Gnome-panel applets disappear, freezes, locks up computer, 99% CPU usage

[Benjamin Humphrey]

Binary package hint: gnome-panel

This is a bug present today, something in recent updates has destroyed gnome-panel - on amd64 Lucid at least.

Was doing my work when suddenly the panel just wouldn't work, I clicked on the menu, window list etc and it wouldn't register my clicks or rollovers or anything. I ran killall gnome-panel in a terminal and it locked my computer up.

Went into a virtual terminal and ran top, gnome-panel was using 99% CPU, tried to kill the process ID again but it keeps coming back.

I removed gnome-panel, ran an update and reinstalled the panel but same problem. Tried rebooting, restarting X etc. The only way I can report this bug is by booting up, leaving gnome-panel running at 99% CPU and then using a terminal to run apport. It's very hard to type as there is a huge lag because the panel is eating all the CPU so my computer is very unresponsive and unusable.

This is a critical bug.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed Mar 24 10:54:50 2010
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 10.04
EcryptfsInUse: Yes
InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 10.04 "Lucid Lynx" - Alpha amd64 (20100305)
Package: gnome-panel 1:2.29.92.1-0ubuntu3
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_NZ.utf8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 2.6.32-16.25-generic
SourcePackage: gnome-panel
Uname: Linux 2.6.32-16-generic x86_64

[Benjamin Humphrey (humphreybc)]

Appears to be a duplicate of bug 479826.

I fixed it by removing:

~/.gconf/apps/panel/general/%gconf.xml

~/.gconf/apps/panel/toplevels/panel_1

I think it could be related to dual monitors. I have my laptop, and then my 24" Dell LCD that I plug into. On the Dell, when it's plugged in, I have a panel set to auto hide. When it's not plugged in, that panel doesn't show up on the laptop screen. This all happened randomly when I was not plugged into the monitor.

It's a bit scary how it can completely destroy your entire system. I couldn't connect to wireless easily because the wireless applet was gone, it killed X and froze everything, used up tonnes of CPU and memory. When I removed gnome-panel it basically rendered everything (including Nautilus) useless. Quite a major bug I would say, depending on how often it happens.

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

do you still have the buggy configuration? did you investigate what in the configuration is triggering the bug?

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

Could you get a stracktrace while it's hanging?

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

[Expired for gnome-panel (Ubuntu) because there has been no activity for 60 days.]