System Notification Helper causes black band across middle of display

[Guest]

Kubuntu 12.04 via wubi
KDE 4.8.2
Grub Legacy version

Windows XP Pro SP3 32 bit
Puppy Linux 5.2.8 update 5 via Lin'n'Win

Dell Inspiron 6400 laptop
Core Duo T2300 1.66GHz clock
ATI Mobility Radeon X1300 graphics card
1280x800 LCD display
2GB RAM
1 Seagate 120GB SATA internal HD
1 Sony DVD+/-RW SATA internal optical drive

noob

When I login to Kubuntu, there's a yellow lightbulb on my panel with a tooltip that says

System Notification Helper
Software upgrade
notifications are available

When I click on it, I get a black horizontal band across the middle of my LCD display and the yellow light bulb disappears from my panel. Instead, I get a application thingie on my panel which has a tooltip which reads "Update Information - KDE Daemon." I can close the application thingie (sorry, I don't know the terminology for the panel item that appears for each open application).

When I run Muon Package Manager, it says I'm up to date after I check for updates, so what am I supposed to do and how does a noob get rid of the uninviting black band across the middle of the display?

All my text, graphics and video are just fine after I close the Software Notification Helper.

TIA.

[vinnywright]

i think their was a bug in the notification packages that caused something like this and has supposedly been fixed.

run this in a terminal and see if you get any upgrades.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get dist-upgrade

if you do then see if still happens and report back

VINNY

[SteveRiley]

Similar problem, but with different output, reported here.

The notification helper appears to be causing a number of problems. For those willing to experiment, please remove the package:

sudo apt-get purge kubuntu-notification-helper

Do the weird problems go away?

[SteveRiley]

Update: please see the following post for a less drastic temporary solution.

http://www.kubuntuforums.net/showthr...l=1#post296994