Every time i try and access the config screen, as i press enter after typing in /gatherer the below message appears. If i hit enter again, the config screen pops up. It seems to be missing options and very rough cut. Gathers also don't appear on my map, and the minimap button is missing. Additionally, I can't install gatherer db because the option in the config screen is nonexistent. I should mention that I'm running WoW via Wine under ubuntu linux. However, wow's lua interpreter is built in, and wow runs absolutely without a hitch.
Interestingly, I disabled Cartographer and all related add ons and i stopped receiving the error. I then updated it and everything started to work. I think the problem was that i didn't keep cartographer's sub-addons in the cartographer folder, but extracted them to my main addon folder. Now cartographer and gatherer play nice.
There were some issues with Cartographer after the recent patch from Blizzard... perhaps there were some errors from that which were happening before the game finished loading and were not displayed and then by updating, you fixed the issue. Errors, sometimes seemingly unrelated, can cause havoc in places where you normally would not see them- likely what was happening here.