Ubuntu :: Maverick Fails To Suspend To Ram?

Maverick (64 bit) will suspend to RAM on my desktop computer immediately after I boot it up (before I start working). But after I have some programs open, it always fails to suspend. I get the typical blinking cursor in the upper right corner of a black screen. Then, after 20 seconds, the screen comes back on. The logs contain a message that "Freezing of tasks failed after 20.01 seconds." The problem task is usually listed as gnome-panel. Sometimes other tasks are listed too (such as Nautilus). Why will gnome-panel allow me to suspend soon after booting up, but not allow suspend after I start working with applications? I am not changing anything in the panel. And deleting the applets I have installed (system monitor and hardware monitor) doesn't make any difference - the problem continues. As I said, sometimes Nautilus is listed as the task that refuses to freeze.

If I switch users, I can suspend. I assume switching users just puts me in the "clean" state I have with my own user after booting up, so this doesn't really tell me anything new. I have searched all the other threads I can find. Most of the extensive suspend debugging threads are either from the 2007 era or they deal with laptops or resume issues. My issue is failure to suspend on a desktop. As you can see from the logs, I've been working on this for a month already!

Here's a typical error message:

Nov 7 01:52:59 MyComputer kernel: [ 1625.221296] Freezing of tasks failed after 20.01 seconds (1 tasks refusing to freeze):
Nov 7 01:52:59 MyComputer kernel: [ 1625.221374] gnome-panel D 000000010001fdc2 0 1925 1853 0x00800004

Here's an example log showing 2 tasks that fail to freeze:

Code:

Nov 9 01:25:09 MyComputer kernel: [16615.765114] PM: Syncing filesystems ... done.
Nov 9 01:25:09 MyComputer rtkit-daemon[1738]: The canary thread is apparently starving. Taking action.
Nov 9 01:25:09 MyComputer kernel: [16615.767512] PM: Preparing system for mem sleep

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