Gimp Crashes On Startup

[BrassRaptor]

Hey! This is the first time I've installed Gimp on this computer, and I could really use some help getting it started.

I'm running it on a Windows 7 64-bit OS, and using the latest version of Gimp, v. 2.8.22.
I installed Gimp a few hours ago and tried several solutions I found on the internet (deleting files, renaming files, leaving it alone for a period of time, etc.), but end up with the same crash report whenever I try to start it up for the first time.
It crashes immediately once it reaches the "Updating tag cache" stage.

I can't seem to get passed the initial startup of Gimp, and was wondering if anyone had any solutions...? Or perhaps recommend to me which version I should download, since maybe my OS is a little outdated for the latest version of Gimp...?

Thanks!

[Ofnuts]

Your version is fine. "Gimp crashing when "updating tag cache" seems associated with invalid "resources", in particular invalid brushes.

So, have you added anything in your Gimp profile yet (are you migrating from an earlier version)? If so remove the profile (rename it...) and try again.

If this is a completely virgin installation (no Gimp profile), that would point to some invalid brush/pattern in the installation, which would mean a corrupt install file. In that case I would trya re-install, after downloading the file again, and checking size and MD5 hash.

Needless to say, files should be downloaded from a trusted source; either the Gimp official site (http://download.gimp.org) or Partha.com (builds with popular plugins pre-installed, but don't fall for v2.9.5 yet, get the 2.8 version)

[BrassRaptor]

Thank you for your response! I haven't added anything to my Gimp profile yet.

It is also a completely fresh install. I've never installed Gimp on this computer before yesterday.
I did try renaming the profile just now by adding ".disabled" at the end to see if it would load passed "Updating tag cache" but I received the same crash error.

Yesterday, I downloaded it from the official Gimp website. Since it didn't seem to be working, I uninstalled Gimp completely, and then reinstalled Gimp (v. 2.8) from Partha.com today.
I still can't seem to get passed "Updating tag cache" on startup, though, and I'm also unsure of how to check size and MD5 hash.

[Ofnuts]

On downloads.gimp.org, for instance, you download the file from https://download.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/windows/

You'll notice that alongside https://download.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/...-setup.exe there is a link to https://download.gimp.org/pub/gimp/v2.8/...up.exe.md5. This is a plain text file that you also download. It contains one line:

Code:

8e54225029a44ab6ef1fde09686fec7b  gimp-2.8.22-setup.exe

Then you find a MD5 computation utility (the usual 'free' command line version is called md5sum and is fairly easy to find, but there are also more mouse-friendly versions) and you make it compute the MD5 hash of the gimp-2.8.22-setup.exe you downloaded. This value should be identical to the one in the file. If it is, everything is OK, if it is not then your download got corrupted. These utilities can also be given the .MD5 file you downloaded and will compare the content with what they computed to give you a yay/nay answer.

On the other hand, I find it strange that neither the official builds nor Partha's install on your system. Can you ZIP the directories with the brushes, patterns, gradients, dynamics and fonts in your installed Gimp and attach them here (or put them on some file sharing service and put the URL here?). Also, if you have anti-virus running can you check if it quarantine/altered something? Or even disable is temporarily while you install Gimp and run it for the first time?

[BrassRaptor]

All righty! I checked the MD5 hash and everything seemed to match up perfectly.

I'm also finding it strange that none of the official builds I've downloaded worked. I've never had an issue with downloading and running a creative program on this computer before.

I don't have any antivirus software running on my computer at this time, but I disabled my firewall and re-installed Gimp from the official website just to check as the firewall has caused me problems in the past. I'm still receiving the error at startup, unfortunately.

I had to upload the requested files to Media Fire as it was too big to upload directly to the forum, but here it is: CLICK

[rich2005]

That error has cropped up several times over the years, invariably caused by a broken resource usually too many brushes or a broken font... but some people never seem to get it fixed, so a bit of try and see.

Do not like the look of those postscript fonts, this is a comparison (in Win7) of the stock Gimp and Partha's Gimp
http://i.imgur.com/IdvUpTr.jpg not much in the way of fonts there.

You might be able to check that Gimp does work by using the command line switches --no-fonts --no-data (note the two dashes / one dash)

That should start Gimp up with no resources. Might indicate if fonts are the problem. Normally I would use a terminal but Parth's Gimp being virtually a 'portable' version, I would edit the shortcut and tack the switches on after the quote mark

looks like this http://i.imgur.com/F0RglOc.jpg The same applies to a stock Gimp.

If you can get Gimp up and running, then time to explore

edit: Just had a look at those postscript fonts included in the zip. These are 'Nimbus' typeface not included in my Gimp 2.8.22 / Partha 2.9.5 installations.

[Ofnuts]

(08-13-2017, 12:03 AM)BrassRaptor Wrote: All righty! I checked the MD5 hash and everything seemed to match up perfectly.

I'm also finding it strange that none of the official builds I've downloaded worked. I've never had an issue with downloading and running a creative program on this computer before.

I don't have any antivirus software running on my computer at this time, but I disabled my firewall and re-installed Gimp from the official website just to check as the firewall has caused me problems in the past. I'm still receiving the error at startup, unfortunately.

I had to upload the requested files to Media Fire as it was too big to upload directly to the forum, but here it is: CLICK

MediaFire tried to sell me an iPhone8

So, your brushes, dynamics, gradients and patterns are identical to mine. I don't see your palettes but I admit I forgot to ask.

Is there by any chance a file called "tags.xml" in your Gimp profile? Or any file that has a temporary name (lots of digits and strange extension?). If so you can you zip & attach here?

The tags.xml on my system deals with things in:

• brushes
  
• dynamics
  
• patterns
  
• gradients
  
• palettes
  
• tool-presets
  

So, we know now what to look at... So , two things to try:

1) post the missing directories (MediaFire is fine if necessary)
2) for each of these directories, rename it, replace it with an empty directory, and restart Gimp

[BrassRaptor]

@ Rich2005, thank you for the suggestion!

I tested it by adding the command line switches at the end of the shortcut in Partha's version of Gimp, but I was ultimately met with the same crash error. 

@ Ofnuts, Media Fire wanted to cut you a deal! 

I do have a "tags.xml" file! I will pack it up with palettes and attach it to my post.

I also have also renamed the directories, replaced them with empty directories, and tried to boot up Gimp. It continues to crash at startup while trying to update tag cache.

[rich2005]

Disabling my Gimp profile and starting Gimp 'as-new' the tags.xml is 34,747B against 364B in the zip.

The next entry is

Code:

<resource identifier="gimp-brush-clipboard" checksum="157dcef48665ab465439cfaf10d6feeb">
  </resource>

  <resource identifier="${gimp_data_dir}/brushes/Basic/1-pixel.vbr"....

Do you have a third party clipboard installed?

For Windows, next step might be giving a portable Gimp a try-out.
https://portableapps.com/apps/graphics_p...p_portable

[Ofnuts]

For me the next entry is:

Code:

 <resource identifier="gimp-brush-clipboard" checksum="157dcef48665ab465439cfaf10d6feeb">
   <tag>hearts_gimp_brushes_by_hawksmont</tag>
 </resource>

Strangely, same checksum...

Three more ideas:

- As Rich says, this could be a problem with clipboard contents when the tag cache file is created. Experiment wiht varoius things (copy a small image to the clipboard)

- The two brushes in the tag file seem to come from what is in Linux the file /usr/share/gimp/2.0/tags/gimp-tags-default.xml
I don't quite understand the purpose of this file but given the presence of various foreign language indications, I wonder if this could be a problem with some system language setup?

- If I rename my tags.xml and run Gimp with --verbose I see it complain about not finding the tag cache, but there is no message about updating it. It is eventually created when Gimp exits. So it would be worth erasing/renaming it and see what happens when it is not there when Gimp starts.

After that, if nothing works, head to http://bugzilla.gnome.org and file a bug. The developers will come to the rescue. Hmm. Looks like this bug has been reported (always on Windows 7...). See https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=704816