I'm using gdm to manage displays for about 50 thin clients, and have 
been doing so for quite a while.
Yesterday morning a *lot* (but not all) of the thin clients did not have 
login screens, and looking
at my logs I'm finding the following for the clients that are not working.

Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_decode: Received opcode 
REQUEST from client 192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_request: Got REQUEST 
from 192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_request: pending=17, 
MaxPending=18, sessions=-2144, MaxSessions=100
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_display_dispose_check (opussm:0)
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_display_dispose: Disposing opussm:0
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_auth_secure_display: Setting up 
access for opussm:0
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_auth_secure_display: Setting up 
network access
Sep 24 07:23:28 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_auth_secure_display: Setting up 
access for opussm:0 - 1 entries
Sep 24 07:23:29 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_display_alloc: 
display=opussm:0, session id=1032871746, pending=17
Sep 24 07:23:29 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_send_accept: Sending ACCEPT to 
192.168.164.143 with SessionID=1032871746

Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_decode: Received opcode MANAGE 
from client 192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_manage: Got MANAGE from 
192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_manage: Got Display=0, 
SessionID=1032871740 from 192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_manage: Failed to look 
up session id 1032871740
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_send_refuse: Sending REFUSE to 
1032871740
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_forward_query_lookup: Host 
192.168.164.143 not found

Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_decode: Received opcode MANAGE 
from client 192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_manage: Got MANAGE from 
192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_manage: Got Display=0, 
SessionID=1032871740 from 192.168.164.143
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_handle_manage: Failed to look 
up session id 1032871740
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_xdmcp_send_refuse: Sending REFUSE to 
1032871740
Sep 24 07:23:32 brinn gdm[984]: gdm_forward_query_lookup: Host 
192.168.164.143 not found

On the thin client side I'm seeing

Sep 24 07:17:04 Xserver: Enabling MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 authorization
Sep 24 07:17:04 Xserver: xdmcp: sending MANAGE packet to 192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:06 Xserver: xdmcp: receive ACCEPT packet from host 
192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:06 Xserver: xdmcp: sending MANAGE packet to 192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:08 Xserver: xdmcp: receive REFUSE packet from host 
192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:08 Xserver: xdmcp: sending START_CONNECTION packet to 
192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:10 Xserver: xdmcp: sending START_CONNECTION packet to 
192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:11 Xserver: xdmcp: receive REFUSE packet from host 
192.168.164.34
Sep 24 07:17:13 Xserver: xdmcp: receive ACCEPT packet from host 
192.168.164.34

I see Chad Walstrom posted this exact problem to a debian list a couple 
of years ago, but
it doesn't appear that anyone replied.

I've made some changes to the file system recently, but none of them 
'feel' relevant to this problem.
Obviously I could be wrong, but in the interest of brevity (too late for 
that probably) I won't detail
them in this post.

Any help?

Thanks,
Kent