gnome-pty-helper does not exit

[Vincent Rivière <riviere iut-rodez fr>]

Hello.

I use the current testing version of Debian on x386.

Sometimes, my file /var/run/utmp stops to be updated.
I used the following command :
    ps -f -p `fuser /var/run/utmp`
It showed me that there was a lot of processes gnome-pty-helper using the utmp file.
Furthermore, most of the gnome-pty-helper had a PPID equals to 1.

I made some tests, and I found that when all is ok, there is one process 
gnome-pty-helper if one or more processes gnome-terminal are opened. Closing all gnome-terminal will cause gnome-pty-helper to end.

But sometimes, gnome-pty-helper loses its parent, and its PPID becomes 1. 
The process still lock the file /var/run/utmp. Finally, the file /var/run/utmp is not updated and the who command shows old data (or no data).

If I kill all that frozen gnome-pty-helper, the file /var/run/utmp is updated again.

I use >= 25 X terminals on my system.
A way to reproduce the problem of gnome-pty-helper zombie process *may* be to close the Gnome session without having closed the gnome-terminal windows... but not every time.

What can I do to avoid that old gnome-pty-helper to stay in the way, and get my who command work again ?

Vincent.