System->Administration->anything doesn't work...

[Mike Harding]

If I try to run anything under this menu in gnome, I get a pop-up that
says:

The configuration could not be loaded
An unknown error occurred.

The only error I can see is, in /var/log/messages

Jun 22 15:12:56 bsd dbus[1886]: [system] Activating service
name='org.freedesktop.SystemToolsBackends.Platform' (using
servicehelper)
Jun 22 15:12:56 bsd dbus[1886]: [system] Activated service
'org.freedesktop.SystemToolsBackends.Platform' failed: Launch helper
exited with unknown return code 255

This error repeats every time I try to run one of the programs.

Any ideas?  This is a fairly fresh install (I lost my main hard drive
last week and reinstalled everything) and if I create a new user the
same thing happens with that user...

- Mike H.