any clue as to why my template drop down box has become disabled when I open new file, or how I can check on it to see what's up?

Which template are you referring to.

all of them
when I go to file, new, the dialog box where the template drop down box was, has a shortened text box and the drop down arrow is greyed out. Until the other day, the template box was normal and showed the full text box and arrow, and the arrow would let the long drop down list show.

Have you tried the reset button in the New Image dialog?

Is it also grayed out in Edit > Preferences > Default Image?

I did reset...nada
and yes it is greyed out in preferences/default image.
now off to the hardware store to buy some cement so our garden gate will stop blowing over!

In your Documents and Settings/<yourname>/.gimp-2.4 folder do you have a file named templaterc? That's the file that holds your templates.

If it's not there, you may want to do a file search for templaterc in case it got moved somewhere else. Also look in your trash can.

If you happen to find it, you need to put it back into your /.gimp-2.4 folder.

Then again, I believe whether you have that file or not, you should still have the default templates and the drop down list.

Does anything else seem to be not working for you.

Another option is to try making a new template by going into Prefs/Default Image and making a new template by changing the Default image size measurements then click OK. It may (or may not) make a dropdown happen. Or maybe you'd get an error message that would give you a clue about what is wrong.

yes, templaterc is there and no, resetting (I had already made my own change for the default the other day) the default image does not help. Lol, it's not a big deal, I rarely use the templates, but it is rather odd that they have disappeared. I have only made one template myself, and never knew what most of the other template sizes were. I wonder if it has anything to do with all the brushes, scripts, and plug-ins that I have stuffed into gimp recently.

Well, I finally figured out how to add templates...could someone tell me where to find a list of the default templates and what their sizes are? I have no idea how I lost mine, but the original template list is gone.

Look in C:\Program files\GIMP-2.0\etc\gimp\2.0

Is there a templaterc file too? And a file called templates-menu.xml

The one in documents and settings are custom templates, I think the one on program files are the default ones.

We have the same problem which my image template are disabled in my desktop computer. I have gimp installed 2 computers Desktop/Laptop.
What I did is I copy the templaterc which in my laptop computer and pasted it in my desktop computer, of course you need Flash drive to copy it from laptop to desktop.
C:/Users/YourUserName/gimp-2.8/ - find the templaterc file

ok so here we are 2021 and guess what I finally have the same issue, my gimp templets have poofed, however, I do not have a documents and settings folder that contains gimp since the Win 10 filing system is different. I am searching my entire computer for the templates-menu.xml file but from the looks of it is where it is supposed to be. In all the other locations I checked everything is where it is, except the templates themselves. It is so frustrating, is someone don't mind listing them or posting a screenshot of the default once so I can add them back in that would be fantastic. Thank you in advance.

screenshot of all the templates I have (they are the default ones, I never added nor removed even one of them)

Maybe because it is not called templates-menu.xml

templaterc gets copied from C:\Program Files\ GIMP 2\etc\gimp\2.0 to your User profilewhen a new profile is made.



Check and see if it is there in C:\Program Files\...... Not there ? Might be one of the very few times you need to reinstall Gimp.