Crash/Freeze on Large Image File

[Punchcard]

Windows 7 64 bit
16 GB memory
Gimp 2.10.36
560 MB TIF file

When working with Selecting in a 560 MB TIF file, Gimp became unresponsive.
After bouncing around with Fuzzy and Invert, I think I was using By Color when Gimp got fed up.
It did recognize a mouse click on the "x" to exit, though.

When Selecting in the 500 MB image, memory usage went to about 7.5 GB, not all Gimp.
But I didn't catch Task Manager's display when Gimp fizzled.

Is there some way I can gather info to identify the cause?

[Ofnuts]

Windows > Dockable dialogs > Dashboard has several useful meters: RAM, Swap, and CPU. If Gimp starts using its swap, things slow down considerably (it
other system apps aren't impacted).

Is the image a high-precision one?

[Punchcard]

(03-16-2024, 01:03 AM)Ofnuts Wrote: Windows > Dockable dialogs > Dashboard has several useful meters: RAM, Swap, and CPU. If Gimp starts using its swap, things slow down considerably (it
other system apps aren't impacted).

Is the image a high-precision one?

Typical image file is from a film scanner, medium format color negative, 4,800 PPI, 97,955,104 pixels.

Gimp Preferences/Folders/Other says the swap file is in folder C:\Users\RJD\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\gimp\, which doesn't exist.
I understand neither why Gimp points to that folder, nor what is in ...\Temporary Internet Files\.

Tile cache size is 8,330,310 Kibibytes.

My plan: Keep Dashboard visible.  Save XCF often.  Maybe enlarge tile cache to 12 GB.

Here is a typical Dashboard:
Cache
  Occupied 6.8 GiB
  Limit 7.9 GiB
Swap
  Occupied 163.8 MiB  This seems odd, since available memory is 4.8 GB.
  Size 164.0 MiB
  Limit 216.0 GiB
Memory
  Cache 6.8 GiB
  Tile 7.3 GiB
  Used 8.0 GiB
  Available 4.8 GiB
  Size 15.9 GiB

[PixLab]

(03-16-2024, 05:17 PM)Punchcard Wrote:

(03-16-2024, 01:03 AM)Ofnuts Wrote: Windows > Dockable dialogs > Dashboard has several useful meters: RAM, Swap, and CPU. If Gimp starts using its swap, things slow down considerably (it
other system apps aren't impacted).

Is the image a high-precision one?

Typical image file is from a film scanner, medium format color negative, 4,800 PPI, 97,955,104 pixels.

Gimp Preferences/Folders/Other says the swap file is in folder C:\Users\RJD\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Temporary Internet Files\gimp\, which doesn't exist.
I understand neither why Gimp points to that folder, nor what is in ...\Temporary Internet Files\.

Tile cache size is 8,330,310 Kibibytes.

My plan: Keep Dashboard visible.  Save XCF often.  Maybe enlarge tile cache to 12 GB.

Here is a typical Dashboard:
Cache
  Occupied 6.8 GiB
  Limit 7.9 GiB
Swap
  Occupied 163.8 MiB  This seems odd, since available memory is 4.8 GB.
  Size 164.0 MiB
  Limit 216.0 GiB
Memory
  Cache 6.8 GiB
  Tile 7.3 GiB
  Used 8.0 GiB
  Available 4.8 GiB
  Size 15.9 GiB

97,955,104 pixels = 97 megapixels, for comparison a 1920x1080 = 2 mega, and you said also a 560 MB TIF file, the size is more than half GB... no need to search anymore where the problem comes from, this is a huge image,

My suggestion, if you are working with 100 megapixels/half a Giga images ➤ add RAM to your computer to get like twice what you have now, maybe even more for comfort  
Your CPU might be old as well, GIMP uses CPU, what CPU is yours?

I can see how a simple rotation or a use of a brush will slow everything down, I have 24Gb RAM, few time I did manipulate images similar size, I did get a lot of time between filters to make a coffee and drink it before something happened.... and I don't even speak to add multiple layers... or making selections, especially with the fuzzy select or by color, you go straight to the wall..

A simple tip while upgrading your hardware, immediately after any use of any transform tool to limit "the damages", is to do a Layer ➤ Layer To Image Size

EDIT: I just saw "Windows 7 64 bit" your computer is 15+ years old?

[Ofnuts]

So, you have:

• 16GB RAM (according to Memory/Size)
  
• Probably 216GB of free disk space, at least on the drive where the Gimp swap file is (Swap/Limit)
  
• Gimp will use at most 8GB of the RAM, to keep image data (Cache/Limit)
  
• Since the RAM tile cache is nearly full, Gimp has started to swap over to disk (Swap/Occupied)
  
• You have 4.8GB of free RAM (Memory/Available)
  

Gimp splits image data (layer, masks, channels, and undo steps, that are for a good part plain copies of layers) in "tiles". When Gimp need memory for tiles, it picks it from the tile cache. If the tile cache is exhausted/full, it moves some of its contents to the swap file so that it can reallocate the cache to the new image data. However, since there is disk access, there is an I/O-induced slow down. How important is the slow down depends on several things (SD or HDD, file system, encryption...) but even in the good cases it is a nuisance and introduces long delays.

The tile cache size is defined in your preferences (System Resources/Resource consumption). The idea is to define a cache as large as possible, but not too large, because if the cache is too large, Gimp no longer benevolently swaps its data to disk in a way that is optimized for its own usage, but uses virtual memory like all other other apps, and this may lead to more memory used than you have RAM and your whole system starts swapping (and this impacts all other apps) and this is an even worse nuisance.

Since you have free RAM, you can definitely increase your tile cache to 12GB, and this will likely help somewhat. But you should keep on eye on the swap in the dashboard; when it starts to fill, things will be slow. don't abandon all hope on Gimp freezes, see if there is I/O activity or CPU activity on your system monitor (the Gimp dashboard is pretty much useless during these seizure episodes since it too is momentarily frozen).

[Punchcard]

(03-17-2024, 03:36 AM)PixLab Wrote: 97,955,104 pixels = 97 megapixels, for comparison a 1920x1080 = 2 mega, and you said also a 560 MB TIF file, the size is more than half GB... no need to search anymore where the problem comes from, this is a huge image,

My suggestion, if you are working with 100 megapixels/half a Giga images ➤ add RAM to your computer to get like twice what you have now, maybe even more for comfort  
Your CPU might be old as well, GIMP uses CPU, what CPU is yours?

I can see how a simple rotation or a use of a brush will slow everything down, I have 24Gb RAM, few time I did manipulate images similar size, I did get a lot of time between filters to make a coffee and drink it before something happened.... and I don't even speak to add multiple layers... or making selections, especially with the fuzzy select or by color, you go straight to the wall..

A simple tip while upgrading your hardware, immediately after any use of any transform tool to limit "the damages", is to do a Layer ➤ Layer To Image Size

EDIT: I just saw "Windows 7 64 bit" your computer is 15+ years old?

Many thanks for your response!

I scan negatives at 4800 to avoid issues with inadequate dpi on printing, especially after cropping. The negatives are nominal 2" square.  Enlarging to 18.5" on 13" X 19" paper prints 519 dpi, before cropping.  (I ignore the convention that 300 dpi is adequate.)
Newegg is shipping me another 16 GB. My motherboard's max is only 32 GB.
In the chart at https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks, my Intel i3-2120 scores 501, 65 watts.
The top CPU, Intel Core i9-14900KF, scores 3108, 253 watts.
My computer is from 2012.  Its ASUS motherboard is from 2015.  (Windows 10 bricked my original Foxconn motherboard.)

---

(03-17-2024, 09:09 AM)Ofnuts Wrote: So, you have:

• 16GB RAM (according to Memory/Size)
  
• Probably 216GB of free disk space, at least on the drive where the Gimp swap file is (Swap/Limit)
  
• Gimp will use at most 8GB of the RAM, to keep image data (Cache/Limit)
  
• Since the RAM tile cache is nearly full, Gimp has started to swap over to disk (Swap/Occupied)
  
• You have 4.8GB of free RAM (Memory/Available)
  

Gimp splits image data (layer, masks, channels, and undo steps, that are for a good part plain copies of layers) in "tiles". When Gimp need memory for tiles, it picks it from the tile cache. If the tile cache is exhausted/full, it moves some of its contents to the swap file so that it can reallocate the cache to the new image data. However, since there is disk access, there is an I/O-induced slow down. How important is the slow down depends on several things (SD or HDD, file system, encryption...) but even in the good cases it is a nuisance and introduces long delays.

The tile cache size is defined in your preferences (System Resources/Resource consumption). The idea is to define a cache as large as possible, but not too large, because if the cache is too large, Gimp no longer benevolently swaps its data to disk in a way that is optimized for its own usage, but uses virtual memory like all other other apps, and this may lead to more memory used than you have RAM and your whole system starts swapping (and this impacts all other apps) and this is an even worse nuisance.

Since you have free RAM, you can definitely increase your tile cache to 12GB, and this will likely help somewhat. But you should keep on eye on the swap in the dashboard; when it starts to fill, things will be slow. don't abandon all hope on Gimp freezes, see if there is I/O activity or CPU activity on your system monitor (the Gimp dashboard is pretty much useless during these seizure episodes since it too is momentarily frozen).

Thanks for your response!
I am happy to make Gimp's cache selfishly large.  I am the only user, and any other applications are doing nothing.
I did increase cache to 12 GB.  After Selecting and tweaking Contrast, Gimp became unresponsive.  Per Task Manager, CPU went to 25%.  (My machine has two cores and four threads.)  After an hour, I decided increasing contrast in the sky was expendable.
Saying Gimp crashed or froze is wrong; it was running.  It appears to be looping or working on a heavy chore, as discussed earlier.

Is there an instrumented (debug) version of Gimp that I can interrupt to see what it's doing?

[Ofnuts]

(03-17-2024, 07:56 PM)Punchcard Wrote: Thanks for your response!
I am happy to make Gimp's cache selfishly large.  I am the only user, and any other applications are doing nothing.
I did increase cache to 12 GB.  After Selecting and tweaking Contrast, Gimp became unresponsive.  Per Task Manager, CPU went to 25%.  (My machine has two cores and four threads.)  After an hour, I decided increasing contrast in the sky was expendable.
Saying Gimp crashed or froze is wrong; it was running.  It appears to be looping or working on a heavy chore, as discussed earlier.

Is there an instrumented (debug) version of Gimp that I can interrupt to see what it's doing?

No debug version I know of. You can of course recompile your own But you don't report how much memory Gimp was using (screenshot of the dashboard before you add contrast) or if the swap file was created and if so how big it was.

[PixLab]

(03-17-2024, 07:56 PM)Punchcard Wrote: Many thanks for your response!

I scan negatives at 4800 to avoid issues with inadequate dpi on printing, especially after cropping. The negatives are nominal 2" square.  Enlarging to 18.5" on 13" X 19" paper prints 519 dpi, before cropping.  (I ignore the convention that 300 dpi is adequate.)
Newegg is shipping me another 16 GB. My motherboard's max is only 32 GB.
In the chart at https://browser.geekbench.com/processor-benchmarks, my Intel i3-2120 scores 501, 65 watts.
The top CPU, Intel Core i9-14900KF, scores 3108, 253 watts.
My computer is from 2012.  Its ASUS motherboard is from 2015.  (Windows 10 bricked my original Foxconn motherboard.)

Increasing the RAM will help, a lot, IMO ➤ but in your case don't expect miracle, because having a 13 years old dual core CPU (released first quarter of 2011) will also be another bottleneck, and if you are doing a lot of those huge images, at one point you might have to choose ➤ reduce their sizes or buy a modern computer.
It's just my thoughts.

Anyway, once your RAM is installed, please keep us updated.