WinGRASS: Starting up gis.m & hangs (probably on g.region)

[pvbgis]

After getting grass-6.3.0RC5 I am not able to open the GUI (gis.m&) anymore. When looking in Windows taskmanager it appears that g.region is the culprit. When I close the g.region process in Windows taskmanager the GUI opens. However, when trying to display a map, it hangs again, and again it seems to be g.region which gives the problem.

I tried to go back to grass-6.3.0RC4, but although working fine before, it gives me the same problem now. Note that I can still open my database and view my data layers with the Grass extension in QGIS without problems.

I am using Windows XP sp2.

Thanks

Paulo

[mlennert]

I cannot reproduce this. Can you give more details about how you launch grass ? For me both the default GUI startup and the text-based startup plus typing gis.m work.

[neteler]

Paulo, can you try in the GRASS shell (or GUI):

g.region -p

? Possibly an error message pops up which helps us here.

Markus

[neteler]

Looks like incorrectly installed GDAL. Please try with the new 6.3.0 release.

Markus

[pvbgis]

Hi Markus

Sorry for the late response.. and more sorry even to have to tell you it still doesn't work with 6.3.0 :-(.

As an update, it hangs when starting up via the default GUI and via MSYS. However, I can do text-base startup. The g.region -p command gives me the region information, no problem.

However, when trying gis.m I get as far as the startup screen + output screen before it freezes. When killing the g.region everything seems to work fine, I can even view the region settings using the region menu, but the trouble starts again when trying to change the region or when trying to display a map. When killing the g.region process, the map does draw though, but even when trying to zoom, or refresh the map, same story again.

I got an error message once (I couldn't replicate it). What it seem to show was the code defining a dialog:

begin_dialog{g.regoin}{ label{} desc{manages the boundary definition for the geographic region.} key{general} } add_flag 1{ name{d} desc{Set from default regoin} answer 0 label{} quisection{existing} } add_flag2{ . . etc... till add_flag 12

Curiously enough (for me anyway), even when the GUI is frozen, I can still use the g.region -p command in text-mode.

Hope this helps in some way to pin down the problem

Paulo

[pvbgis]

One additional point, the g.region -p command does also work in the MINGW32 command line screen (when in GRASS obviously). But not g.region without the -p flag, which freeses the MINGW32 screen. In the normal Windows command screen in GRASS, typing g.region does not seem to do anything.

[4everskiff]

Replying to pvbgis:

One additional point, the g.region -p command does also work in the MINGW32 command line screen (when in GRASS obviously). But not g.region without the -p flag, which freeses the MINGW32 screen. In the normal Windows command screen in GRASS, typing g.region does not seem to do anything.

Hi Pauolo,

I'm trying to understand. Did you installed WinGRASS-6.3.0 using the installer? Did you uninstalled the previous GRASS installations before to install the new one? What does happen exactly when do you click on the GRASS icon on your desktop?

Marco

[pvbgis]

- Yes, I used the WinGRASS-6.3.0 installer

- Yes, I uninstalled it and also checked if there was any file or folder related to GRASS left on the system (there wasn't)

- I get the startup screen, after which I select the project location / mapset and click on 'Enter Grass'. Than, the 3 screens Output-GIS.m, Map Display 1 and GRASS.3.0 GIS Manager open, but the first two are white. Nothing further happens, and when I click on the Gis Manager screen, I get the 'Not Responding' message in the Title bar of that screen.

[4everskiff]

Replying to pvbgis:

- I get the startup screen, after which I select the project location / mapset and click on 'Enter Grass'.

What location? demolocation?

Than, the 3 screens Output-GIS.m, Map Display 1 and GRASS.3.0 GIS Manager open, but the first two are white.

normal

Nothing further happens, and when I click on the Gis Manager screen, I get the 'Not Responding' message in the Title bar of that screen.

not normal! it's difficult to understand what is happening... you could try to install FileMon? [1] and record the system calls, and try to understand what is gong wrong...

[1]  http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896642.aspx

[pvbgis]

Maybe worthwhile mentioning, I just tried USBGIS ( http://www.archaeogeek.com/blog/portable-gis/), which includes GRASS 6.3 for Windows, and I could run GRASS without the above mentioned problems both using the demo spearfish data set and my own GRASS database.

[hamish]

Hi,

does the problem persist with one of the 6.4.0rc4 installers?

[cnielsen]

On the latest 6.4.0svn-r38959 this problem is fixed.

g.gui tcltk &

Or:

g.gui wxpython &

both work when grass is opened with the msys icons. With the cmd window startup method, closing the GUI closes grass completely (no more terminal) so the problem doesn't exist here either.

It may never have been fixed for the grass63 installer but it is deprecated now anyway so I'm marking this as fixed.