a gnome puzzle: emacs instability

[Michael Blaustein <blaustein sjca edu>]

Here is a challenge, I think:

I just upgraded quite a few gnome2 packages (and rebuilt others) and
the effect is to make emacs extremely likely to die with the error
     Connection lost to X server `:0.0'.

No other applications behave this way (so far as I've tried), and
emacs was quite stable until now under the original gnome2 packages.
Is there anyone who can try a reasonalbe guess to help me?

Please reply to <blaustein sjca edu>, as I'm not a member of these
lists.  Sorry to all who are on both lists for my redundancy.

Appended is output from gdb, if anyone is interested.
-- 
Michael Blaustein
blaustein sjca edu
--

GNU gdb 4.17.0.11 with Linux support
Copyright 1998 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
GDB is free software, covered by the GNU General Public License, and you are
welcome to change it and/or distribute copies of it under certain conditions.
Type "show copying" to see the conditions.
There is absolutely no warranty for GDB.  Type "show warranty" for details.
This GDB was configured as "i386-redhat-linux"...
(gdb) run
Starting program: /usr/bin/emacs 

Program received signal SIGPIPE, Broken pipe.
0x40380704 in __libc_write ()
(gdb) bt
#0  0x40380704 in __libc_write ()
#1  0x402a74b4 in __DTOR_END__ ()
#2  0x402189ad in _X11TransWrite ()
#3  0x401fc84e in _XFlushInt ()
#4  0x401fc74c in _XFlush ()
#5  0x401fc93f in _XEventsQueued ()
#6  0x401f12bb in XPending ()
#7  0x80b7ea2 in XTread_socket (sd=0, bufp=0xbffd292c, numchars=4096, expected=1) at xterm.c:11422
#8  0x80deea6 in read_avail_input (expected=1) at keyboard.c:6308
#9  0x80df042 in input_available_signal (signo=29) at keyboard.c:6471
#10 <signal handler called>
#11 0x8482 in ?? ()
#12 0x80dc47d in kbd_buffer_get_event (kbp=0xbfffeee0, used_mouse_menu=0xbffff0e0) at keyboard.c:3652
#13 0x80daea3 in read_char (commandflag=1, nmaps=2, maps=0xbffff094, prev_event=405436964, used_mouse_menu=0xbffff0e0)
    at keyboard.c:2623
#14 0x80e145d in read_key_sequence (keybuf=0xbffff1e4, bufsize=30, prompt=405436964, dont_downcase_last=0, 
    can_return_switch_frame=1, fix_current_buffer=1) at keyboard.c:8348
#15 0x80d92e4 in command_loop_1 () at keyboard.c:1455
#16 0x812db07 in internal_condition_case (bfun=0x80d8ff0 <command_loop_1>, handlers=405533540, hfun=0x80d8c28 <cmd_error>)
    at eval.c:1346
#17 0x80d8ec8 in command_loop_2 () at keyboard.c:1261
#18 0x812d693 in internal_catch (tag=405494868, func=0x80d8ea4 <command_loop_2>, arg=405436964) at eval.c:1106
#19 0x80d8e72 in command_loop () at keyboard.c:1240
#20 0x80d89d8 in recursive_edit_1 () at keyboard.c:966
#21 0x80d8b01 in Frecursive_edit () at keyboard.c:1022
#22 0x80d791f in main (argc=1, argv=0xbffff7a4, envp=0xbffff7ac) at emacs.c:1631
#23 0x40303381 in __libc_start_main (main=0x80d6bc8 <main>, argc=1, argv=0xbffff7a4, init=0x804e690 <_init>, 
    fini=0x817b650 <_fini>, rtld_fini=0x4000aa44 <_dl_fini>, stack_end=0xbffff79c) at ../sysdeps/generic/libc-start.c:92
(gdb) 
(gdb) quit
The program is running.  Exit anyway? (y or n) n
Not confirmed.
(gdb) step
Single stepping until exit from function __libc_write, 
which has no line number information.
__sigaction (sig=13, act=0xbffd0610, oact=0xbffd0584) at ../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:76
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:76: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:78: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:80: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:82: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:83: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:84: No such file or directory.
(gdb) 
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:85: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:87: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
0x40309798	../sysdeps/unix/sysv/linux/i386/sigaction.c:126: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
sys_signal (signal_number=13, action=0x80b97f8 <x_connection_signal>) at sysdep.c:2828
sysdep.c:2828: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
0x80b980f in x_connection_signal (signalnum=13) at xterm.c:12359
xterm.c:12359: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
<signal handler called>
(gdb) step
0x40380705 in __libc_write ()
(gdb) step
Single stepping until exit from function __libc_write, 
which has no line number information.
0x403034a0 in __errno_location () at ../sysdeps/generic/errno-loc.c:28
../sysdeps/generic/errno-loc.c:28: No such file or directory.
(gdb) step
Connection lost to X server `:0.0'

Program exited with code 0106.
(gdb)