep and Hibernate are okay. There 
are no error messages in .xsession-errors, /var/log/messages 
/var/log/Xorg.0.log, /var/log/kdm.log and/or /var/log/secure.

When log out etc. fails authentication more generally seems to fail. e.g. I 
tried to change the shutdown command (System Settings -> Login Screen -> 
Shutdown). After pressing the Apply button, a messagebox appeared telling that 
authentication failed. In /var/log/secure the following messages appeared:

May 14 23:17:12 ps-1866 polkitd(authority=local): Registered Authentication 
Agent for unix-session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1 (system bus name 
:1.55 [/usr/libexec/kde4/polkit-kde-authentication-agent-1], object path 
/org/kde/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8)
May 14 23:18:14 ps-1866 polkitd(authority=local): Operator of unix-
session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1 FAILED to authenticate to gain 
authorization for action org.kde.kcontrol.kcmkdm.save for unix-
process:2171:397117 [/usr/bin/systemsettings -caption System Settings --icon 
preferences-system] (owned by unix-user:martin)

The above issue happens both in up to date Fedora 16 and 17.

Have anyone else seen this? Any ideas how I can get more information on this 
issue?

Thanks,

Martin Kho