GIMP stuck on "Loading Data Files: Fonts"
Even the latest Windows version 2.8.22 has this problem.
Go into Preferences -> Folders -> Fonts and delete all folders listed there.
GIMP has a couple user font folders listed there by default, for some reason on Windows those folders make the font loading part really slow, like 15-30 seconds even on SSD. Now GIMP loads in a few seconds on SSD.
Hope this helps.
The following steps worked for GIMP 2.8.20 on my Mac (Sierra 10.12.6):
- Open GIMP
- Click the upper left GIMP icon and choose “Preferences”
- Go to “Folders” → “Fonts”
- Delete all folders listed there (the delete button looks weird; it should be the fourth icon counting from left)
- Click “OK” to close the dialog box
- Close GIMP and reopen it
This step can take a long time. And due to the way file timestamps are handled, it can e.g. happen on daylight saving time switches.
In order to check what exactly is happening there, you should use a file access monitor like Process Monitor - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb896645.aspx.
This can tell you if GIMP is reading font file to build the font cache, and will also provide you with some sort of progress information, because the font files will be mostly accessed in alphabetical order (or reverse).
The unresponsive window is a symptom of that, just ignore it.