gnome-system-log no longer displays syslog

I was compiling a java application when I decided to empty the rubbish bin. The icon for the rubbish bin on the dash is next to System.log. Suddenly the system booted down and then up. Going to System.kog to find out what had happened I found the dpkg.log had been wiped clean and the syslog.log had been removed. Checking system log in /var/log I found this( the line about in Kate showed empty squares ):
rsylogd changed groupid to 104
ryslogd changed userid to 101.
These messages sometimes appear now when I boot up.
I know that the userid for syslog is 101 and that rsyslog does not update syslog. File permissions on gnome-system-log are root for userid and groupid and the same goes for rsyslog.
I suppose the natural thing to do is to re-install gnome-system-log and see if that works but I wonder if I should report this as a bug.
Any help would be appreciated. Please note that I do not have constant internet at home so my response to any help might be slow,