Comment 12 for bug 164804

re:
The panel encountered a problem while loading "OAFIID:GNOME_FastUserSwitchApplet".

I had the problem return after occasionally fixing with /tmp/orbit-username file deletes,

But much worse: there was a crippling slowdown of the machine -- booting took forever, same error message returned, plus new ones about services unable to configure, took forever to navigate, error messages eventually would appear blank. I tried to go to Synaptic, but root password no longer worked. Sudo password no longer accepted in terminal.

Then:

1.) Booted into Recovery Mode
2 ) apt-get remove gnome-applets
3.) apt-get install gnome-applets
4.) apt-get install ubuntu-desktop
5.) Restart computer

The computer booted up normally, with no error messages. Speed was normal. Root password worked again.