Deleting the config file worked, thanks!

Running Electrum 1.7.x on Ubuntu 12.04, I always enter Ubuntu from the command line. This time I got an error. The error persisted through reboots and even an upgrade to 1.9.x (latest version). I checked /.electrum/config and the file is there, albeit it looks empty. Any ideas on what's causing this error and how to proceed? Thanks.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/electrum", line 174, in <module>
    config = SimpleConfig(config_options)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/electrum/simple_config.py", line 33, in __init__
    self.read_user_config()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/electrum/simple_config.py", line 157, in read_user_config
    raise IOError("Cannot read config file.")
IOError: Cannot read config file.