R devel - Jan 2010 - 'tcltk' freezes related to event-loops (PR#14188)

This report is related to the bug `'tcltk' crashes related to
event-loops' PR#14187 [1]. The difference to that bug is an inversion
of the command sequence.
[1] http://bugs.r-project.org/cgi-bin/R/incoming?id=14187;user=guest

With the following sequence I get sporadic freezes of tcltk.
require(cairoDevice)
require(tcltk)

Unlike for the previous bug, I am unable to identify a simple and
reproducible sequence of commands. To avoid the crashes documented in
PR#14187 and to able to use playwith and Rcmdr in the same R session,
I have been starting the two in the following order:
require(playwith)
require(Rcmdr)

Generally after some time of working with both (say, 30 min - 1 h),
tcltk freezes (the Rcmdr interface is still there, and I can click on
"File", for example, but the menu shown will be blank). Closing Rcmdr
I get the following error message:
Error in structure(.External("dotTclObjv", objv, PACKAGE =
"tcltk"),
class = "tclObj") :
  [tcl] invalid command name "get".

After the first freeze occurs, anything tcltk does not work (for
example, restarting Rcmdr will display a blank window, just as a
relimp::showData(iris) command). Unfortunately, I cannot isolate
specific actions that trigger the freeze.

> sessionInfo()
R version 2.10.1 (2009-12-14)
x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

locale:
 [1] LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8       LC_NUMERIC=C
 [3] LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8        LC_COLLATE=en_GB.UTF-8
 [5] LC_MONETARY=C              LC_MESSAGES=en_GB.UTF-8
 [7] LC_PAPER=en_GB.UTF-8       LC_NAME=C
 [9] LC_ADDRESS=C               LC_TELEPHONE=C
[11] LC_MEASUREMENT=en_GB.UTF-8 LC_IDENTIFICATION=C

attached base packages:
 [1] splines   tcltk     grid      stats     graphics  grDevices
 [7] utils     datasets  methods   base

other attached packages:
 [1] RcmdrPlugin.HH_1.1-25    HH_2.1-32
 [3] leaps_2.9                multcomp_1.1-3
 [5] mvtnorm_0.9-8            RcmdrPlugin.sos_0.2-0
 [7] tcltk2_1.1-1             RcmdrPlugin.Export_0.3-0
 [9] Hmisc_3.7-0              survival_2.35-8
[11] xtable_1.5-6             Rcmdr_1.5-5
[13] car_1.2-16               playwith_0.9-45
[15] gWidgetsRGtk2_0.0-58     gWidgets_0.0-39
[17] cairoDevice_2.10         lattice_0.17-26
[19] fortunes_1.3-7           sos_1.2-4
[21] brew_1.0-3               hints_1.0.1-1

loaded via a namespace (and not attached):
[1] cluster_1.12.1 gridBase_0.4-3 RGtk2_2.12.15  tools_2.10.1
> version
               _
platform       x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
arch           x86_64
os             linux-gnu
system         x86_64, linux-gnu
status
major          2
minor          10.1
year           2009
month          12
day            14
svn rev        50720
language       R
version.string R version 2.10.1 (2009-12-14)