Greetings, forum. Yesterday afternoon (Thu Aug 12, 2021), my GIMP 2.10.24-rev-1, on Windows 10 64-bit, started malfunctioning for no reason at all. Nothing in Windows had changed. Nothing in GIMP had changed.
The nature of the malfunction is, any attempt to click any sub-menu of the File menu ("New", "Open", "Save-As", "Export-As") causes GIMP to freeze. The program enters a "not-responding" state indefinitely and has to be terminated by first clicking the "X" in the upper-right corner, then clicking the "Terminate Program" button on the "this program is not responding" box that pops up, then clicking "cancel" on the "lets tell Microsoft all about this" box that then pops up.
This is not acceptable, because while I can edit and alter images all I like (by first opening them in GIMP via Windows Explorer, thus bypassing the broken "File" menu), I can't save any of my work!
Steps I've taken in attempt to solve this:
1. Re-installed GIMP on top of itself. Result: Problem persists.
2. Un-installed then re-installed GIMP. Result: Problem persists.
I'm at a loss. I have no idea what caused this problem, no idea of why uninstall-then-reinstall failed to fix it, and no idea on how to fix it. Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?
08-13-2021, 11:19 AM (This post was last modified: 08-13-2021, 11:20 AM by rich2005.)
Quote:This is not acceptable, because while I can edit and alter images all I like (by first opening them in GIMP via Windows Explorer, thus bypassing the broken "File" menu), I can't save any of my work!
However, some things to try. Reinstalling Gimp over itself rarely does any good. I find even uninstalling first, leaves some remains. Un-install, close and re-open Windows and the folder C:\Program Files\GIMP 2 will now delete.
Then the version, There are bug fixes to the Windows 2.10.24 installer, it is up to #3 https://download.gimp.org/mirror/pub/gim...etup-3.exe
Installing does not remove the User profile C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\ which is often contains the problem. Disable that by re-naming to
C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP-backup Start up Gimp and see if it makes any difference.
Always difficult with Windows, MS updates without notice so do AV applications. Who Knows ?
Quote:This is not acceptable, because while I can edit and alter images all I like (by first opening them in GIMP via Windows Explorer, thus bypassing the broken "File" menu), I can't save any of my work!
However, some things to try. Reinstalling Gimp over itself rarely does any good. I find even uninstalling first, leaves some remains. Un-install, close and re-open Windows and the folder C:\Program Files\GIMP 2 will now delete.
Then the version, There are bug fixes to the Windows 2.10.24 installer, it is up to #3 https://download.gimp.org/mirror/pub/gim...etup-3.exe
Installing does not remove the User profile C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\ which is often contains the problem. Disable that by re-naming to
C:\Users\"yourname"\AppData\Roaming\GIMP-backup Start up Gimp and see if it makes any difference.
Always difficult with Windows, MS updates without notice so do AV applications. Who Knows ?
Re "Not acceptable?": Yes, not acceptable. I meant "acceptable" in the sense of "Adequate; Satisfactory":
The behavior of my malfunctioning GIMP is the opposite of that.
Re "No use complaining here, no Gimp developers visit.": I did not address my post to "Gimp developers", but rather, to this forum.
Re "The place for bug reports is...": I did not title my post "bug report", I never said anything about "bug", and I'm not even certain this this problem is a "bug". In fact, I think it probably isn't.
Re "There are bug fixes to the Windows 2.10.24 installer, it is up to #3": GIMP developers make changes to their installer without updating version number? Confusing. But thanks for the tip; I'll download and try that.
Re "Installing does not remove the User profile C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\ which is often contains the problem. Disable that by re-naming to C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\GIMP-backup Start up Gimp and see if it makes any difference.": I'll try that. Thanks for the tip.
Re "Always difficult with Windows, MS updates without notice so do AV applications": I thought about that too. So I tried uninstalling all windows updates from the last few days and restarting, but the problem remains. Not that I really expected that to fix anything, because there were no Windows updates between "last moment of GIMP working fine" and "first moment of GIMP malfunctioning".
Update: I left Gimp in a "not-responding" state after requesting "File-Open", came back a half-hour later, and the File-Open box was finally up! Just, it took about 2000 seconds to come up, which is 20,000 times longer than the 0.1 seconds (or so) it usually takes. But after that initial half-hour delay, all menu items work normally again for a half-hour or so. Then GIMP goes back into a "not-responding" state for another half-hour, then works normally for a half-hour again. Very weird. But at least I now have some things to try; thanks for the information.
(08-13-2021, 11:47 PM)LagrangeL4 Wrote: Update: I left Gimp in a "not-responding" state after requesting "File-Open", came back a half-hour later, and the File-Open box was finally up! Just, it took about 2000 seconds to come up, which is 20,000 times longer than the 0.1 seconds (or so) it usually takes. But after that initial half-hour delay, all menu items work normally again for a half-hour or so. Then GIMP goes back into a "not-responding" state for another half-hour, then works normally for a half-hour again. Very weird. But at least I now have some things to try; thanks for the information.
This looks like the old "phantom diskette drive" problem. Usually when the file dialogs are very slow to open it is because Windows thinks a filesystem/drive is available when it it not. So, beside the phantom diskette drive (fixable with a change in the BIOS configuration) other potential culprits are network drives (including possibly cloud storage support).
08-20-2021, 03:59 AM (This post was last modified: 08-20-2021, 04:09 AM by LagrangeL4.)
(08-14-2021, 12:27 AM)Ofnuts Wrote:
(08-13-2021, 11:47 PM)LagrangeL4 Wrote: Update: I left Gimp in a "not-responding" state after requesting "File-Open", came back a half-hour later, and the File-Open box was finally up! Just, it took about 2000 seconds to come up, which is 20,000 times longer than the 0.1 seconds (or so) it usually takes. But after that initial half-hour delay, all menu items work normally again for a half-hour or so. Then GIMP goes back into a "not-responding" state for another half-hour, then works normally for a half-hour again. Very weird. But at least I now have some things to try; thanks for the information.
This looks like the old "phantom diskette drive" problem. Usually when the file dialogs are very slow to open it is because Windows thinks a filesystem/drive is available when it it not. So, beside the phantom diskette drive (fixable with a change in the BIOS configuration) other potential culprits are network drives (including possibly cloud storage support).
Ah, yes, that seems very likely, because I'm always attaching and detaching removable drives (both for off-line storage and for backups), and I usually have one or two other partitions on other computers attached as "mapped network drives", and those can change during a session. So if GIMP requests "what drives are present" from Windows, and Windows replies with "no-longer-valid" info, then GIMP tries to access those drives, I can see how that could lead to freeze-ups. And it would explain why this problem went away the next day: I turned all my computers off for the night, and when I restarted them the next day, Windows was then presenting "fresh" data when GIMP asked "what drives are available?" when I click any of the items in the "File" menu.
Further update: A day later, the problem just "went away" by itself, before I had a chance to even try the things suggested by others. I think now that "Ofnuts" has it right when he suggested that this problem was due to a disconnected drive that Windows was reporting to GIMP that didn't actually exist. So I think the workaround is going to be, if I do any disconnection of drives (either USB SSDs, or mapped network "drives" which are actually HD partitions on other computers), I should probably restart my computer before launching GIMP, so that Windows is providing "up-to-date" information when I click any of the items in GIMP's "File" menu that attempt to bring up a file-browsing box listing available drives.
So I think we can safely mark this case as "Closed". My thanks to all who offered suggestions; you ended up pointing me in the right direction.
Final Update: I finally managed to trace the problem to the source! And it has nothing to do with GIMP at all! Nor does it have anything to do with Windows, really. "Ofnuts" hit very close to the source with his suggestion re "phantom drives". The problem is a failing disk controller on another computer on my home network. Two of the partitions of that machine appear as network drives Q: and R: on the machine with the malfunctioning GIMP. Attempting to access Q: or R: via Windows Explorer causes Windows Explorer to freeze-up for 30 minutes. And since GIMP has to use the same function calls to the same DLL files as Windows Explorer does when I click File/New or File/Save or File/Open, GIMP also freezes up for 30 minutes, waiting for Windows, which is waiting for the disk controller on the other machine to return info re drives "Q:" and "R:".
The cure is for me to get rid of that damn computer completely. It's a dinosaur and a dunsel. I've only been using it because it's the only computer I have that's compatible with my old Epson scanner/printer. But I just ordered a brand-new Cannon scanner/printer, so I'll now be able to put that old computer out to pasture.
So, again, thanks to all who offered help; thanks to your hints, I was able to trace this problem to its root.
(08-20-2021, 11:52 AM)LagrangeL4 Wrote: I've only been using it because it's the only computer I have that's compatible with my old Epson scanner/printer.
I have a quite old Epson scanner (V200), and it is supported by my Linux.
