There was an error starting the GNOME Settings Daemon

This error was bugging me intensely, mainly because I couldn't find a solution anywhere. From a debug message it was clear it had to do something with a gstreamer update; after removing some gstreamer plugins the problem wasn't solved. This was the solution:

I got a similar error. According to the man page there are some debug options --debug and -no-daemon

I tried

gnome-settings-daemon --debug --no-daemon

from a console

and I got an error message about segfaults with ffmpeg.

ERROR: Caught a segmentation fault while loading plugin file:
/usr/lib/gstreamer-0.10/libgstffmpeg.so

Please either:
- remove it and restart.
- run with --gst-disable-segtrap and debug.

I renamed the file to .old and this let the settings daemon start.

source: http://www.debianhelp.org/node/6711