Created an attachment (id=3475) [details]
strace of hildon-desktop hanging while trying to launch an application

SOFTWARE VERSION: 
21.2011.38-1

EXACT STEPS LEADING TO PROBLEM: 
phone crashed during boot (got dropped, battery ejected) 
after booting again, the UI hangs on most user interactions,
most notably starting applications via desktop icons,
also, for example, on exiting applications started by other means,
or interactions with some widgets.

1. tap app icon on desktop or in app menu

EXPECTED OUTCOME: 
icon is highlighted briefly, app is launched

ACTUAL OUTCOME: 
icon remains in highlighted state, UI stops responding

the ui can be restored by 'killall hildon-desktop',
but freezes again at the next attempt.

REPRODUCIBILITY: 
the initial cause (power loss at some point during boot)
is probably hard to reproduce,
but once the problem exists, 100%

EXTRA SOFTWARE INSTALLED: 

OTHER COMMENTS:
it turns out hildon-desktop (and probably other programs) end up
in an infinite loop in code in creating a symlink for pulseaudio,
due to a stale link already existing at the location,
see attached log.
removing the stale link fixes the problem.