Qt-gui main window creates floaties before initializing default encoding. When floaty is created it will get codec for the contact which may access the default encoding before it is intialized.
Below is a stack trace from a crash where this has happened:
#0 0xb72d5ec6 in QString::latin1 () from /usr/lib/libqt-mt.so.3
#1 0xb79e6182 in UserCodec::defaultEncoding () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#2 0xb79e61d9 in UserCodec::codecForICQUser () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#3 0xb7996244 in CUserViewItem::setGraphics () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#4 0xb7997b36 in CUserViewItem::CUserViewItem () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#5 0xb7933be5 in CMainWindow::CreateUserFloaty () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#6 0xb794d506 in CMainWindow::CMainWindow () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#7 0xb792d6c1 in CLicqGui::Run () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#8 0xb792e76b in LP_Main () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#9 0xb792e7bd in LP_Main_tep () from /usr/lib/licq/licq_kde-gui.so
#10 0xb7dfd240 in start_thread () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libpthread.so.0
#11 0xb7c403de in clone () from /lib/tls/i686/cmov/libc.so.6
