gnome / sawfish constantly bombing

[ed]

i'm a week old ydl user.  (picked up a nifty 500mhz ibook this week.) 
i'm using gnome / sawfish.  a rather annoying error keeps occuring each
time i use ydl.  the toolbars (close, minimize, maximize buttons) of all
windows disappear.  there's no way to recover other than logging out and
loggins back in.  this fixes the problem but it'll bomb out again after
a few minutes of use.

- no similar errors occur in kde but i dislike kde
- already ran apt-get and updated all available packages
- does not happen when using twm window manager (but who wants to use
twm?)

if anyone has any idea why this is happening or has tips on how to fix
or have encountered this error before, please respond!  i can't find
anything at yellowdoglinux.com!  thanks in advance.

~ ed