After googling and googling and googling and much head scratching I came across the solution. The "bug" is due to a local configuration change which in my case was done to work around some firefox/iceweasel bug I have long forgotton about.
Edit the file /etc/gnome-vfs-2.0/modules/default-modules.conf Change the #file:file entry to file:file Start soundconverter, done. :) All credit to this post http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=639240#27 Thanks. Matthew -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to debian-bugs-dist-requ...@lists.debian.org with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact listmas...@lists.debian.org