GIMP Version: 2.8.10
Operating System: Linux
GIMP Experience: Intermediate Level

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Hello, everyone! This might be my first post on these forums, but I have read through this site very regularly for helpful tips that have kept me from needing Photoshop for the past two years as a digital artist. GIMP still does everything I need, even now that I have an art tablet.

However, I recently bumped into a glaring issue with the latest update, 2.8.10, that cuts into my work flow, and I haven't found any help on the issue through Google. Regardless of whether the selection outline, the marching ants, is toggled, it will not appear on the main view. It seems to work fine in secondary tabs, but tabs remove useful screen space on this wide screen of mine.

I have been using GIMP since 2.6, and have not encountered an issue like this before. If I can't figure out why a bug fix update broke something that prevents me from seeing my selections, (Sometimes I have a dozen selections for shading, depending on layering modes.) I'll have to revert to GIMP 2.8.6. It does this on both Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12.04 LTS of GIMP 2.8.10, so it's not the OS's fault.

Welcome to Gimp Chat MrGlaceon. I sometimes lose the marching ants in 2.6. It's quite rare and the only solution is to reboot Gimp.

Under View, does it show Layer boundry? Sometimes that gets turned off by mistake, if it is turned off there will be no marching ants.

Thanks for the fast response, the both of you! And that is true, molly, the marching ants don't do anything outside visible boundaries. I wish the issue were this simple, however, since I still see my boundaries are on while this happens.



So this is a long standing issue? It's happening to me predictably now; it doesn't take long for the ants to disappear.

Yes, I have Ubuntu on one hard drive, and Windows on another, so it's the same machine. GIMP is also incredibly stable, and I have only experienced crashes with 2.6 versions.

And like I said, this has never happened to me with any version of GIMP before the 2.8.10 update; now it's predictable. If this is the result of using a tablet with GIMP, (Which means I have three different cursors assigned to different tools.) or the way I have arranged my tools, I am at a loss to figure it out.

I would link to a Sta.sh URL of my GIMP setup, as it's fairly modified, but this site tells me I need a higher post count before I'm allowed to link off-site.

After two more posts MrGlaceon, you will be able to post your URL.

I haven't downgraded yet, since I am still in the middle of my next fan art piece, and don't want to chance having an unusable GIMP during that.

However, I have seen undo levels not work before, while switching between the pen and the eraser, causing my hand touching the tablet surface to create a click with whatever tool was assigned to the mouse. So if the mouse input erased or inked a part, that momentary action can't be undone, but actions caused by the tablet are perfectly visible in the undo history.

I have kept the mouse assigned to the eye dropper while using the tablet ever since. That much seems more like a bug than a memory leak, and even when working with projects that used 1GB of memory, I've never experienced a leak. GIMP 2.8 has been pretty stable for me.



GIMP does this on me while I use the mouse for plotting out background details as well, so it might not be the tablet's fault directly. I also have to mention again that the selection boundary is visible in other tabs besides the first, but refuses to show up on the main canvas. I have my bets on something breaking.

It's a good thought going to bugzilla, so I will consider that and hope the developers will know what's up. In the meantime, I most likely will have to downgrade if I can't figure out why it's doing that.



Thanks for letting me know! I wasn't sure if it would be ten posts or more before I could do that.

Since my workspace simplifies most of the interface, this is what it usually looks like : http://sta.sh/01ayk9l5ccuo

Very interesting MrGlaceon. Your work is very nice.

Thanks, molly. I enjoy putting a lot of time and effort into my work.

Pretty sure K1's right about my arrangement not affecting the selection tool, so after I'm done with my current work in progress piece, I'll downgrade to 2.8.6, and see if the selection problem is still prevalent there. (I did not yet have the tablet while 2.8.6 was still current.) If it's a break exclusive to 2.8.10, I will register on bugzilla and report it so the developers can see it.

This is an interesting development. While setting up background layers and gradients with the mouse in a fresh GIMP session for half an hour, the ants didn't disappear at all. Looks like I've got an issue to report on bugzilla, and see if anyone there might know what's causing the tablet to break visibility of the selections.