I read through the previous closed thread and created another way to get GIMP to work again, without renaming the main GIMP folder (user>.gimp-2.8).

I renamed the patterns folder which I put elsewhere, and created a new patterns folder.

Then I was able to copy patterns into the newly created folder without all my other work installing brushes and scripts being harmed. I am currently adding only a few at a time, to ensure GIMP still starts up.

-otherincome