kicker and KDE 3.5.1

Hi: I'm using SUSE 9.3 and KDE 3.5.1. During the day, my taskbar will dissappear, and I have to execute "kicker &" to bring it back. This started after upgrading to 3.5.1. Is there a way to make it execute automatically or is this a known bug? Regards. -- Alfredo Cole-Tuckler