System hangs on "Password too short" dialog

Binary package hint: adduser

When attempting to add a new user from System>Admin>Users and Groups, a dialog box pops up that says "Password is too short." The attempted password has three characters. System hangs, pushing the Close button to try to clear the dialog fails. PC is a laptop, Compaq CQ60-206US.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 9.04
NonfreeKernelModules: nvidia
Package: adduser 3.110ubuntu5
PackageArchitecture: all
ProcEnviron:
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: adduser
Uname: Linux 2.6.28-11-generic i686