Comment 14 for bug 482690

I would like to contribute a backtrace, but how do I run a gdb backtrace on gnome-panel when it only fails when rebooting or after killing the process? I have found several Ubuntu users with the same issue in other bug reports. They expressed that they were also unable to run a backtrace on gnome-panel under similar (or identical) circumstances.

Apparently we have all followed the wiki procedure for "already running programs ", only to find that we cannot reproduce the failure without killing the gdb trace program too!!!
Step 5 in already running programs illustrates the issue, because gnome-panel doesn't hang or crash at or after this point. Either the gnome-panel is already up and working or it is locked-up.

If the trace could be started after boot and before the gnome-panel initializes, that may work, but HOW?

If "pkill gnome-panel" or "killall gnome-panel" could be run in another terminal without terminating gdb, I think that would produce a very useful trace. Again, HOW??

I can run a backtrace after a successful initialization of gnome-panel or after a failed initialization, but I cannot catch the actual failure in progress.

Thank you...