Task bar, top bar and even the menu bars in open windows disappear

[FiReSTaRT]

OS: Lisa-64 GNOME with most of MGSE enabled including the bottom bar, stable but unannounced, downloaded from the mirrors in the early PM of 24/11/2011

Hardware: HP dv9894ca, NVidia GE-Force 8400, running the proprietary driver

Bug: Once, I just had the window indicator malfunction and no windows were visible there even though I could navigate to them by pressing ALT-TAB or by using the GNOME Shell menu. Closing and reopening the packages put their windows back on the task bar. Next time, I had both the top and the bottom bars disappear and also the top bars from all of the open windows were gone. The system became unusable and I had to reboot.

Cause: First time around, I think I got a new IM in Pidgin or in Empathy (I experimented with both), but they were running on one desktop while I was doing work on another. Second time, it was also a bit of a popup from a different desktop as Synaptic that was running on Desktop 2 just finished downloaded the packages and popped up on Desktop 1 to start installing. I will try to reproduce and enter my comments.

Expectations: In case of the IM's I just expected for them to pop up on the desktop I was working on, without depopulating the task bar. In case of the bigger mess caused by the Synaptic window popping up, I would have expected for it to install the packages without removing both of the bars and without removing the top bars from the open windows.

[FiReSTaRT (dlyh)]

Being on a different desktop may not be all of it. I tried to reproduce what I believed were the circumstances.. I had a person send me an IM while I was on a different desktop and it popped up as it was supposed to. I also had synaptic install a new package on another desktop and I was able to partly reproduce the issue...

Once the package was installed, my screen went blank and then everything reloaded on it, starting with the wallpaper and then the bars and finally the windows. Even on its own, it's an annoyance.

[halfsoul (joelishness)]

I've had this happen to me twice now:
"top and the bottom bars disappear and also the top bars from all of the open windows were gone. The system became unusable and I had to reboot."

Seems to have been random, I don't know if there was a common activity involved that would have triggered it.

Ctrl+Alt+Backspace to restart X Server was successful in recovering.

Here are excerpts from some logs, not sure if they will be helpful or not....

auth.log:
Dec 3 19:37:06 joel-mint12 polkitd(authority=local): Unregistered Authentication Agent for unix-session:/org/freedesktop/ConsoleKit/Session1 (system bus name :1.57, object path /org/freedesktop/PolicyKit1/AuthenticationAgent, locale en_US.UTF-8) (disconnected from bus)

kern.log:
Dec 3 19:37:06 joel-mint12 kernel: [41124.353653] gnome-shell[5770]: segfault at 1d9 ip 00007f39a57d2644 sp 00007fffb4005618 error 4 in libclutter-glx-1.0.so.0.800.0[7f39a5796000+ff000]

syslog:
Dec 3 19:31:39 joel-mint12 dbus[1092]: [system] Activating service name='org.debian.apt' (using servicehelper)
Dec 3 19:31:40 joel-mint12 AptDaemon: INFO: Initializing daemon
Dec 3 19:31:40 joel-mint12 dbus[1092]: [system] Successfully activated service 'org.debian.apt'
Dec 3 19:36:40 joel-mint12 AptDaemon: INFO: Quitting due to inactivity
Dec 3 19:36:40 joel-mint12 AptDaemon: INFO: Quitting was requested
Dec 3 19:37:06 joel-mint12 kernel: [41124.353653] gnome-shell[5770]: segfault at 1d9 ip 00007f39a57d2644 sp 00007fffb4005618 error 4 in libclutter-glx-1.0.so.0.800.0[7f39a5796000+ff000]
Dec 3 19:37:06 joel-mint12 gnome-session[1742]: WARNING: Application 'gnome-shell.desktop' killed by signal

[halfsoul (joelishness)]

^ My system for above report:
Lisa 64 Gnome, MGSE default (as-installed)

NVIDIA proprietary active

lspci | grep GeForce
03:00.0 VGA compatible controller: nVidia Corporation G92 [GeForce 9800 GT] (rev a2)