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Bug 678055 - Selection (marching ants) becomes permanently invisible
Selection (marching ants) becomes permanently invisible
Status: RESOLVED OBSOLETE
Product: GIMP
Classification: Other
Component: Tools
2.8.0
Other All
: Normal major
: ---
Assigned To: GIMP Bugs
GIMP Bugs
: 705787 732324 751268 (view as bug list)
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2012-06-13 21:44 UTC by Timofei Shatrov
Modified: 2018-05-24 13:14 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---


Attachments
menurc (3.24 KB, text/plain)
2012-11-18 21:45 UTC, Timofei Shatrov
Details

Description Timofei Shatrov 2012-06-13 21:44:42 UTC
Sometimes marching ants just stop showing up completely, regardless of "show selection" setting. It is impossible to turn them back on, however usually if I open another window they work as intended in that window.

It is an old problem as seen here: http://www.gimpchat.com/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=4311

Today I have finally managed to reliably reproduce it.

1. Create a new image.

2. Make rectangular selection.

3. Using a tablet, choose a paintbrush tool, click inside the image window, drag outside of it and then in again. Notice that in Device Status the device momentarily switches to Core Pointer. This actually makes a lot of things break (i.e. it switches out of current path with a Path tool, and text tool is also unusable with a tablet for this very reason). I've been told that the tablet support is supposed to be broken in GIMP 2.8 (it works perfectly with my Wacom aside from this). However what happens next is really interesting.

4. At this point the selection might still be visible. But press Delete and it instantly disappears. Everything is still functional, but the selection is in permanent "show selection: off" mode. I'm pretty sure there's no way to bring it back aside from loading the image in a new window.

Again, this is perhaps just one of possible ways to permanently "disappear" a selection. I discovered it when trying to understand the abovementioned tablet glitch. Clearly it's possible to bring GIMP in a state where it never shows marching ants again, which seems like a bug to me.
Comment 1 cobra_fast 2012-06-16 16:15:09 UTC
To day I encountered the very same problem while drawing.

My setup:
- Windows 7 x64
- GIMP 2.8.0
- 2012 Wacom Bamboo tablet

With this I'd like to confirm the issue, so it can be resolved.
Comment 2 Michael Schumacher 2012-06-18 21:35:15 UTC
I can't reproduce the invisiblity of the selection on Windows Xp with my Graphire 3 tablet, but I notice some effect on the movement of the selection ants:

If I follow the decription up to and including step 3, the movement of the ants stops, or at least becomes irregular - there is some movement, almost like some back-and-forth, but it is impossible to tell if this it is just broken or perhaps way to fast for the display to keep up.

I noticed that if I move the cursor out of the image window again, then the movement is back to normal.
Comment 3 Max Mustermann 2012-09-17 20:45:45 UTC
Thank you for taking the time to investigate and report this bug. 
Can you try again with the current version GIMP 2.8.2 you find at http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/ and report within the next 6 weeks whether the problem still occurs, please? Thank you.
Comment 4 Timofei Shatrov 2012-09-18 06:49:07 UTC
Yes, the problem still occurs with the same steps to reproduce. Input device still changes to Core pointer when dragging outside of the image window, and when I drag it back, the selection becomes borked.
Comment 5 Max Mustermann 2012-09-19 20:58:13 UTC
Thanks, Timofei, for checking again.
Today I tried to reproduce this with a native Mac build of GIMP 2.8.2. Indeed, I can confirm the behaviour as described in comment #2 by Michael Schumacher. After steps 1 and 2 the ants seem to get confused, stumble forward and backward and sometimes stop, but only when the pen is over the image or the gray area around it.
I couldn't reproduce step 4 on Mac and on a virtualized Windows. Pressing the Delete key erases the image content within the selection - but that's its purpose. Only to be certain: did you mean this or do the marching ants disappear?
Comment 6 Timofei Shatrov 2012-09-19 21:59:21 UTC
The purpose of pressing Delete is to refresh the screen, which can be substituted with any other way of forcing the canvas to be completely redrawn, it's just the simplest way. After the input device changes, the damage is already done - it's only a question of when marching ants completely disappear.

I also recorded a video that shows the bug in action: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09H6OWOxBlc
Comment 7 Max Mustermann 2012-09-22 11:58:33 UTC
Thanks for creating this clarifying video. I tried again on Win7, 64 bit with a Wacom Bamboo Pen&Touch, but couldn't reproduce it. Nevertheless your video shows the effects and your issue needs to be solved. 
The effects of the missing selection ('marching ants') are the same as the function 'Hide selection'. It applies only on the current image, too. Going to View/Show Selection or simply pressing Ctrl+T should show the marching ants again. Does it work for you? 
I suggest, something unknown is triggering this function accidently. Can you zip all files ending with rc in $userdir\gimp-2.8 and attach them, please? Which exact Windows version and which graphics tablet exactly do you use? Is this the GIMP 2.8.2 from gimp-win.sourceforge.net?
BTW: Usually GIMP refreshes the screen automatically, for instance when sliding the scrollbars. It might have some flaws, but you don't need to tell GIMP to refresh. I'm not aware of a special key (combo) to just trigger this manually (like the F5 key in Windows explorer). So I think you mean that pressing Delete is YOUR way to refresh the screen or where did you read this 'trick'?
Comment 8 Timofei Shatrov 2012-09-22 12:54:22 UTC
>The effects of the missing selection ('marching ants') are the same as the
function 'Hide selection'. It applies only on the current image, too. Going to
View/Show Selection or simply pressing Ctrl+T should show the marching ants
again. Does it work for you?

No, as I mentioned in the first post, the effect is permanent for this particular image. There is no known way to bring the selection back except for reopening the image in a different window. 

>I suggest, something unknown is triggering this function accidently. Can you
zip all files ending with rc in $userdir\gimp-2.8 and attach them, please?

Well, I'd have to review them before sharing them, so it might take some time.

>Which exact Windows version and which graphics tablet exactly do you use? Is
this the GIMP 2.8.2 from gimp-win.sourceforge.net?

Windows 7 x64 and Wacom Bamboo Pen, and yes.

>BTW: Usually GIMP refreshes the screen automatically, for instance when sliding
the scrollbars. It might have some flaws, but you don't need to tell GIMP to
refresh.

Yeah, sure. I'm just saying that GIMP stops redrawing the marching ants and once the screen is fully redrawn, they disappear. When gimp redraws parts of the screen (such as under the brush), marching ants also disappear in that place.
Comment 9 Max Mustermann 2012-11-04 18:53:11 UTC
> >I suggest, something unknown is triggering this function accidently. Can you
> > zip all files ending with rc in $userdir\gimp-2.8 and attach them, please?
> Well, I'd have to review them before sharing them, so it might take some time.

Timofei, do you need some help?
Comment 10 Max Mustermann 2012-11-12 19:06:47 UTC
Closing this bug report as no further information has been provided. Please feel free to reopen this bug if you can provide the information asked for.
Thanks!
Comment 11 Timofei Shatrov 2012-11-12 19:30:25 UTC
I put gimprc, controllerrc and devicerc here, others either have nothing interesting in them or contain personal information:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/30009304/TEMP/RC.zip
Comment 12 Max Mustermann 2012-11-18 19:50:07 UTC
I checked them, but can find nothing suspicious. Please add your menurc file, too.

Instead of posting a hyperlink use the 'Add an attachment' function, please. Because we're doing this job in our sparetime, bugfixing might take longer sometimes and adding an attachment instead of posting a hyperlink to a filehoster ensures we have all the files on hand when we need them.
Comment 13 Timofei Shatrov 2012-11-18 21:45:56 UTC
Created attachment 229309 [details]
menurc
Comment 14 Timofei Shatrov 2012-11-18 21:47:29 UTC
There is nothing suspicious about my install. This bug is reproducible on every Windows PC I have from a fresh GIMP install (2.6 or 2.8) using the steps to reproduce I outlined.
Comment 15 Alexia Death 2012-11-30 08:40:03 UTC
I see this too on my windows work machine. It seems to be realted to the generic input fuckup in Windows. I do not see these bugs ever on linux.
Comment 16 Jehan 2013-04-28 13:12:02 UTC
Aryeom had the selection disappear too regularly on her GIMP 2.8 on Linux. So that's not a Windows-only issue.
Comment 17 Bob Zmuda 2013-06-03 02:33:43 UTC
This is an exceptionally frustrating bug, simply because it is the most frequent one I encounter while working in gimp 2.8. I can confirm that the OP's method to reproduce the bug works -- in addition to myriad other ways which are less immediately apparent. About twice each hourly session of painting while working with selection tools, the "marching ants" will simply disappear until Gimp is fully closed and re-opened.

Critically, The "Show Selection" (Ctrl-T) function does nothing once this bug occurs; other boards frequently reference the ctrl-t command as a solution when others mention this bug, but that functionality is broken.
Comment 18 Max Mustermann 2013-06-03 04:12:32 UTC
> in addition to myriad other ways which are
> less immediately apparent. 

I have problems reproducing this bug. As there seem to be so many ways - can you describe these ways, please?

Setting OS=All after Jehans hint.
Comment 19 Michael Natterer 2013-06-03 13:28:43 UTC
What window managers are you guys using? We have this optimization that
doesn't draw the marching ants when the window is reported to be
fully obscured.
Comment 20 Jehan 2013-06-03 13:53:07 UTC
For the cases I reported, that's KDE.
Comment 21 Michael Natterer 2013-06-03 15:04:01 UTC
Finally somebody who can debug this :)

Please add debug output to selection_window_state_event()
and selection_visibility_notify_event()
in app/display/gimpdisplayshell-selection.c
and try what happens when the window is iconified, shaded
and obscured by other windows. All these events should be reported
via these callbacks. If they arent's, we have a bug in the window
manager, but still need to work around it in GIMP. No selection is
no options :)
Comment 22 Michael Natterer 2013-06-03 15:53:34 UTC
"... aren't ... option". Oh the typing :)
Comment 23 Jehan 2013-06-03 16:37:24 UTC
Ahahah. I guess I am the one you mean who can debug this. ;-)

Anyway it actually never happened to me personally, but to Aryeom (she showed me on her screen though, so I confirm there was some fishy invisible selection). I'll see if I'll be able to reproduce it here too though. Otherwise I'll ask her if she has reproduction steps. :-)
Comment 24 Jehan 2013-06-03 17:34:44 UTC
Mitch, well I just made some debug output on both these functions. It seems they are simply never called here. I can't reproduce the selection becoming invisible on my machine though.

Also is it normal that the marching ants stop marching when there is any input and the currently selected tool is not a selection tool?

Reproduction steps:

1/ have a selection tool, for instance rectangular selection or whatever else;
2/ select something. See the ants marching. When you move the mouse, ants still march.
3/ click another tool, for instance brush.
4/ move your mouse over the shell. And look at the selection while doing so. The marching stops (the selection is still visible, but ants are not "marching").
You can also click, but even just moving the mouse over stops the march.
5/ Stop moving the mouse. The march happens again.

Is this behavior normal and expected?
Comment 25 Casey Stanley 2013-08-13 16:54:38 UTC
Another major related bug i've found is the option to undo the brush stroke that triggers the disappearing ants is also lost.
So if you open a new image and paint a line from inside to the edge of the image window, not only will the disappearing selection/toolbox hiccup glitch always happen, but also the option to undo that brush stroke will be missing from both the Undo History tab and the Edit menu. (if it doesn't trigger, switching from brush to pencil tool does it)
If you keep repeating the action (painting to the edge) those also won't be able to Undo as well, only brush strokes that don't touch the image edge will register to the undo and be fine.
As such there's also no propmt to save the changes when closing the image since GIMP thinks there's been no changes, despite there clearly being a few.
Always reproducable with my Intuos3 on Vista x64 SP2, never reproducable with a mouse.
Comment 26 Greg Kramida 2013-08-18 18:22:21 UTC
I'm having the same issue with the marching ants disappearing in GIMP 2.8.4 ( on Ubuntu canonical using the standard Unity+lightdm.

I haven't yet pinpointed what exactly is causing it or how to exactly reproduce it, but it seems to be something with undo actions dealing with selection - perhaps the Fuzzy Select or Select by Color (it just occurred in a session where I haven't touched brushes).

I'll post more if I notice the pattern.
Comment 27 Michael Natterer 2013-10-30 21:23:22 UTC
*** Bug 705787 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 28 Michael Natterer 2013-10-30 21:26:29 UTC
(In reply to comment #24)
> 4/ move your mouse over the shell. And look at the selection while doing so.
> The marching stops (the selection is still visible, but ants are not
> "marching").
> You can also click, but even just moving the mouse over stops the march.
> 5/ Stop moving the mouse. The march happens again.
> 
> Is this behavior normal and expected?

No this is broken, the marching should never stop for as long as
the window is visible. I have no clue about windows, do newer versions
require GTK+ to call some API so things continue drawing even if the
window is not active?
Comment 29 Jehan 2013-10-30 22:19:25 UTC
> I have no clue about windows

You have no clue about "windows", the OS, or "windows", the UI rectangles? Because as I said earlier, this happens on Linux too. All what I described was Linux bugs, that happens very regularly here on stable GIMP. I have never tested this specific issue myself with the Windows OS.
Comment 30 Michael Natterer 2013-10-30 23:29:34 UTC
You are not seriously asking that question, do you :)

Anyway, I have never seen that bug myself, using metacity earlier
and now gnome-shell.
Comment 31 Michael Natterer 2013-10-30 23:34:08 UTC
If it happens regularly, I suppose it happens under KWM as you said in
comment 20. Can you reproduce it under another WM?
Comment 32 Jehan 2013-10-30 23:35:11 UTC
Well I don't know! What idea to call an OS with such a common word! :p

Anyway when I wrote the previous comment and was seeing marching ants stopped moving when the mouse did, I was using KDE. Right now, I use openbox, and I should check again how the marching ants behave.

But what I can say for sure is that Aryeom gets the invisible marching ants very very often (she uses Cinnamon currently). She often shows me some selection without ants.
Comment 33 Michael Natterer 2013-10-31 00:14:25 UTC
If I read you correctly, you only see the marching ants *stopping*,
not entirely *disappearing*, is that correct?

The stopping is normal and merely a side effect of using a timeout
for drawing them. Processing all the motion events of a tablet simply
takes precedence and is more important. You can check that with the
normal mouse which has much less motion events: the more CPU mouse
moving requires, the less marching are the ants.

Can you have a close look at the video in comment 7 please? Look how
the brush outline stops moving when the mouse enters the window
again. That looks to me as if grabbing is half-broken on tablets,
which could leave the selection in a permanently "paused" state,
as in gimp_display_shell_selection_pause() not called in 1:1
pairs with gimp_display_shell_selection_resume(). If this is true
then the selection is in a permanently paused state with no chance
of ever recovering. Does Aryeom have the same strange grabbing
behavior with tablets? Can she leave the window with the tablet
still pressed, and then re-enter the canvas and continue painting
the *same* stroke, without ever releasing the stylus?
Comment 34 Michael Natterer 2013-10-31 00:15:04 UTC
That would be comment 6, sorry.
Comment 35 Jehan 2013-11-01 04:55:33 UTC
Hi,

yes there are kind of 2 issues, but I think they may be related. Me I only get ants not marching when moving the cursor (even with a mouse, but only when it is over the GIMP window!). But I don't use GIMP nearly enough (or I may not have paid attention when I was just testing) to ever see the selection disappear.

Aryeom on the other hand nearly every time she would work for a bit without restarting GIMP would get the selection disappear at some point. I will ask her if she can reproduce with these steps.
I could not reproduce with a Wacom Bamboo, but maybe it happens only on tablets with a lot of events, and she has an Intuos 5. I'll report later.
Comment 36 Jo 2014-06-29 12:43:25 UTC
*** Bug 732324 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 37 Invisible Ant 2015-08-28 16:58:36 UTC
Hello .I am new to this forum .I'm a novice Gimp 2 user. But recently been having this problem more often, basically every time I use Gimp. It is very crippling. This is ruining Gimp for me. 

The marching ants disappear:  This is even after a fresh install. I even wiped my hard drive, and reinstalled Gimp. The only time this happens, is while using the lasso tool, tracing large images , cutting/deleting parts of those images . Somewhere along the way, while zooming, moving images, and cutting with the lasso tool, the marching ants disappear , although they are active, because i can delete parts of the image i remember selecting. As I trace, with the lasso tool the ants art there, but once the selecting completes the loop to finalize what i want to delete, the ants disappear. 



Not sure if this matters, but Im using my tablet when this happens, althought ive heard reports of this happening with the mouse. But the tablet me be connected to this. 

Unsure if this relates, i also get an error message about memeory possibly, and Gimp closes. I reopen, and the ant issue remains .

On top of this, I suspect this will happen soon, like before i wiped the hard drive, is that when trying to use the lasso tool :  the cursor ups to the top of the image, like a sort of erratic  seismograph chart, and becomes stuck there. Only a restart being thing back to normal .But often i notice, i can only use the mouse, if I use my Huion tablet,  then the problem appears again. 

Just to remind you, people have supposedly reported this happening with a mouse alone. 


I have low system specs, however ive never had this problem in the past. This may be partly to do with my tablet, but never have this issue in any other software. 



 ( mind ;I've read reports of this happening with the mouse alone ) ;
Comment 38 Invisible Ant 2015-08-28 17:02:26 UTC
I also have many layers open when this happens. I have them set differently, and i am cutting and pasting in-between etc.
Comment 39 chris.greentown 2015-12-11 02:51:07 UTC
I just tried gimp for the first time with my Intuos 3 tablet and I got this bug right away.  Like all the others it's only when I use the tablet and requires me to close a file and reopen it to get it to work (sometimes).  Has any progress been made to resolve this?
Comment 40 Jehan 2015-12-14 13:44:52 UTC
*** Bug 751268 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 41 Jehan 2016-11-07 13:22:44 UTC
Wasn't there recently a patch (by Massimo, I think) and it was said it would also fix this issue?!
Comment 42 Jehan 2016-11-07 13:29:08 UTC
Oh I found it. Bug 771444, comment 2, Massimo says:

> This problem also explains the reports regarding the selection marching ants
stopping to march

Well it actually didn't say it fixes the invisible marching ants, but only stopping ones. Massimo, would you know if that were the same issue and if your commit also fixed this invisible ant issue by any chance?
Comment 43 Michael Schumacher 2016-11-07 13:51:42 UTC
Please note https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=771444#c34 - the behavior on the Windows platform is vastly different and adds strokes people won't expect. I don't think we can leave those changes as they are right now.
Comment 44 Jutt 2017-04-03 18:11:23 UTC
I have been experiencing the effect of selections becoming invisible for a long time. The method described in the original post does not work for me on my current installation of Gimp, but I did find a different way to consistently trigger this bug. Hopefully this can provide some new insights into the situation.

I am using Gimp 2.8.20 on Windows 2.8.1, in combination with a Wacom Bamboo tablet.

Reproduce as follows:
Using the tablet, drag a guide from the rulers into the image, but before releasing it, right-click cancel the operation (i.e. press the stylus button assigned to right mouse button, without lifting the stylus from the tablet surface). The guide placement should be cancelled, but from that point on the bug kicks in and selections fail to be displayed.
Comment 45 GNOME Infrastructure Team 2018-05-24 13:14:39 UTC
-- GitLab Migration Automatic Message --

This bug has been migrated to GNOME's GitLab instance and has been closed from further activity.

You can subscribe and participate further through the new bug through this link to our GitLab instance: https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gimp/issues/408.