Hi everyone.

So recently I downloaded GIMP 2.6.11. However, when I try to open it from my desktop, it automatically freezes and tells me that the program is not responding. I've tried uninstalling then reinstalling it and it still won't open. I thought this might be caused by lack of memory. GIMP recommends having about 120mb of RAM available to run the program and I have alot more than that, so memory cant be the problem.

If anybody could help me with this it would be greatly appreciated.
Tom

Welcome to Gimp Chat Tom.

I can't answer your Gimp problem but I am sure when some of these techies get on line, they will be able to help you.

Let's get a head start for the real techies by asking some questions. You've already told us the full version of Gimp so next, what operating system are you using? (Windows Xp, Vista, 7; Linux, MAC os)??

What exactly happens when you try and start Gimp? Do you get anything happening? -Splash screen etc

Oh, and where did you download Gimp from?

Those are excellent questions, and the main one is which version did you download, because it sounds like you have the wrong version for your system.

Well, I am currently using windows Vista. I have gimp 2.6.11. When I downloaded it off of the GIMP website it says that it has been downloaded successfully.

So what happens when I try to open GIMP from my desktop is it opens a window with the picture of the moon. The green bar loading thingy always freezes at about halfway when it says loading fonts. Then it tells me that GIMP is not responding and that I can either close the program or wait for it to respond.

So thats about all of it! Thanks guys.

Tom:

It's a very good possibility that you have some incompatible fonts (or too many fonts) and GIMP doesn't like it. The hard part of this is finding incompatible fonts, because you have to start fresh with a new clean font folder and re-introduce the fonts you want, back into the font folder a few at a time. This takes time. If you go this route, be sure to back up your original fonts onto another machine or a CD before starting.

On my Vista machine, GIMP hangs because my font library is extremely large. On occasion it locks up, and Windows gives me the option to close it or wait for it to respond. A majority of the time, GIMP will load if I just give it the time to, and not be impatient and try to go on a mouse-clicking frenzy (which is also hard to do). But once you get that option to close, its best to just close it.

Also, check Task Manager (CTRL + ALT + Delete) to see what processes are running at one time when GIMP is opened. You could also use Vista's Event Viewer to check for any errors logged on your GIMP installation. Just type "eve" in the Start button search box. Under the event viewer GUI, just check under Windows Logs - Applications, and look for any listed under GIMP. You could also use the event viewer to check for other error logs as well.

I had Windows XP and now have Windows 7. I used to have that problem, and found out it was a bad/incompatable font. I had so many fonts on my XP machine, I can't imagine it crashing on having too many fonts. My Windows 7 machine currently has 529 font files.

I would list your fonts by date, and try moving 2 or 3 "newest" fonts at a time. DO NOT delete your fonts, but move them somewhere safe. When Gimp starts working, start putting them back one at a time until you find the problem font(s). This worked for me, though it was time consuming. You want to move your newer font's so you don't screw up windows by moving a required font.

Greg

Do you recall which were incompatible, Greg? You could give him a heads up and he can check his list against those you know to be incompatible.

Do you guys mean when you click on the GIMP file and it takes you to other files such as brushes, fonts, curves etc? Because the fonts and brushes files etc. are empty.

Would downloading an earlier version of gimp solve my problem?

No will be worse
I am not sure if you waited in half, the first time gimp load may be very slow, (just the first time , it has to index all fonts )

If wait more didn't solve you may try with this http://www.sdsoftware.org/default.asp?id=5936

It is a font manager , install click "de-frenzy and will move in a backup folder all the extra font you got
Then you may slowly add back the fonts, till you don't find the problematic ones

Over the years I had collected so many fonts I don't remember which fonts they were. I had them saved in a bad font folder (so I would know what fonts not to use), but they disappeared when that computer died.

Ok I am going to try your suggestion Photocomix. But before I do, is the fonts folder:
Documents>Gimp 2.6> Fonts? Because this folder is empty.
Thanks

No gimp read fonts directly from Windows/Fonts
And you have no problems with fonts not displayed (at least not now)

BTW are you sure is not a problem for a corrupted installer ? (when downloading may happen )

Hi i am a use with the exact same problem, and i was wondering how long i should wait, and how would i move the fonts because at the moment there doesnt seem to be any way in doing so.

You want to share your details with us? Operating system, gimp version? We can't advise what method to use until we know more.

As for waiting, I personally never had to wait more than 5 minutes for the first loading of GIMP. But this is a tricky thing, not knowing the power of your computer, and other information that could change all that. The time allowance, depending on your computer, could vary greatly.

Hey, haven't been on here for a while but GIMP has been working ever since I got a new hardrive and upgraded to Windows 7. Thanks for helping me out

Probably got rid of all the old bad font files.Glad you got it working.
I would bet the entire problem was probably a few bad un-readable font files Gimp tried to keep reading and then just got hung up. I had 4k fonts in my windows/fonts folder and they loaded fine...took ten minutes but Gimp loaded them after a while.Bad font files had to have been the problem.

FIX:For anyone else reading this
Open C:\Windows\Fonts and move all unreadable files to another temp folder on your desktop.
Restart Gimp.
That should fix the problem.

You can start Gimp from a command prompt with the --verbose parameter, it will tell you what it is doing during install and this may help focusing on the problem. On Windows, you can also use the gimp-console executable (also with --verbose)