I'm having trouble with certain programs starting as background processes. They seem fine if I switch them once they have started. This is really annoying because I can't start them from the menu, or a command launcher.
I am trying to figure out why this is happening.

Two programs that always seem to do it are MatLab and Wireshark. When I try to start them with the menu entry the splash will come up but them the program will terminate. The same thing happens if I start them as a background process.

Has anyone ever remedied this problem?

btw, if it helps I'm running Crunchbang, so I have openbox running on my X server.

If you define "programs starting as background processes" as "without requiring stdin and stdout to be connected to a terminal" (you don't mean "minimized" don't you?) then I don't know about MatLab but Wireshark isn't an application that should be running in the background. If you need to capture packets then try Wiresharks command line equivalent "tshark" or 'tcpdump' and send output to a file which you can read later on with Wireshark. If that doesn't answer your question then you could try running your proposed Wireshark command from a terminal and see what it throws on stdout / stderr and also check your ~/.xesssion* log file and your X servers log file.

perhaps I'm using the wrong terminology. what I am trying to say is

if I type "matlab" in to the terminal, it runs
if I type "matlab &" I get a splash and it terminates
If I set the command "matlab" as a program in the drop down menu (openbox) I just get the splash

Its not that I want to run the program in the background. I just want to be able to use it without occupying a terminal window.