Bug#547093: gnome-panel always crashes after Notification Area applet is removed from panel

[Debgnoo Two-One-Two]

Package: gnome-panel
Version: 2.26.3-1

If the user removes the Notification Area applet from a panel, gnome-panel
crashes and all panels vanish. (I am not sure, but it appears to me that
gnome-panel tries to re-start itself automatically, but aborts after a few
attempts.)

The .xsession-errors file contains the following message:

{ The program 'gnome-panel' received an X Window System error.
{ This probably reflects a bug in the program.
{ The error was 'BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes)'.
{   (Details: serial 2096 error_code 8 request_code 1 minor_code 0)
{   (Note to programmers: normally, X errors are reported asynchronously;
{    that is, you will receive the error a while after causing it.
{    To debug your program, run it with the --sync command line
{    option to change this behavior. You can then get a meaningful
{    backtrace from your debugger if you break on the gdk_x_error()
function.)

Subsequent invokations of gnome-panel do the same thing, even after
logout/login, gdm restart, and even reboot.

Configuration

My desktop is configured as dual-head. Each monitor is independent (not
running xinerama) and each monitor has its own Notification Area applet.

Steps to reproduce

* This procedure is UNSAFE. Please create a test user with adduser, then
login as the test user first.

- Right-click on Notification Area
- Click Remove from Panel
- Observe that all panels vanish and try to re-appear, then vanish again and
try to re-appear again (as if gnome-panel is re-trying).
- After several seconds, all panels dissapear for good.
- Attempt to restart gnome-panel from the shell manually, and observe that
it fails in the same way.
- Attempt to restart gnome-panel via gdm restart or kernel reboot, and
observe that it fails in the same way.

Potential workaround steps

- Logout, and open a tty console (e.g., Ctrl-Alt-F1).
- Login at the console as the user experiencing the gnome-panel crashes (not
as root).
- Make a safekeep copy of the ~/.gconf directory tree (e.g., mv ~/.gconf
~/.gconf.suspect.copy).
- Restore the most recent backup copy of the .gconf directory tree to
~/.gconf.
- Log out of the console, and switch back to GUI mode (e.g., Ctrl-Alt-F7).
- Log in, and obsever that the panels now appear as normal.

Cursory analysis

- gdb suggests that the crash occurs after gtk callbacks have been activated
(after main.c(108) invokes gtk_main()).
- diff suggests that something gets corrupted in the ~/.gconf/apps/panel
directory tree. This conslusion is based on a diff between the live and
backup copies of the .gconf directory tree.
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