@leocg Hi there... Yes, Opera. I finally solved the problem. For some reason, if you minimise the Opera window, then resize it and then maximise it, the problem is fixed and the taskbar pops up as normal...
Phew!!!

Hi all,
When using my Win7 PC this evening I found I could no longer get the taskbar to pop up to switch between programs when hovering the cursor down at the bottom of the screen. The taskbar is set to autohide and I haven't changed that setting. I Can get to the taskbar to appear briefly by hitting the WIN key but that's the only way I can force its appearance. Any ideas? All replies greatly appreciated.

I gave up and downloaded Opera Developer. No more crashes. I simply synched the new Opera with my account and all was working as before. A pain but worth it. I am hoping the next update of standard opera fixes things.

I have solved this vexing problem by trial and error. It's a right royal pain in the backside but I found a simple fix. Go into "settings" and the go to "browser" and then "system". There is an option for "hardware acceleration when available". Click on that choice and your spinning pointer goes away. Hooray!