Unprivileged MacPorts: dbus running but acts like it is not.

[citibob@…]

Problem: cannot launch gnome-termianl (or anything gnome). This is because dbus is not working properly. I know in general about having to run launchctl on the plists. And I've gotten it working in the past.

BUT... this time, I've installed MacPorts as a non-privileged user. See: ​https://trac.macports.or//wiki/InstallingMacPorts#source_unprivileged

Most ports I install just as "port install the-port". But I had to do "sudo port install dbus", no surprise. I also started the system dbus daemon, as specified in "port notes dbus:"

> sudo launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist

> ls -l /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist

lrwxr-xr-x  1 myuser  NDC\Domain Users  80 Nov 27 00:41 /Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist -> /Users/myuser/macports/Library/LaunchDaemons/org.freedesktop.dbus-system.plist

I also started the client-side dbus. Problem is, I get exactly the same behavior whether or not the client side is started. see log below. HELP please!

> launchctl stop org.freedesktop.dbus-session> ps auxxx | grep dbus
messagebus        90   0.0  0.0  2435384    844   ??  Ss    2Dec13   0:00.00 /Users/myuser/macports/bin/dbus-daemon --system --nofork
myuser       71161   0.0  0.0  2434892    652 s004  R+   10:09AM   0:00.00 grep dbus
> gnome-terminal
Dynamic session lookup supported but failed: launchd did not provide a socket path, verify that org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist is loaded!
Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Session D-Bus not running. Try running `launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist'.
> launchctl start org.freedesktop.dbus-session
> ps auxxx | grep dbus
messagebus        90   0.0  0.0  2435384    844   ??  Ss    2Dec13   0:00.00 /Users/myuser/macports/bin/dbus-daemon --system --nofork
myuser       71168   0.0  0.0  2434892    652 s004  R+   10:10AM   0:00.00 grep dbus
myuser       71166   0.0  0.0  2446844    968   ??  S    10:10AM   0:00.00 /Users/myuser/macports/bin/dbus-daemon --nofork --session
> gnome-terminal
Dynamic session lookup supported but failed: launchd did not provide a socket path, verify that org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist is loaded!
Error constructing proxy for org.gnome.Terminal:/org/gnome/Terminal/Factory0: Session D-Bus not running. Try running `launchctl load -w /Library/LaunchAgents/org.freedesktop.dbus-session.plist'.


> uname -a
Darwin <machinename> 11.4.2 Darwin Kernel Version 11.4.2: Thu Aug 23 16:25:48 PDT 2012; root:xnu-1699.32.7~1/RELEASE_X86_64 x86_64
<MacOS 10.7.5>
> port list dbus
dbus                           @1.6.12         devel/dbus
> port -v
MacPorts 2.2.1