Hi there, OP here, I'm sorry but I noticed that i made a couple of mistakes:
a) the email address I submitted with the above bugreport no longer exists. Please use this one instead. b) I though that enigmail broke after a recent upgrade, but according to changelog (http://metadata.ftp-master.debian.org/changelogs/main/e/enigmail/enigmail_1.8.2-4~deb8u1_changelog) it seems that the last jessie upgrade of the package (a security upgrade) was actually on 22 Nov 2015 (really!?!?) Left with that, I currently have no more ideas how to find the real source of the problem. Since we are using enigmail for work, this is an outright desaster. I would appreciate any help in troubleshooting and finding the actual cause of the problem. Thanks, Shevek