Having the same problem on an IBM Thinkpad X31, Ubuntu 9.10 with "Human" appearance and sans fonts of fixed integer size.
When running off an Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD the X-server is set up for "Normal", and the notify-OSD bubble works fine.
Once installed to the hard disk, the X-server does not work properly when set to "Normal" (I will put in a separate bug report on that), but when visual effects is set to "None", then I get the same results for notify-OSD.
Tried different fonts, different sizes, to no avail.
Having the same problem on an IBM Thinkpad X31, Ubuntu 9.10 with "Human" appearance and sans fonts of fixed integer size.
When running off an Ubuntu 9.10 Live CD the X-server is set up for "Normal", and the notify-OSD bubble works fine.
Once installed to the hard disk, the X-server does not work properly when set to "Normal" (I will put in a separate bug report on that), but when visual effects is set to "None", then I get the same results for notify-OSD.
Tried different fonts, different sizes, to no avail.