Bug#240991: gdm: Gnome not available as a session type after upgrade

[Michael Still]

Package: gdm
Version: 2.4.4.7-1
Severity: grave
Justification: renders package unusable

This morning I did a dist-upgrade on unstable, which updated gnome. I 
said to keep my existing config file when prompted to by apt-get. When I 
restarted my X session this afternoon, Gnome and KDE were no longer 
available as login session types, and only the failsafe options 
appeared.

A dpkg-reconfigure results in the following error message:

Unknown error, message=replacewith($string, $replace, $with): $replace 
and $with must have the same length.
install-menu: /etc/menu-methods/freedesktop-desktop-entry-spec-dirs: 
aborting
update-menus[1705]: Script 
/etc/menu-methods/freedesktop-desktop-entry-spec-dirs returned error 
status 1.
Unknown error, message=replacewith($string, $replace, $with): $replace 
and $with must have the same length.
install-menu: /etc/menu-methods/freedesktop-desktop-entry-spec-apps: 
aborting
update-menus[1705]: Script 
/etc/menu-methods/freedesktop-desktop-entry-spec-apps returned error 
status 1.

Is there a trivial way to rectify this so I can once more enjoy the 
Gnomy goodless which is my laptop?

Thanks,
Mikal

-- System Information:
Debian Release: testing/unstable
  APT prefers unstable
  APT policy: (500, 'unstable')
Architecture: i386 (i686)
Kernel: Linux 2.6.5-rc1
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8

Versions of packages gdm depends on:
ii  adduser              3.52                Add and remove users and groups
ii  debconf              1.4.19              Debian configuration management sy
ii  dpkg                 1.10.20             Package maintenance system for Deb
ii  gnome-session        2.4.2-2             The GNOME 2 Session Manager
ii  gnome-terminal [x-te 2.4.2-7             The GNOME 2 terminal emulator appl
ii  libart-2.0-2         2.3.16-3            Library of functions for 2D graphi
ii  libatk1.0-0          1.4.1-1             The ATK accessibility toolkit
ii  libbonobo2-0         2.4.3-1             Bonobo CORBA interfaces library
ii  libbonoboui2-0       2.4.3-2             The Bonobo UI library
ii  libc6                2.3.2.ds1-11        GNU C Library: Shared libraries an
ii  libgconf2-4          2.4.0.1-4           GNOME configuration database syste
ii  libglade2-0          2.0.1-11            Library to load .glade files at ru
ii  libglib2.0-0         2.2.3-1             The GLib library of C routines
ii  libgnome2-0          2.4.0-9             The GNOME 2 library - runtime file
ii  libgnomecanvas2-0    2.4.0-3             A powerful object-oriented display
ii  libgnomeui-0         2.4.0.1-10          The GNOME 2 libraries (User Interf
ii  libgnomevfs2-0       2.4.1-5             The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgnomevfs2-common  2.4.1-5             The GNOME virtual file-system libr
ii  libgsf-1             1.8.2-6             Structured File Library - runtime 
ii  libgtk2.0-0          2.2.4-3             The GTK+ graphical user interface 
ii  libice6              4.3.0-7             Inter-Client Exchange library
ii  liborbit2            1:2.8.3-2           libraries for ORBit2 - a CORBA ORB
ii  libpam-modules       0.76-16             Pluggable Authentication Modules f
ii  libpam-runtime       0.76-16             Runtime support for the PAM librar
ii  libpam0g             0.76-16             Pluggable Authentication Modules l
ii  libpango1.0-0        1.2.5-2.1           Layout and rendering of internatio
ii  libpopt0             1.7-4               lib for parsing cmdline parameters
ii  librsvg2-2           2.5.0-2             SAX-based renderer library for SVG
ii  libsm6               4.3.0-7             X Window System Session Management
ii  libwrap0             7.6-ipv6.1-3        Wietse Venema's TCP wrappers libra
ii  libx11-6             4.3.0-7             X Window System protocol client li
ii  libxext6             4.3.0-7             X Window System miscellaneous exte
ii  libxml2              2.6.7-1             GNOME XML library
ii  metacity [x-window-m 1:2.6.5-1           A lightweight GTK2 based Window Ma
ii  sawfish [x-window-ma 1:1.3+cvs20031104-4 A window manager for X11
ii  twm [x-window-manage 4.3.0-7             Tab window manager
ii  xlibs                4.3.0-7             X Window System client libraries m
ii  xterm [x-terminal-em 4.3.0-7             X terminal emulator
ii  zlib1g               1:1.2.1-5           compression library - runtime

-- debconf information:
perl: warning: Setting locale failed.
perl: warning: Please check that your locale settings:
	LANGUAGE = (unset),
	LC_ALL = (unset),
	LC_CTYPE = "en_US.UTF-8",
	LANG = (unset)
    are supported and installed on your system.
perl: warning: Falling back to the standard locale ("C").
locale: Cannot set LC_CTYPE to default locale: No such file or directory
locale: Cannot set LC_ALL to default locale: No such file or directory
  gdm/daemon_name: /usr/bin/gdm
* shared/default-x-display-manager: gdm