wicd suddently won't run

I'm running wicd 1.7.3 on PCLinuxOS/Mate on an old Dell X1 laptop. It ran flawlessly for the last year, and I really appreciated its ability to connect to odd locations like hotel wi fi hot spots and PEAP sites. But it abruptly quit working. Now, when I click on the wicd icon, I get error messages:

<b>Failed to run /usr/sbin/wicd as user root.</b>

Failed to exec new process: No such file or directory

Could not connect to wicd's D-Bus interface. Check the wicd log for error messages.

wicd.log looks like this:

2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: ---------------------------
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: wicd initializing...
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: ---------------------------
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: wicd is version 1.7.3 933
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: Traceback (most recent call last):
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 1952, in <module>
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: main(sys.argv)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 1915, in main
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: keep_connection=keep_connection)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 93, in __init__
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: self.wireless_bus = WirelessDaemon(bus_name, self, wifi=self.wifi)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 976, in __init__
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: self.config = ConfigManager(wireless_conf, debug=debug)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wicd/configmanager.py", line 59, in __init__
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: self.read(path)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wicd/configmanager.py", line 190, in read
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: RawConfigParser.readfp(self, codecs.open(path, 'r', 'utf-8'))
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/ConfigParser.py", line 324, in readfp
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: self._read(fp, filename)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/ConfigParser.py", line 479, in _read
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: line = fp.readline()
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 672, in readline
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: return self.reader.readline(size)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 527, in readline
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: data = self.read(readsize, firstline=True)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 474, in read
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: newchars, decodedbytes = self.decode(data, self.errors)
2016/03/27 19:56:37 :: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xf1 in position 0: invalid continuation byte
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: ---------------------------
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: wicd initializing...
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: ---------------------------
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: wicd is version 1.7.3 933
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: Traceback (most recent call last):
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 1952, in <module>
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: main(sys.argv)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 1915, in main
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: keep_connection=keep_connection)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 93, in __init__
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: self.wireless_bus = WirelessDaemon(bus_name, self, wifi=self.wifi)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/share/wicd/daemon/wicd-daemon.py", line 976, in __init__
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: self.config = ConfigManager(wireless_conf, debug=debug)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wicd/configmanager.py", line 59, in __init__
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: self.read(path)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages/wicd/configmanager.py", line 190, in read
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: RawConfigParser.readfp(self, codecs.open(path, 'r', 'utf-8'))
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/ConfigParser.py", line 324, in readfp
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: self._read(fp, filename)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/ConfigParser.py", line 479, in _read
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: line = fp.readline()
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 672, in readline
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: return self.reader.readline(size)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 527, in readline
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: data = self.read(readsize, firstline=True)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: File "/usr/lib/python2.7/codecs.py", line 474, in read
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: newchars, decodedbytes = self.decode(data, self.errors)
2016/03/27 21:55:01 :: UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf8' codec can't decode byte 0xf1 in position 0: invalid continuation byte

What can I do to fix this? Any and all suggestions are appreciated, and thanks in advance.