Program is hanging up

[John Ralls]

On Dec 23, 2012, at 12:19 PM, Steve <butterandsalt at gmail.com> wrote:

> Think I found the "culprit"...
> 
> 1. Several days ago when I did my FIRST installation of GnuCash, I was busy
> importing my data.  I took a break and started looking at how I could
> enhance the appearance.  I saw reference to the "gtk2_prefs" program in the
> Bin directory, that would change the appearance of the program, etc.  I
> toyed with various choices in that program, and settled on the
> "Smooth-Tangerine-Dream" style.  I can't say I recall it exactly, but I
> THINK I noticed the GnuCash program starting to hang up at that point,
> although it was a small annoyance because the delays were not significant. 
> Anyway, I went back to continue to work on importing my data.  And as I
> reported here, yesterday it finally got to the point where the "hang-ups"
> made the program unusable.
> 
> 2. Today I tried your suggestion of running the program under a separate
> user.  And as I reported, the program ran fine.  At first I used some dummy
> data, then I copied over my data files that I was usiing yesterday, and it
> continued to work fine.
> 
> 3. A little bit ago I then ran that "gtk2_prefs" program and installed the
> "Smooth-Tangerine-Dream" style for this NEW user.  Immediately the program
> "hung-up" just like it did for my original user name.
> 
> 4. I just created ANOTHER NEW user, installed my original data files, and
> the program seems to run fine.
> 
> SO:
> 
> a. My question is now, how to SCRUB my original user so there's no
> indication the "gtk2_prefs" program ever ran.  Note:  As I said earlier,
> when I was running the original user and encountered the problem, I did
> UNINSTALL the program AND I did delete all of the folders--including those
> starting with "."  But when I reinstalled the program and ran it, it was
> still hanging up, so obviously (?) I must have missed something because it
> was "remembering" my choice of the "Smooth-Tangerine-Dream" style.
> 
> b. Any guidance how best to "cleanse" my system so that any traces of
> running that "gtk2_prefs" program are removed, would definitely be
> appreciated.  Related, have their been any reported problems with that
> program?  
> 
> Anyway, I could be wrong, but based on the past hour or so, that's what I
> noticed and hoping that will helpful for you to lend some insight.


Good detective work. Themes do indeed often cause trouble, especially on Windows. I avoid using them -- and spend almost all of my time on a Mac anyway -- so they don't come first to mind when someone reports a problem.

One obvious and safe thing to try is to run gtk2_prefs again and pick a different theme.
Otherwise, look for a file called .gtkrc or .gtkrc-2.0 in your home directory (the same one with .gnucash and .gconf).
Deleting that should revert to the default theme.

Regards,
John Ralls