Yeah it's really weird and a total pain in the butt. I'm goin to keep it in this state for another day or so and see how it behaves. The test script I use is: #!/bin/sh pattern=PatternCommunicationSMS dbus-send --system --type=method_call --dest=com.nokia.mce /com/nokia/mce/request com.nokia.mce.request.req_led_pattern_activate string:$pattern sleep 10 dbus-send --system --type=method_call --dest=com.nokia.mce /com/nokia/mce/request com.nokia.mce.request.req_led_pattern_deactivate string:$pattern Is there a command or a flag for dbus-send to make it much more verbose? When it works I can obviously see the LED pulse. When I have this problem, the script runs as normal but I'd like to see some debug info. Might help to shed some light on the failure. Cheers.