Messages Program Issue

[Matthew Lane]

Whenever I launch my Messages program (with a sim or without) it begins 
loading, and then immediately crashes and shows nothing.  I have 
attempted rebooting the xserver and rebooting the phone itself, with and 
without the SIM card, connected to the PC and not.  There doesn't seem 
to be anything I can do to read my text messages.

I am experiencing a very slow (and sometimes buggy) Messages program and 
I don't see any documentation on this.