GIMP Version: 2.9.5
Operating System: Windows
OS Version: Windows 10 Pro 64-bit
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

List any ERROR messages you received:
Invalid string in environment. invalid byte sequence in conversion input.

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Am getting a lot of errors seemingly out of nowhere when trying to open jpg files, gif files etc, mostly along the lines of the previously stated ERROR messages, also getting that when trying to open G'MIC from within the program and Filters> Animation> Playback also doesn't want to run... I put some scrips in the Portable>scripts folder and I put one plugin in the Portable>plugins folder (anitools.py) but none are showing up, in fact in Filters>Script-Fu> there is no option to "Refresh Scripts" either.
Massively weird problem, no idea the cause of it, here's a screenshot of one of the error messages:


Hope someone has an easy solution... meanwhile I can still use some features I specifically got 2.9.5 for, but not having Gmic,
Anitools nor the ability to open anything apart from .xcf's is a tad annoying!!

Thanks

P.S. Before all this happened I did uninstall (or rather "delete") the program, change to an earlier version then re-install again because I had problems with the "eye" and "link" symbols not showing in the Layers dock... (not sure if that's related).

Edit>Preferences>Folders: where are the folders for scripts and plugins? Do they exist? Do they contain something?

Edit>Preferences>Folders all pointing to the correct destinations, yes, no problem there.

For instance :

Yes, but what ave you got in these directories? And if present, are the file-* plugins listed in the pluginrc file in the "portable" directory?

Sorry, yes the plugins etc are definitely in the correct folder I checked that, but looking, as you suggested at the pluginrc file, there's no mention of anitools (which is the only plugin I have in that folder currently) according to the Find tool in Notepad++ (and i trust that... if I had to scroll through it all I'd quite possibly miss it..) anyway. So not sure what could be up , as Wallace mentioned maybe something to do with a Profile or something? Not sure though as it's been fine up until just now so it's a bit of a mystery.

How does GIMP do that Wallace, or do you mean I have to name and place a folder for all that... similar to the .gimp-2.8 folder in my User profile (for GIMP 2.8 in that case..?)

OK, but with GIMP 2.9.5 I have to put the user variable stuff (brushes, patterns, gradients, scripts etc) in the "portable" folder, so should I rename that?

Are the rc files in the preferences folder?
Try just going into the profile folder (where you add new resources, brushes,gradients,patterns, ect) and removing these rc files.
gimprc
pluginrc
gtkrc
restart GIMP-2.9.5
GIMP will rewrite these files upon restart.

Usually the culprit will be the gimprc file. But remove all 3.

Still no joy, I take it you meant the portable folder (maybe I should have said that this is "GIMP 2.9.5 64-bit Standard Edition portable" I'm referring to specifically from www.partha.com/) anyway i tried the steps you mentioned Rod but upon re-starting the same problems persisted, however the gimprc file doesn't seem to have been rewritten, I tried it a couple of times and the file is not there anymore. So I've restored it from the recycle bin put it back, still not good after re-starting...
This is what I've worked out now so far - - Everything works fine IF, and ONLY IF, I don't put anything extra in the resources (portable) folder, as soon as I do that plug-ins fail and stuff is just weird.. for now I've taken all the extra stuff away and it's like it should be including the ability to "Script-Fu> Refresh Scripts.. although it's a bit pointless right now lol, and I still can't fathom what the reason it all suddenly went like this, I checked my PC for malware - nothing, did "chkdsk" - all good, did "sfc /SCANNOW" = no problems, the registry I don't know much about but I used CCleaner to clean that up. So back to square 1 .. thanks everyone for the help so far. though .

I changed the name of the folder to "Portable-old" and when I started GIMP 2.9 it created a new "Portable" folder, fine I thought.. now I'll restart, which I did, BIZARRELY now I have a lot of scripts (tons in fact) from my .gimp-2.8 folder, even though Edit>Preferences in 2.9 doesn't go to them.. there's no Refresh Scripts for Script-Fu under Filters though.. this must be some weird anomaly because although I double-clicked to open the program, 2 instances of "GIMP startup" appeared (possibly me overclicking ..) anyway I managed to kill one of them thinking it would be fine, but the remaining one was showing a splash screen for 2.8, when the prog opened though it was clearly 2.9.. (MyPaint brushes, general theme and other things made that obvious) - Oh well Fun 'n' Games

EDIT: The reason the program was showing the Gimp 2.8 splash screen, scripts and everything was because when it created the new folder it seems to have copied over all the folder from there, there's even 2 gimprc's (well one is gimprc~) so.. still bizarre.

@Zero01
Could see nothing much wrong, until you started deleting gtkrc ..etc

Just for the record, a regular Gimp 2.9.5 (not portable) will try and migrate any Gimp 2.8 settings / scripts / plugins from the Gimp profile C:\Users\your-name\.gimp-2.8 to the Gimp 2.9.5 profile C:\Users\your-name\AppData\Roaming\GIMP\2.9

I do know it works. Not a tutorial just a demo video using Win10 and Partha gimp-2.9.5-std-portable

https://youtu.be/F7TdTlYmzYA four and a half minutes maybe you can see some difference with your installation.

Couldn't see anything majorly different between your installation and my own rich..

I only deleted gimprc, as this was more likely to be troublesome according to Rod, anyway it didn't seem to work properly as another instance or gimprc was supposed to be created after re-starting but this never happened. The "C:\User\AppData\Roaming" folder I have has never seen a 2.9 folder created there but as you say that's for the regular version, not the portable.

So here's where I'm at now: I renamed the folder portable-old, new portable folder was created and GIMP migrates all the 2.8 settings from the Gimp profile to there.... I got a lot of the scripts and plugins back (hooray!) although some of them weren't working - (maybe relied on dependencies that were not available or other reasons.. just not 2.9.5 compatible I suppose) - anyway that seemed okay, could open jpeg's etc, AND Script-Fu> Refresh Scripts was showing... then, as I don't want all the masses of plugins etc I got rid of a load but upon restarting the Script-Fu>Refresh Scripts is not available again, Anitools works fine, but not seeing a couple of scripts that I kept (i.e. Reverse Layerstack, and a couple of pre-scripted guides..) BUT I can't open jpeg's png's gif's etc now, only .xcf's...

Tried a few things but not able to reproduce that problem with opening files after refreshing scripts. It could be that my Win10 VM is very basic with not much installed.

An alternative portable from Samj is up-to-date, 1 July 2017 might be worth a try.

http://samjcreations.blogspot.co.uk/201 ... p-295.html

On the other hand, if you ever move to 'buntu/mint I can point you to a very nice portable linux Gimp 2.9.5 (an appimage)

A few observations on the samj version.
Unpacked the 7z archive, using 64 bit so copied the 64 folder over to the desktop.
Started it using the GIMP_EN launcher. Easy enough to make a shortcut to this. It is a traditional gimp-dev for win, you get a terminal, minimise it but do not close.

Some error messages, but I get those in my linux portable 2.9.5 as well. AFAIK lots of changed to babl happening, causing havoc... but it works.



Gmic is installed, but that is about all.
The 'portable' gimp profile is that Preference folder.
If you want the MyPaint brushes you need to copy from the 7zip Sample Images, make a folder, set up a path in Edit -> Preferences -> Folders.
The only 'extra' that it comes with is a recent g'mic-qt. Which IMHO is a good thing, set it up the way you want.

Thanks again, just wrote out a message here, thought I had hit "Submit" but it was nowhere to be seen.. oh well...

Yes, it seems that it's working.. I was trying it out this morning but I got a lot of the similar problems as I had with Partha's - only after poring over the console output recently I saw that there was a HUGE list of errors mostly to do with environmental map .png's - don't know why that would be, but since I got rid of the contents of preferences>environ, it's all been working as it should, Anitools, arakne-path-creator, g'mic all good, reverse layerstack and the special Guides all there.. and i can open all the image formats! So it was something to do with the environ files I'm pretty sure.. can't remember the exact wording but somethoing like "illegal variable name" or "..illegal [something]", maybe Partha's will work now I've done this, will try that another day..

BTW - There are MyPaint brushes in the GimpEval-2.9.5-Win package, in the "images_test" folder but saying that I'm having trouble getting them to appear even though I've set them up in Edit>Preferences... might be doing something wrong will try again.

Already hate Win10 and Gimp dark themes, so no change there, but if you can see this, I tried to get every thing in one screenshot.

MyPaint Brushes

1. Make a new folder in that Preferences folder. Copy the Mypaint folders into it.
2. Open the samj Gimp 2.9.5, then Edit -> Preferences -> Folders -> Mypaint Brushes.
3. Add a new location and browse to the folder you just created.



Does it work - yes
Also made a shortcut to the GIMP_EN launcher for convenience. Weird icon