PANGO Crashes Gimp -- All Work Since "Last Save" is Lost.

First, I apologize for the length of the bug report; I have tried to edit the 
report down to the bare minimum. This is as far as I could take the editing and 
still be able to give you an accurate description of the problem.

Second, the crashes that are reported via the message system in Gimp regarding the PANGO induced crash, occur in several places of which I am personally aware.  There lmay be others of which I am unaware as yet.

Third, to the best of my knowledge -- based upon what I have personally 
experienced -- the error message is always the same.  

Fourth, about all I can think to do is to update this bug report as and when I 
encounter other instances of the PANGO induced app crash.

Fifth, if it is of any help to a reviewing developer, I have noticed the following aspect of the crash:  when PANGO crashes the app, IF the Gimp Help browser is also running, the Help browser does NOT crash with the rest of the app (probably because the Help browser is a separate probram occupying its own memory addresses?).

Sixth, if there is any log -- error log, for example -- that I should run and send to you, please tell me; I will be glad to reproduce the crash and send in an error log (just tell me how to activate the relevant error log -- I am using Windows XP; 

I gather that there are various error logs in XP, so tell me which one you want).

SYSTEM ON WHICH I AM RUNNING GIMP:
----------------------------------

I am using the following version of GIMP, GTK:

GIMP:	GIMP 2.2.11 (Windows  & WindowsInstaller); and

GTK:	gtk+ - 2.8.9 (Windows & WindowsInstaller),

both of which I downloaded from the Source Forge site and are Windows installer 
installed files.

I am using Windows XP, Srv Pk 2.

Part I:  IN GENERAL.
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In attempting to use various of the features of GIMP, I am receiving the following error message:

--------------------
"Pango-WARNING (recurse)**:  Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif Bold 12" falling 
back to "Sans Bold 12"

aborting...
--------------------

[This is the error message that always seems to precede the app crash that PANGO triggers -- so far, I have not noticed any deviation in the language of the error message regardless of where, in the program and in use of the program, the PANGO induced crash occurs]

The GIMP Help file advises me as follows:

"Another known problem is that Pango 1.2 cannot load fonts that don't provide an Unicode character mapping (Pango is the text layout library used by GIMP.)  A lot of symbol fonts fall into this category.  On some systems, using such a font can cause GIMP to crash.  Updating to Pango 1.4 will fix this problem and makes symbol fonts available in GIMP.

-----------------------------

The FAQ at "http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/faq.html" states as follows:

"# Gimp displays the message Pango-ERROR **: file shape.c line 75 > (pango_shape): 

assertion failed: (glyphs->num_glyphs > 0) and when I click OK, it crashes. What should I do?

# You have two options:

    * Go to Start►Settings►Control Panel►Display properties►Apperance tab (►Advanced if you're on Windows XP/2003), and set all fonts to Tahoma (or any 
other TrueType font).

    * Uninstall GTK+ then re-install it without the GTK-Wimp component."

[I have NOT received the error message described in this FAQ; the error message I have received is quoted above.]

I have three questions:

-----------------------------------
1.	Is this "my" error that is being describedin the FAQ but with a slightly different description than the one in the Gimp error message that is thrown immediately prior to the app crash?
-----------------------------------

2.	If so, which "fix" do I use?  The fix described in the FAQ?  or the fix 
suggested in the GIMP 	Help file?
-----------------------------------

3.	IF the fix is to install Pango 1.4, how do I do this?  I have downloaded the following two files:  "pango-1.4.1.zip" and "pango-1.4.0.zip".  There does not seem to be an "installer" executable file in either download, however.  So, IF the contents in one of these two zip files should be installed, how do I install it?
-----------------------------------

I am very reluctant to proceed without getting some advice from someone who knows something about this problem.

PART II:  Two instances in which the crash consistently occurs:
---------------------------------------------------------------

A.	Load an image in Gimp -- I used a JPEG. In the image window, go to "Image > Merge Visible Layers".  I recieve the dialog box titled:  "Merge Layers".  

Regardles of which option I have selected for the radio button choices, when I 
press OK, I receive the PANGO error message alert (described above) that states:

"--------------------
"Pango-WARNING (recurse)**:  Couldn't load font "MS Sans Serif Bold 12" falling 
back to "Sans Bold 12"

aborting...
--------------------"

(a)	The entire Gimp app itself (toolbox + image window + any Gimp dialog boxes that are active) crashes.  The crash occurs regardless of whether I press OK or whether I attempt to back out of the impending crash by pressing the <Escape> key.

AND:

(b)	"Scriptfu.exe" REMAINS in memory (I see it under the list of "processes" appearing in Task Manager -- it is using no CPU % but it nevertheless is occupying roughly 9,000+ KB of memory.

B.	Launch Gimp 2.2.11-- launching an image in the image window is not 
necessary to reproduce the crash.  Go to "File > Preferences > Window Management". 

 Then, attempt to change your current "Window Manager Hints" in whatever way you choose.  Click OK.  I receive the exact same PANGO error message described above in "A.".  When I press the OK button on the error message box, Gimp crashes and the Script.exe program remains resident in memory, as in the first example.

	Although the settings do appear to change -- notwithstanding the crash -- I have noticed no perceptible difference in the behavior of the Gimp program or image windows as a result of having made the requested change to the settings.
--------------

In both example "A." and example "B.", I must manually close out the "scriptfu.exe" program from the Task Manager. If I fail to manually close out the "scriptfu.exe" program, then the scriptfu.exe program will launch a new instance of itself into memory the next time I load the Gimp; scriptfu.exe never unloads from memory but, instead, keeps loading itself, in a new instance, into memory, until many "scriptfu.exe" instances are resident in memory.

This is all w-a-y-y-y-y over my head.  I have posted the PANGO request as to how to upgrade PANGO in accord with the Gimp Help file's instructions; but no one seems to know how to go about accomplishing this upgrade (I posted at GUG; and, if any group or forum members would know the answer, I would expect that the GUG folks would know -- so far, however, no replies at all to my Help request).  From searching the GUG forums, however, I am under the impression that PANGO is in fact a problem for Windows users of Gimp but that a solution has not yet been found.

In other words, as I understand it, GTK is the Windows runtime environment for 
Gimp; inside GTK, however, there is a sub-component, or sub-program, called PANGO, which itself is necessary for GTK to function properly.  I see nothing in Windows that provides so much as any clue whatsoever as to HOW one goes about upgrading the PANGO sub-component of GTK.

Thank you very much for your kind assistance.  Just please note that "compiling" a Windows version of PANGO myself is simply beyond my computer knowledge altogether; 

I've never run a compiler, and wouldn't know a compiler if it fell out of the sky onto my head.

I did in fact search on "pango" in the bugzilla data base before submitting this report/request for assistance; but I found nothing that seemed to be on point vis a vie Gimp.

NOTE:  I am not entirely  clear as to whether the PANGO files I found do in fact correlate to the version number of PANGO (1.4) to which the Gimp error message addresses itself or whether these are simply zip file names stored in the ftp archive.

Nuncus