xcompmgr errors

[Luke Albers]

Whenever I run xcompmgr, the screen goes blank (or sometimes only
        shadows are drawn, but the windows have no content.  When I kill
        xcompmgr, I see messages like this one:
        
        
        error 9 request 157 minor 4 serial 3557
        
        I get several (~10) lines similar to that but the last number is
        always
        different.
        
        
        I have not been able to find out what this means or how to
        resolve the
        problem (if this error message does mean that there is a
        problem).  
        
        I appreciate any suggestions