Search in Thunar context menu doesn't work in Linux Mint 17.2 Xfce

This fix is ugly but it fixes this issue for up to 110 user names:

http://pastebin.com/tYYPrLmc

listed fix: catfish --path=%f
does not work for me.

Added thunar and catfish to affected projects.

Here is the terminal output of '$ catfish' :

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/share/catfish/bin/catfish.py", line 44, in <module>
    catfish.main()
  File "/usr/share/catfish/catfish/__init__.py", line 73, in main
    window = CatfishWindow.CatfishWindow()
  File "/usr/share/catfish/catfish_lib/Window.py", line 49, in __new__
    new_object.finish_initializing(builder)
  File "/usr/share/catfish/catfish/CatfishWindow.py", line 260, in finish_initializing
    self.settings = CatfishSettings.CatfishSettings()
  File "/usr/share/catfish/catfish_lib/CatfishSettings.py", line 37, in __init__
    self.read()
  File "/usr/share/catfish/catfish_lib/CatfishSettings.py", line 57, in read
    for line in open(self.settings_file):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/codecs.py", line 319, in decode
    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0xcc in position 4: invalid continuation byte

It is that last three lines that look like the fix, but i am not a programmer. Any idea on the code to replace the line?

Here is the line: (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)

To verify, output of '$ locale':
$ locale
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LANGUAGE=en_US
LC_CTYPE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NUMERIC="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TIME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_COLLATE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MONETARY="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MESSAGES="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_PAPER="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_NAME="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ADDRESS="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_TELEPHONE="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_MEASUREMENT="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="en_US.UTF-8"
LC_ALL=

Also, this was in a freshly upgraded Linux Mint 17.3 Rosa
The right click menu for search in Thunar still does not function (or respond) and the file drop down is the same. I have tried multiple variations of calling for catfish from the context menu. but it has not functioned for any.

Can confirm this is also present in Linux Mint 18 Sarah.

Catfish does not even start. Package broken.
$ catfish

** (catfish:6599): WARNING **: Couldn't connect to accessibility bus: Failed to connect to socket /tmp/dbus-JOCHDKc5TQ: Connection refused

(catfish:6599): Gtk-WARNING **: /build/gtk+3.0-6ZPWga/gtk+3.0-3.18.9/./gtk/gtkwidget.c:8456: widget not within a GtkWindow
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/catfish", line 42, in <module>
    catfish.main()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/catfish/__init__.py", line 74, in main
    window = CatfishWindow.CatfishWindow()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/catfish_lib/Window.py", line 168, in __new__
    new_object.finish_initializing(builder)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/catfish/CatfishWindow.py", line 124, in finish_initializing
    super(CatfishWindow, self).finish_initializing(builder)
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/catfish_lib/Window.py", line 202, in finish_initializing
    settings = CatfishSettings.CatfishSettings()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/catfish_lib/CatfishSettings.py", line 43, in __init__
    self.read()
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/catfish_lib/CatfishSettings.py", line 63, in read
    for line in open(self.settings_file):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/codecs.py", line 321, in decode
    (result, consumed) = self._buffer_decode(data, self.errors, final)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'utf-8' codec can't decode byte 0x99 in position 0: invalid start byte
brandon@Asu