Latest update gives me error

Yup, same fault here; Genesis theme/WP3.6

So back to ver. 0.8 – all works perfectly.

I just switched to the Home Categories plug-in
https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/home-categories

Does what I want to and is working fine without errors.

You need to choose at least one category in the Exclude from Search column on the UCE settings page. Save the settings. Then remove the check, and save settings again. Item #5 on the Installation instructions.