I've tried the Envelope effect (with the enveltest.svg file that prkos attached) under Windows XP, and it worked without problem, in both 0.46pre2 and 0.46pre3.
One thing I would suggest is to see what Inkscape is producing on stderr when it (apparently) produces nothing on stdout. I can post a modified version of summersnight.py to do this if anybody wants it.
I've tried the Envelope effect (with the enveltest.svg file that prkos attached) under Windows XP, and it worked without problem, in both 0.46pre2 and 0.46pre3.
One thing I would suggest is to see what Inkscape is producing on stderr when it (apparently) produces nothing on stdout. I can post a modified version of summersnight.py to do this if anybody wants it.