Crashed in GNOME, GNOME settings daemon ruined, can't start

When I tried starting compiz in GNOME, I was having window decoration problems at one point for some reason. GNOME eventually crashed, and upon reboot, I couldn’t log in to GNOME properly. First, I’d see a message that says the GNOME settings daemon didn’t start properly, error code 1. The session start sequence would be stuck on the openSUSE panel thing. I’d press ctrl+alt+backspace twice, and log into GNOME again, which would take me a to a desktop where the only thing that could be clicked on is a window for Pidgin. Luckily, KDE 4.1 beta 2 still works fine.

Is there any way to fix it so I can log back into GNOME?

BTW: For some odd reason, many of the programs I had open during the crash, such as Firefox and Amarok, will not work inside KDE 4.1 beta 2. Is that because of KDE or because of the crash?

When logging in as root (as a test) do you also have this issue?

Also try adding a new user account and log in with that to see if you basic setup runs without issues.

Did you do other things or make changes other than compiz before the GNOME crash?