always have to "killall gnome-panel" on startup

This is a weird problem that I've been having for a while. When I
log in to my Gentoo system the GNOME desktop comes up nicely, just
the gnome-panel somehow doesn't read the configuration correctly.
I usually run with two panels, one in expanded mode along the full
bottom of the screen that basically contains all applets and menus
etc. and one that is located just above that which only contains
the workspace switcher and the window selector applets (not expanded).

However, when starting up, both of them are put into non-expanded
mode, the one with the switcher in the bottom left corner and not
being redrawn, the other one just above it but so narrow that only
the first two menus are visible. If I then do "killall gnome-panel"
from the terminal, they of course stop and obviously read their
correct configurations. Because when they come up again, they are
where they are supposed to be.

Does anyone have an explanation for this and more importantly an
idea how I can fix that behavior? I am running gnome-panel-2.18.3
(and all the other stuff from the gnome-base/gnome-light-2.18.2
configuration), but I have actually had it already before when
still running gnome 2.16.x.

Thanks!
Peter.

On 26.10.2007 12:17, Peter Weilbacher wrote:

> However, when starting up, both of them are put into non-expanded
> mode, the one with the switcher in the bottom left corner and not
> being redrawn, the other one just above it but so narrow that only
> the first two menus are visible. If I then do "killall gnome-panel"
> from the terminal, they of course stop and obviously read their
> correct configurations. Because when they come up again, they are
> where they are supposed to be.

To make it clear what I mean, I uploaded two screenshots:

the "broken" panels after logging in:
http://temp.weilbacher.org/gnome-panel_broken.png

and the correct behavior after killall:
http://temp.weilbacher.org/gnome-panel_after_kill.png

(Actually, what I really want to have is to locate the panel with the
switcher applet really into the corner and have the other one start
only rightward of that but that doesn't seem to be possible. And it's
not the point of this post...)

Peter.