Description of problem: I did a fresh install of RHL9, logged in as root into GNOME and clicked on the red Red Hat Network Alert Notification icon on the right side of the tool bar. The wizard popped up and I finished it by clicking on NEXT each time ( I did not enter any information ). Then I clicked with the right mouse button on the icon and a menu appeared, where all entries were ghosted, except the last, "Exit". But the something went wrong. When I moved the mouse pointer accross the screen, it did not change shape ( there was a gnome-terminal, over which the pointer should change to the I shape, but it did not ). Also clicking inside the gnome-terminal did not make the gnome-terminal window active, typing on the keyboard did not appear in the terminal window. Alt-TAB also had no effect. After 10 or 20 seconds everything got back to normal. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): everything is from rhl9 ( Shrike ) : metacity-2.4.34-3 rhnlib-1.0-4 rhn-applet-2.0.9-0.9.0.1 How reproducible: Did not try to reproduce it yet.
I don't think this is metacity, I think the kernel and/or X just get "stuck" sometimes under heavy load.
I would say this is just general interactivity problems with rpm's IO load. Probably a lot better with newer kernels, but reassigning in case kernel guys want to add any comments.
Thanks for the bug report. However, Red Hat no longer maintains this version of the product. Please upgrade to the latest version and open a new bug if the problem persists. The Fedora Legacy project (http://fedoralegacy.org/) maintains some older releases, and if you believe this bug is interesting to them, please report the problem in the bug tracker at: http://bugzilla.fedora.us/