On Friday 06 March 2009, aether wrote:

And I haven't even opened it yet!

I recently went to open GIMP, and right when I thought GIMP had finished initializing, I got a dialog box that said GIMP needed to close. I was never able to open GIMP after that.

So I uninstalled GIMP and used Search to clean out all of the stray bits left scattered around. I then downloaded a new copy of GIMP 2.6.5. But this new copy is doing exactly the same thing.

I'm honestly not even sure how to go about fixing this one. This sounds to me like I might have a problem on my end--if only because this problem doesn't seem to be happening to anybody else out there. But I don't know where to start looking for the problem if it's on my end. I've not added any new software since the last time I was able to use GIMP.

I would greatly appreciate any advice here, even if it's only of a general nature telling me how I should approach this problem.

Thanks a lot.

You don't say what operating system you are using so I can only assume it is some linux distro.

The first place I would look would be my home directory (/home/yourname). You will want to have your filemanager settings set such that you can see hiddenfiles and directories.

There should be a folder something like /home/yourname/.gimp-2.6 rename this directory (that way you can always go back to it if you want). If you find hidden directories for older versions of gimp you should rename those as well. Then try starting gimp again (preferably from a console window, that way you can watch for error messages). If all goes well gimp will work for you now. If not, you will hopefully find some useful info in the console window.

On the off chance that you are using a less popular operating system (windows for example) it should be possible to addapt these instructions, I'm just not familiar with exactly where gimp keeps its settings on those systems.

good luck

On Saturday 07 March 2009, aether wrote:

dh, hi.

--------snip-------

When GIMP fails to load, I get a message telling me why. I can ask thatmessage for details, and I've saved some of that.

That kind of info will really help you to get more authorative responses from the list

If I can dig out the critical bits in the error report, do you think anybody here on GIMPusers could help me with it? Would you know about that sort of thing?

you bet

Thanks a lot,

Andy

Pardon me if I'm redundant here (I'm typing w/out re-reading your whole message)

usually I find the most relevant errors near the bottom of the console output

something like start menu -> run type cmd in the dialog box
the cli window will open

I think in windows you can just drag the program file (gimp.exe) onto the cli menu and it will auto enter the command for you. Otherwise you need to type something like c:\program files\gimp-2.6\bin\gimp.exe this will start gimp and show you what is happening while the program runs.

messages will scroll by as you mentioned but the few lines before "segfault" or "gimp is exiting" should show you what caused the crash.

As for gimps user related files thew should be found in something like
c:\Documents and Settings\yourname\.gimp-2.6

You have pretty much exhausted my windows knowledge but writing back to the list w/ the results of this info may help someone else help you.

Best of luck

aether wrote:

And I haven't even opened it yet!

I recently went to open GIMP, and right when I thought GIMP had finished initializing, I got a dialog box that said GIMP needed to close. I was never able to open GIMP after that.

So I uninstalled GIMP and used Search to clean out all of the stray bits left scattered around. I then downloaded a new copy of GIMP 2.6.5. But this new copy is doing exactly the same thing.

I'm honestly not even sure how to go about fixing this one. This sounds to me like I might have a problem on my end--if only because this problem doesn't seem to be happening to anybody else out there. But I don't know where to start looking for the problem if it's on my end. I've not added any new software since the last time I was able to use GIMP.

I would greatly appreciate any advice here, even if it's only of a general nature telling me how I should approach this problem.

Thanks a lot.

Just out of curiosity since you have provided no real information about what you have and have not done.....

1. Did you bother taking a look at the task manager to see if there is a gimp process already running that was left over from the installer?

2. Have you looked at the Event Viewer and the application error logs? If they aren't turned on turn on logging for that.

I haven't used windows for several years but that's where I would start.

On Saturday 07 March 2009, aether wrote:

But there is just a ton of support and development behind Windows, so the choice isn't an easy one.  Especially when you're busy!)

oh shure,
see how nice and tidy windwos vista has turned out to be for example.

Have you tired installing GIMP on another computer? If this is successful, there may be an issue with your current computer. I have no IT qualifications except maintaining an old acer laptop with mega program overload for 5 years.....anyway this sort of weird stuff was happening to me on my old acer until I used a registry clean-up program. Sounds a painful, but running the registry clean-up regularly did the trick. I have no explanation except old computers probably short circuit somewhere or the registry goes skew-if..."the ghost in the machine" & all that. Hope this is helpful.

-----Original Message----- From: gimp-user-bounces@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU [mailto:gimp-user-bounces@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU] On Behalf Of aether Sent: Tuesday, 10 March 2009 9:51 PM To: gimp-user@lists.XCF.Berkeley.EDU Subject: [Gimp-user] GIMP needs to close (!)

Hi, again.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me with GIMP. I have checked everything you've suggested, and I find nothing at all.

The exception is the application event viewer, and I don't know how to use that.

I looked all through the error messages that were generated when GIMP had to shut down. There were many pages specs on lots of modules, but it meant nothing to me. There was nothing like a concluding message at the bottom. In
fact, the last 10 pages of the bug report generated for GIMP was nothing but code--it looked like GIMP wanted to see my whole Registry!

I uninstalled GIMP again--and scrubbed out every last bit of clutter left behind. I then installed an earlier version of GIMP, 2.6.4. But no luck; it
shut itself down the instant before it was ready to open.

I am about ready to give up on GIMP. Maybe in a year or so I'll try it again.

In this case, I really think I need to talk with somebody at GIMP or with an expert users forum. GIMP has no public access, though, and I've not found any
kind of expert forum (i.e., not one that deals with GIMP use and applications).

Any last suggestions here?

I was starting to like GIMP, especially since it was shareware, but I can use
PhotoShop and PSP for awhile.

I'll check back later, just in case you guys have any ideas about where I might go with this.

Thanks for your time here,

Andy

On Tuesday 10 March 2009, aether wrote:

Hi, again.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me with GIMP. I have checked everything you've suggested, and I find nothing at all.

The exception is the application event viewer, and I don't know how to use that.

I looked all through the error messages that were generated when GIMP had to shut down. There were many pages specs on lots of modules, but it meant nothing to me. There was nothing like a concluding message at the bottom. In fact, the last 10 pages of the bug report generated for GIMP was nothing but code--it looked like GIMP wanted to see my whole Registry!

I uninstalled GIMP again--and scrubbed out every last bit of clutter left behind. I then installed an earlier version of GIMP, 2.6.4. But no luck; it shut itself down the instant before it was ready to open.

----------snip----------

Thanks for your time here,

Andy

Sorry I can't help more, winders just ain't my gig But if it were I would suggest 2 last things, kind of related to each other.

If I remember right there may be more than 1 source of gimp for windows, in the old days we had to install gtk separately from gimp, the installer I have used recently took care of this for me, but you might look at what is installed gtk wise. (should show up in add remove programs.
Also if people knew where your gimp came from that might help also. (you might also find some help on that site.)

Abiword is another program that uses gtk, you could try installing that, if abiword works, give gimp one more try.

Good luck

David Herman wrote:

On Tuesday 10 March 2009, aether wrote:

Hi, again.

I appreciate you guys taking the time to help me with GIMP. I have checked everything you've suggested, and I find nothing at all.

Abiword is another program that uses gtk, you could try installing that, if abiword works, give gimp one more try.

The typical cause of these kind of problems is that there is a system-wide installation of GTK+ that is incompatible with your version of GIMP. GIMP comes with a compatible version of GTK+, but a system-wide install overrides that.

- Martin

El dv 13 de 03 de 2009 a les 01:32 +0100, en/na aether va escriure:

At this point, I think my best bet is to somehow reach GIMP, but I don't yet see any way of doing that.

So you just have probed that "at least" you have overlooked two pages without understanding what they mean: www.gimp.org that has links with info about mail lists and IRC

http://www.gimpusers.com/forums/gimp-user/ which explicitely says: This forum is connected to the gimp-user mailing list.

So, yes, you have reached the gimp developers, but still you have not provided any valuable info that helps them to help you.

You have been asked about the console output for example, maybe you don't understand all this garbage, but hopefully someone else will understand it, so please, copy it (all it, not just the end) to a place on the web and put the link here. Of course after inspecting that it doesn't contains sensible information.

Can I suggest this read? http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

Hope this helps Pere