I have a mixture of Red Hat 7.2 and Red Hat 7.3 machines.  Sometimes
the panel fails to appear on login.  This affects one of my kids far
more often than it affects me, but I've still seen it myself.

When this occurs, I can start a panel by right-mouse -> open terminal
and then running "panel".  Sometimes the missing panel is a temporary
problem and using Ctl-Alt-Backspace to log off and then logging
back in will cause it to show up again.  Sometimes this doesn't work
and I'm stuck.  My solution up 'till now has been to delete and re-create
the user account because I don't know what all the magic files in
~/.gnome do.

When the panel is gone, I also find that I can't change the size of
the terminal window that I opened, so I assume the window manager is
having troubles too.

One file that seems to have some interesting info in it is the
.xsession-errors file.  Here is the whole file showing one entire
login, see no panel, start a terminal, log off sequence.  The "CRITICAL"
message is in there before Gnome starts yelling about being shut down.

I'd be happy to provide more information if I can.  (Or if this is one
of those RTFM bugs, I'd sure like to know where the right manual is
'cause most of the Gnome docs pretty much assume your panel is alive!)

    Thanks!
    Brian McMinn

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
XIM DEBUG: 
Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library
SESSION_MANAGER=local/meow:/tmp/.ICE-unix/19639

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gtk-WARNING **: invalid cast from (NULL) pointer to `GtkOptionMenu'

Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkoptionmenu.c: line 248
(gtk_option_menu_set_history): assertion `option_menu != NULL' failed.
can't load fixed font during initialisation
Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library
Message: Successfully registered
`OAFIID:nautilus_factory:bd1e1862-92d7-4391-963e-37583f0daef3'
Gdk-ERROR **: X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server
shutdown).
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server shutdown).
Gdk-ERROR **: X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server
shutdown).

** WARNING **: 2 scalable icons still left when destroying icon factory
Gdk-ERROR **: X connection to :0.0 broken (explicit kill or server
shutdown).

Gdk-WARNING **: locale not supported by C library
XIO:  fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server ":0.0"
      after 0 requests (0 known processed) with 0 events remaining.
Gdk-ERROR **: Fatal IO error 104 (Connection reset by peer) on X server :0.