Losing context menu and default screen background

[Paul Michael Reilly <pmr pajato com>]

I have seen this strange behavior on both FC3 and FC4 whereby on
restarting a session the default screen background does not get
painted and the context menu is no longer available.  It is as if the
session has not fully initialized.  I am looking for some explanation
or some clues on how to chase down the problem.

Thanks,

-pmr