McAfee icon disappears from system tray

Sometimes when I am online, the McAfee icon suddenly disappears from my system tray.

In fact it did this within the last 5 minutes while I was online to Dell Community Forum. 

If I go to the McAfee icon on the desktop and open the security center and check Personal Firewall and VirusScan. Both are reported to be enabled.

Ordinarily, I then disconnect from my ISP and disable Personal Firewall, whereupon a black icon appears in my system tray, I then immediately enable Personal Firewall, whereupon the black icon turns red and I then reconnect with my ISP.

This is a cumbersome and time-consuming process and often I continue working without any kind of McAfee icon in the system tray.  but doing so makes me nervous -- especially when we are in the midst of a new virus-related crisis -- like the Sasser virus.

I have contacted both Dell and McAfee several times about this matter and followed their directions, but it still keeps disappearing. A McAfee technician told me that I am not the only one with this problem.

I keep McAfee and Windows updated as soon as an update is available..

Obviously there is some kind of defect.  PLEASE help!!!  I want that red icon to stay put in the system tray if the firewall and virus scan are enabled and working properly!

PS -- Sometimes when I boot up my computer the red icon is there; sometimes it is not.  Whether it's there or not is not determined by whether it was there when I shut down the computer.