Missing recent documents in TextEdit/Preview - File

This issue happened after merging a new Tiger OS with an encrypted home directory (File Vault). I can see my recent docs and apps if I switch them on within the System Preferences. Other apps like BBEdit or Microsoft Excel for example are tracking my recent docs also correctly. But the menu recent documents in the applications TextEdit and Preview remain empty independet how many docs I open and save. I therefore tried another user with the same OS without File Vault and everything behaves like normal. If I make a new document within TextEdit and do save it I can see it in the menu File as recently opened documents. Does anybody have an idea? Please HELP!

Mac Pro Mac OS X (10.4.8) 5GB RAM