[sylpheed:34164] very bizzare and new problem

[IW]

Hi,

I have been using sylpheed for many years. I use it on windows and on
Ubuntu. I store my mailboxes on a flash disk so I can swap between my
work laptop (ubuntu) and my home computer (win 7)

Today, completely unexpectedly on my windows version (this one) I
started getting an error message when I try and sign/encrypt. It is not
a gnupg failure notification. I have never seen this error before. 

It simply says that my key cannot be found. Indeed, no key for any
address can be found. 

I have changed nothing at any time so I have no idea why thiis is. 

I have gnupg installed. I was signing/encrypting just fine over the last
few days. 

I have tried uninstalling and reinstalling gnupg. I have even
reinstalled it to a different location. I have uninstalled and
reinstalled sylpheed. I did this twice including to a different
location. I have wiped out all my key (stored data) and sylpheed data
and restored from working backups. Sylpheed continues to insist it
cannot find my keys. After 2 hours trying to figure it out I confess I
am at a loss. Does anyone have any idea why this would be the case?

Regards

IW