But it didn't prevent me from getting the program to boot. Which I think is the oddest part. If you don't even get the first config dialog, that means that it cannot create the directory "/home/user/.mlb"
but if it doesn't load after that it means that it can't open the config file. So from what you're telling me, for some reason the app had permision to create .mlb for me, but it didn't for either of you....
You might try editing the config file up from the 400 default and see if it changes (I suspect it will actually be worse, but you never know).