GIMP 2.8.14 Crashes while loading fonts...

After installing GIMP 2.8, or upgrading from an earlier version of the software, and especially if you've then also installed extensions or plug-ins, such as the gimp-dds 3.0.0 plug-in   ̶̶   you may find yourself in the situation whereby everytime you go to load GIMP it gets to the 'loading fonts' routine (right after 'looking for data files') and then hangs up and won't continue any further, every time!

FIX (via http://registry.gimp.org/), which worked for me:

I've learned that some particular fonts are constantly in use or 'locked' by the Adobe Acrobat Update Service.

Try stopping or 'killing' the Adobe Acrobat process (via Administrative Tools Services; or simply using Task Manager - right-click on the Adobe Acrobat Update Service, and select 'End task').

This should release any locked fonts and allow the GIMP loading-up process to finally succeed with loading the fonts database.

Note: Not necessary to stop the Adobe Acrobat service everytime you run GIMP, only just for the intial post-install run, when (or if) it hangs. Apparently, once Gimp's internal fonts-database has been created, it seems to run OK thereafter, even when the Adobe Acrobat service is up and running in the background.