I'm also experiencing this problem, for about the last month. It didn't occur immediately after dist-upgrade from 10.04 to 10.10, but after a subsequent update, and update-manager requested a restart. for me, gnome-panel locks up immediately upon login, before even drawing itself to the desktop. I login, I get the startup tune, then nothing, just a blank desktop. I can ctrl-alt-f2 to a console, where top shows gnome-panel locking up one of my four cores, and memory being eaten. It starts at approx 350M, but within a few days, it's up to 3GB. I don't know if this is a gnome-panel function or not, but I can't alt-f2 to launch an application, but if I right-click on the desktop, I get a menu which includes the option to 'create launcher', so I've used that to launch a terminal and the chromium browser, which has allowed me the minimal functionality to submit this report. I followed a suggestion from an earlier comment, and renamed the following directories in my home directory: .gconf. .gconfd, .gnome2, and .gnome2_private. When I logged out and logged in again, they were recreated, but the lockup and missing panel continues.
System is an Athlon II X4 635 with 4GB memory, and ATI RS880 [Radeon HD 4200] graphics. Dual monitor, but only one default panel. Kernel is currently 2.6.35-24-generic #42-Ubuntu SMP Thu Dec 2 02:41:37 UTC 2010 x86_64 GNU/Linux -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/432794 Title: gnome-panel freeze/infinite loop/memory leak -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
