weirdness involving the panel, gtk stuff, and everything

much peculiarity, beginning about an hour ago. first, protonmail bridge collapsed, and i route kmail through it, which required a reboot. it came back, but the little network icon now didn't come back -- i forget the tde network app, so i can't test it from the commandline -- so i can't switch to the VPN, which is a pain. then came the video setting. each reboot, i need to run nvidia settings so as to set my monitor array correctly. this has worked without fail for years. but now: dep@dep-desktop:~$ /usr/bin/nvidia-settings (nvidia-settings:2540): GLib-GObject-WARNING **: specified instance size for type 'CtkWindow' is smaller than the parent type's 'GtkWindow' instance size (nvidia-settings:2540): GLib-GObject-CRITICAL **: g_object_new: assertion 'G_TYPE_IS_OBJECT (object_type)' failed (nvidia-settings:2540): Gtk-CRITICAL **: IA__gtk_container_set_border_width: assertion 'GTK_IS_CONTAINER (container)' failed Segmentation fault (core dumped) to the best of my knowledge, i have changed nothing on the system. oh, and the kicker panel, which i have set to autohide, won't autohide. all this in the last hour. what to do? thanks in advance. -- dep Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email. Because privacy matters.