The subject is a gentle way of saying: "please fix this bug", which imho it is.
If I open a sessions window and enable the "auto refresh timer" then the window is refreshed every 5 seconds or so.
Works great!
Now if the connection to the database dies, for whatever reason, plsql developer tells me "not connected" when it tries to refresh.
Very good.
However, It keeps on trying to refresh and telling me I'm not connected every 5 seconds.
If this happens when I'm away from my computer, then when I return I have 10's or 100's of "not connected" popups to confirm by clicking 'Ok'.
So usually The best option is to kill and restart the application.
If this happens at night after I forgot to turn off refresh, then when I return the next morning there are so many popups, the application has crashed by then.
In my view, if the connection is lost, the application should show me a popup on the first refresh-attempt thereafter, and should stop trying to refresh.
The connection is not spontaneously coming back, so if I have to reconnect manually anyway, I can turn on refresh again too.
Oh, and while you're at it fixing the refresh, might as well introduce a preference for the refresh-time as well :-)
