Update: This seems to happen with all popup windows generated, not just the Preferences window.

Doesn't replicate for me on Win7 Pro. Did you use the same userid to install it as the one you're using? Are you using an "Administrator" account? Do you have any other Gtk-based programs installed?

If you haven't already, try creating a new user account, logging in as that user, and running Gnucash from there. That helps to isolate environment problems.

I always login as administrator. That is the account I used to install GnuCash. I

I'll try creating a new user account to see what happens.

How would I know if I have other Gtk-based programs? The only one I can think of that might fall into this category might be Zim wiki. Is there a compatibility problem between GnuCash & Zim?

Nobody's reported one before, but a quick trip to their website says that it's built on PyGtk, so if they put their path in the path list or worse install Gtk to one of the system directories it certainly could cause trouble.

I'm a pretty smart guy. If you can tell me where to find the path list and what to look for I'll be happy to check.

There are two ways to see the path: One is to open a command window and type 
 path
The other is to go to Control Panel>System, select "Advanced Settings" and click the Environment Variables button at the bottom of the resulting dialog box. There are two sets of variables: The ones which apply only to the current user are in the upper box, those which apply to everyone are in the lower box.

To see where there might be stray copies of Gtk, open a Windows Explorer window and select Local Drive C: in the left box. Type 'libgtk' (no quotes) into the search box and let it search. It should find the Gnucash-installed one in C:\Program Files(x86)\gnucash\bin.

My environment variables:
upper box - 
Path C:\Ruby193\bin;C:\Ruby192\bin
PATHEXT C:\Ruby193\bin;C:\Ruby192\bin
lower box -
Path C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\
PATHEXT .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC
PSModulePath %SystemRoot%\system32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\Modules\

The Ruby stuff in the upper box looks suspicious since I'm not using Ruby. I uninstalled it a few months ago.

Windows Explorer results:
C:\Program Files (x86)\gnucash\bin\libgtk-win32-2.0-0.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\Zim Desktop Wiki\libgtk-win32-2.0-0.dll
C:\Program Files (x86)\Zim Desktop Wiki\lib\libgtk-win32-2.0-0.dll.a

Other than uninstalling Zim Wiki, is there a solution to my problem?

Did you try running Gnucash as a different user yet? Were there any environment variables at all pointing into the Zim Desktop Wiki directory?

You can try uninstalling Zim, but it doesn't look like Gnucash would be able to see it, so I'll be pleasantly surprised if that solves the problem.

I don't want to have to go to the trouble of an extra mouse click each time I start Windows to select a different user, but I set up one for this test. GnuCash seemed to work just fine. Here are the environment variables:

Upper box - 
Path - C:\Ruby193\bin;C:\Ruby192\bin
PATHEXT - %PATHEXT%;.RB;.RBW

Lower box - 
Path - C:\Program Files\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft Shared\Windows Live;%SystemRoot%\system32;%SystemRoot%;%SystemRoot%\System32\Wbem;%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Live\Shared;c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SQL Server\90\Tools\binn\;C:\Program Files (x86)\QuickTime\QTSystem\

PATHEXT - .COM;.EXE;.BAT;.CMD;.VBS;.VBE;.JS;.JSE;.WSF;.WSH;.MSC

Windows Explorer results are the same as before.

I would like to delete the new user I created for this test and use GnuCash on my administrator account where I have my desktop and everything set the way I like it. Based on the data I've supplied thus far, is there a solution to this problem with GnuCash when I run my usual administrator account on Windows 7?

Did we understand this correctly: You created a separate user and tried gnucash from there, and it worked fine, even though it didn't work with your original (administrator) user. Then you listed for us the content "Path" environment variable, both for the new user where all is the fine (comment#9) and for the previous user where it didn't work (comment#7). Surprisingly, "Path" has the same content for both users, right?

This means the difference must be somewhere else. Maybe in the %HOMEDIR%\.gnucash folder, i.e. c:\Users\MYUSERNAME\.gnucash . Does such a folder exist for any of the two users? Does gnucash's behaviour change if you move that folder away (i.e. renaming it) before starting gnucash?

The folder you indicated exists on my administrator account. I renamed it and started GnuCash. I clicked Edit Preferences to turn on the tip of the day. As soon as I click the check box for tip of the day the original symptom appeared. (I received a not responding and the Win 7 Resource Monitor showed GnuCash in red with the message not responding and in a loop. In a few seconds the loop ended. The not responding message also appears in the top of the Preferences pop up.) 

The folder you indicated also shows up on the user account I created it. I will logoff my administrator account shortly and try it there and either updated this post or add another one with the symptoms from that login.

OK. I just tried this on my other login. The symptom was not as severe, but there was a momentary not responding message displayed in a GnuCash popup. I suspect the message was momentary on the other login since GnuCash was the only open window at the time. On my administrator account that I use all the time I routinely have several windows open at the same time including Windows Explorer, 4shared desktop, Zim wiki, Quicken, One Note, Outlook, as well was Internet Explorer and Firefox.

Does anyone have a solution to this problem?

Not one that you'd find acceptable.

In comment 9 you said that "Gnucash appears to run fine", but in comment 12 you say that you get a momentary "not responding" message. Does it "run fine" after that? Might you simply have missed the message the first time you tried it? That message didn't come from Gnucash, BTW; it probably came from Windows. 

Since you brought up that you usually have a bunch of programs running in your admin account, have you tried quitting all of them and then running Gnucash? If that works, restart them one at a time and test again until Gnucash fails. Try again, skipping the program that choked Gnucash to make sure that it's the only one that does.

On the other hand, if Gnucash doesn't work with nothing running we're back to something in your admin login is causing trouble.

I closed all my open windows on my administrative account. I started GnuCash. I clicked Edit Preferences. When the popup window opened I clicked Display tip of the day. Nothing happened except that the text was high lighted. I clicked Display tip of the day again and got the familiar not responding message and when I looked at the Resource Monitor GnuCash was in a hard loop. It's as if Windows or GnuCash is walking a long, unordered, linked list.

The GnuCash main window became active. I clicked the Preferences popup window again. After the loop stopped the check mark finally appeared in the Display tip of the day.

Is there some other setting I can look for on my administrative account that will help you resolve this problem? How about forcing a memory dump. (You will have to tell me how to do this.)

Created attachment 245554 [details]
Problem recorder data

Attached is output from the Win 7 Problem Recorder. Perhaps this will help you to resolve this problem.

I'm leaving on a trip shortly and won't have a Windows system available until I return in 3 weeks. I'll look at it then if no-one else gets to it first.

Is there anyone else who can help me solve this problem?

Still waiting for help on this one.

Does anyone monitor these postings?

(In reply to comment #20)
> Does anyone monitor these postings?

Yes. They are mailed to everyone at the top of the page you get when you commit a new comment. But your last 3 comments are just noise, they don't contribute to finding the problem.

I am very happy to assist anyone who is willing to solve this problem for me. For each request for more information in this thread I have complied. What more can I do to help you find a solution?

(In reply to comment #22)
> I am very happy to assist anyone who is willing to solve this problem for me.
> For each request for more information in this thread I have complied. What more
> can I do to help you find a solution?

It's not at all clear that it's our problem, nor that we can solve it for you. Something on your system is interfering with Gnucash, but there is no way for us to tell what it is. 

A rather tedious approach to finding it would be to reformat your disk, reinstall windows, install Gnucash, test it, and then reinstall the remainder of your applications one at a time and making an image backup between each and testing again until Gnucash exhibits the problem. Uninstall that program and check Gnucash again; if Gnucash still doesn't work, examine the difference between the current disk state and the last image backup to see if the uninstaller left something behind. Once the problem application is confirmed, we can try to understand why it causes Gnucash to fail, but without that we really have nothing to analyze.

I am disappointed that no one can suggest additional diagnostics other than to tear down my computer and build it again from scratch. I am unwilling to do this since every other program I have installed works perfectly. 

I realize this is a difficult problem to solve, however I have been a programmer for decades and I know that there are ways to coax diagnostics out of software (such as memory dump)s when problems occur. I am willing to work with you on this angle. With all the sophisticated services built into Windows 7 surely there are ways to trap the problem.

If no one has the motivation or expertise to continue working on this problem I guess this problem report needs to be closed. 

GnuCash seems to be a good product so I will tolerate this problem until my small business gets started and I can afford to buy a new computer and start from scratch at that point.

If you're an experienced MSWindows programmer you're probably better equipped than anyone on the Gnucash team to diagnose the problem. We're all Unix programmers who fiddle with Windows exactly enough to get Gnucash working on that platform.

The Win7 tools are unlikely to be of much help: They're designed to work with native MSWin programs, and Gnucash isn't a native program.

However, your being a programmer opens another alternative: You can try debugging with the MinGW tools and see if you can figure out what's happening. We have a long wiki page on the subject at http://wiki.gnucash.org/wiki/Windows .

I think I miss-represented myself. 

My programming experience goes way back to the old IBM 360 days. I have taught C# programming on the college level the last few years and understand much of how to program in the Windows environment, however I am not an experienced Windows programmer.

Your revelation that GnuCash is not really designed for Windows gives me pause. I spent a lot of time trying to find good, free account software for use in my start-up business. GnuCash seemed to be the best. Now I am not so sure. I guess I'll have to go ahead and buy Quick Books once I get some income. 

Note: My start-up business has nothing to do with computers.

Please close this problem report.

Closed at OP's request.

Reassign version to 2.4.x so that individual 2.4 versions can be retired.

GnuCash bug tracking has moved to a new Bugzilla host. This bug has been copied to https://bugs.gnucash.org/show_bug.cgi?id=699156. Please update any external references or bookmarks.