Comment 112 for bug 345119

On 2009-10-18 I wrote that deactivating update-notifier in the startup applications fixed (circumvented) my problem. That was a bit premature; things merely got better but the problem still happened. Then I tried activating all startup applications one by one, and it was Visual Assistance (gnome-at-visual -s) that made the difference. For nearly I week I have had it deacivated, with all the others back on, and the problem has not occurred since.
No idea if that helps anybody else but myself...
Aisano