E255 on sign command

I'm having some troubles using the 'sign define' command. I'm running macvim stable 53 (using vim 7.3, as at bottom)

In my .vimrc I have the following lines to set up the sign
"
" Place a sign in the file
"
sign define information text=!> linehl=Warning texthl=Error icon=/usr/share/emacs/22.1/etc/images/right-arrow.xpm
map <F3> :exe ":sign place 123 line=" . line(".") . " name=information file=" . expand("%:p")<CR>
map <C-S-F3> :sign unplace<CR>

When vim is loading, and on attempts to place a sign, I get an error E255: Couldn't read in sign data!. Vim falls back to displaying the two-character 'text' field.

The file at /usr/share/emacs/22.1/etc/images/right-arrow.xpm is a valid pixmap, dimensions 24x24; The :he on 'sign' says that the pixmap must fit in the space of 2 characters; my guifont is set to monaco:w18, so I mangled the original pixmap to generate a shorter character (24x18), although pointing at this file didn't make any difference.

I *believe* that at work, where I use gvim under cygwin, the sign displays properly; I'll check that in the morning. Unfortunately, the version of gvim that I have on my Mac is built with -signs, so I can't check it here.

Can anyone point me in the right direction for a fix on this, please?

Regards, Andy

VIM - Vi IMproved 7.3 (2010 Aug 15, compiled Aug 15 2010 22:03:01)
MacOS X (unix) version
Compiled by Bjorn Winckler <bjorn.winckler@gmail.com>
Huge version with MacVim GUI. Features included (+) or not (-):
+arabic +autocmd +balloon_eval +browse ++builtin_terms +byte_offset +cindent +clientserver +clipboard +cmdline_compl +cmdline_hist
+cmdline_info +comments +conceal +cryptv +cscope +cursorbind +cursorshape +dialog_con_gui +diff +digraphs +dnd -ebcdic +emacs_tags
+eval +ex_extra +extra_search +farsi +file_in_path +find_in_path +float +folding -footer +fork() +fullscreen -gettext -hangul_input
+iconv +insert_expand +jumplist +keymap +langmap +libcall +linebreak +lispindent +listcmds +localmap -lua +menu +mksession
+modify_fname +mouse +mouseshape +mouse_dec -mouse_gpm -mouse_jsbterm +mouse_netterm -mouse_sysmouse +mouse_xterm +multi_byte
+multi_lang -mzscheme +netbeans_intg +odbeditor -osfiletype +path_extra +perl +persistent_undo +postscript +printer +profile
+python -python3 +quickfix +reltime +rightleft +ruby +scrollbind +signs +smartindent -sniff +startuptime +statusline -sun_workshop
+syntax +tag_binary +tag_old_static -tag_any_white -tcl +terminfo +termresponse +textobjects +title +toolbar +transparency
+user_commands +vertsplit +virtualedit +visual +visualextra +viminfo +vreplace +wildignore +wildmenu +windows +writebackup -X11
-xfontset +xim -xsmp -xterm_clipboard -xterm_save
system vimrc file: "$VIM/vimrc"
user vimrc file: "$HOME/.vimrc"
user exrc file: "$HOME/.exrc"
system gvimrc file: "$VIM/gvimrc"
user gvimrc file: "$HOME/.gvimrc"
system menu file: "$VIMRUNTIME/menu.vim"
fall-back for $VIM: "/Applications/MacVim.app/Contents/Resources/vim"
Compilation: gcc -c -I. -Iproto -DHAVE_CONFIG_H -DFEAT_GUI_MACVIM -Wall -Wno-unknown-pragmas -pipe -DMACOS_X_UNIX -no-cpp-precomp -g -O2 -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=1
Linking: gcc -L. -L. -arch i386 -arch x86_64 -L/usr/local/lib -o Vim -framework Cocoa -framework Carbon -lncurses -liconv -framework Cocoa -L/usr/local/lib -L/System/Library/Perl/5.10.0/darwin-thread-multi-2level/CORE -lperl -lm -lutil -lc -framework Python -framework Ruby
--
Andrew Long
andrew dot long at mac dot com

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