I've got some issues that literally started this week. Last week, GIMP was running nicely, as it always had. Since yesterday, it's been almost unusable.

I have tried upgrading to 2.10, uninstalling everything and reinstalling 2.10, uninstalling everything again and downgrading to 2.8.22.

What IS working: loading, saving, and exporting are fine, they're no slower than usual. Key commands for the tools work, mostly.

The issues: 1) Tools lagging: let's say I use the Clone tool. After making a selection, the brush won't follow the cursor as I use the tool. When I clone over an area, the brush stays at the point where I made my selection. When I click to make another selection elsewhere, the brush jumps to the new point. Let's say I use the Free Select tool. When I click to place an anchor point, the line between anchor points doesn't follow the cursor as I move it to the next spot. The line will only appear between anchor points when I place the next one.

2) UI not responding: I cannot click on tool buttons in the sidebar with mouse or trackpad. I can't scroll up or down on the image with the mouse wheel. I also can't use the mouse wheel to change the zoom or the tool settings, such as brush size or angle.

3) Cursor not changing with tools: If I switch from Clone to Smudge, the Clone icon on the cursor will not be replaced with the Smudge icon.

If I switch to another program and then back to GIMP, the issues resolve themselves momentarily. They'll start again as soon as I do anything within the program. Obviously, I can't be clicking back and forth between programs every 30 seconds.

Sometimes, the problems don't all happen together. But they're all happening and none of these were an issue a few days ago. What can I do to try and address this? What's a possible cause?

The computer: HP G62 running Windows 7. Processor: Intel Core i5 CPU, M 460 @ 2.53GHz, 3.80GB usable RAM, 64-bit OS,

Thanks for the reply! Not much has changed-- I really only run Firefox, GIMP, Inkscape, and Atom on this laptop. And Inkscape only gets used a couple times per week, and rarely at the same time as GIMP. Inkscape was not running when the GIMP problems started, but Firefox was. Firefox was running but not actively being utilized. I hadn't really used Firefox on this laptop for several days prior to the problems starting. I haven't installed or removed any programs. My usage of FF on this laptop is pretty limited, I mostly run class videos and related webpages on it. No videos were playing when the problems started. The problems started on Tuesday, and I hadn't run any videos on this laptop during the weekend, nor did I run any videos on Monday.

I don't think there's been any system updates, either.

Inkscape was also having uncharacteristic problems over the weekend, before the GIMP problems started. Firefox is running as normal, no slowdowns. Right now I have FF and GIMP open. I'm mystified as to what the issue is, since this laptop has had no trouble running GIMP and FF concurrently until now.

What has changed on your computer system in the past few days? It could
be programs you've installed or removed, or a system update, or a change to the way your virus checker runs, or a change in the way you're using another program - e.g. you've started watching a live youtube feed :)
With only 4G of RAM installed, you are likely to have problems running more than one program at a time. I know, I know, that was a lot of memory only milliseconds ago. See e.g.

https://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Notebook-Hardware-and-Upgrade-Questions/HP-G62-Max-Ram/td-p/2239693

slave liam (ankh)