GIMP Version: 2.8.4
Operating System: Mac OS
OS Version: Mavericks 10.9.1
GIMP Experience: Beginner Level

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Hey Folkz,

Now I realize this is beyond basic for most of you all, but i'm puzzled by this.

Why does the little circle now appear virtually with every tool I select?
I read online somewhere where others were having the same issues, but mentioned it had something to do with certain types of layers. (floating)

So I've tested this and even without any layers it still appears.
Why is this happening guys?
View My Video

Beats me, I've never seen such a thing before, that sure is odd. What did you do!?

You're kidding right?

I have never see this kind of behavior before and yes I was kidding.

I cant find the original link i found yesterday but here's another similar, where some one else had expeirenced the same issue

http://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/ ... the-cursor

There appears to be some possible solutions here: http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-getting-unstuck.html
hopefully so. This is robbing me of the time i need to be actually WORKING on the project

ho hummm..

Whatever the solution is for this, it doesn't appear in the links you provided. It could also be a Mavericks issue that's causing this.

It might be a bug of some kind for that version of Gimp. I don't know who's build your using, but I would go with any of the Partha builds myself. http://partha.com/
If you can't find a solution, I would uninstall what you have. Saving all your files and stuff, then install one of the Partha builds.
Good luck, maybe some of the other can figure this one out. Seems like you're not alone with this issue though.

Did you check to make sure there was no selection running? (selection > select none)

Well... without layers it is expected... at the bottom of your image window, you have the message "Can't work without any layers ad a layer first". If I remove all layers from an image, I get that same behavior. So check what happens with a layer.

I thought about that too Ofnuts. It must be something that occurs in Gimp 8.+, because I'm running 2.6.11 and cant get this to happen.
I've also tried to recreate this behavior in portable 2.8 (partha build), without resulting in the little "circle/cross" icon being displayed.

Well i don't see your tool options dialog anywhere on your interface setup but if you DOUBLE click any tool, (after adding a layer) per Ofnuts suggestion the tool options dialog will pop up if you don't have it docked. Now all GIMPs tools can work on different things depending on the tool such as Layers, Selections, and Paths.
Make sure LAYERS is ticked. Then try and use a tool and see if the cross slash icon goes byebye.
Also check to make sure you are in the correct mode Image>Mode>RGB.

Hey guys,
After passing out from frustration (working on a few projects..) I went to shutdown Gimp and noticed there was an image I still had open, although this was an entirely different window, so i'm not sure this is even relevant.

@wallace
Yes, I see you're running a different version. Are you on a PC or Mac?
"It must be something that occurs in Gimp 8.+, because I'm running 2.6.11 and cant get this to happen. "

i just installed 2.8 from: http://gimp.lisanet.de/Website/Download.html

The version I had from here:
http://www.gimp.org/downloads/
A GIMP 2.8 DMG installer by Clayton Walker, stock GIMP build
was even creepier as I found out it wasn't compatible with Mavericks
after noticing alot of ppl reporting many of the same issues I was having like when I attempted to type in text boxes or name files, it would go bezerk:


I then found this build and it hasn't had those issues, but now there's this durned small circle!

I noticed whether I have layers or not this circle appears :-(

I'm on XP and don't know much at all about running Gimp on Mac. Even so, what Rod has suggested might be something you could easily check. I also don't see why this would happen if you had a second image open that you forgot about.
I think your next step could be to check out what Rod mentioned concerning your tool's menu.
I also thought about diving deep into Gimp and removing that specific icon, but I'm not sure how you would do that on a Mac, and if removing it would cause other issues, or if this can even be done.
Either way, to me this seems like pretty strange behavior.

Ok @ Rod & Wallace I'll take a look into that.
For now gonna do a clean install and clean up my junky apartment (it's a bit bachelorized LOL...)

be back online in a few with a report

Can't it wait until next year to clean? If not, just get rid of all the sticky stuff first. TTYL

What is the screen shot supposed to show us? Still an image with zero layers...

What I gather from the latest screen shot is, that it's only showing the image he had open, but had forgotten was there.
This still shouldn't cause that annoying icon to appear.

I am sure that what ofnuts said makes sense, if there is no layer, then your tools are going to show the circle thang cuz it doesn't know what it is supposed to do. Just like GMIC, if you don't have a layer, you can't open it.

Does your Gimp show this behavior?

no, just tried it, I opened gimp but didn't open a layer and clicked all my tools, but no circle.
Mine does show that circle though if there is a selection on that I dont know about. Took me hours one day to figure it out. you win this round wally.

Ahhhh... So there's something else going on here, still no clue why this is happening.
Thanks for checking this out though Molly.
The more we look into this, the more mysterious it becomes, but it my all stem from a few corrupt files that may have found their way into the mix.
Still it's something I've never seen before now.
It could also be a duplicate or corrupt dll file causing all the fuss. These can be hard to find, being that there's no error message leading us to this conclusion, this can't be ruled out.