Willem Jan Drijfhout

When exporting a large image (appr. 1 Gigapixel) to JPEG XL, Affinity photo 2 crashes. Exporting the same file to TIFF does work. Exporting smaller images to JPEG XL also works. Are there any size-limitations for this format? Running MacOS Ventura 13.0.1 on Mac Pro 2019, 16-core Intel, AMD Radeon Pro W5700X 16GB, 160GB RAM

Had some hope that under Monterey this issue would have been solved, but idle hope. Still just as bad as it was. With Serif not able to solve a crucial software fix in over a year really places question marks over either the company’s development skills or priority settings. My advice to management would be: double the price (still cheap) and hire some people to fix things. Changed back to Photoshop beginning this year, and it has served me well, so planning to stay. Still not a big fan of Adobe as a company, but in PS they do have a fantastic product that is a joy to use.

The behaviour you describe @Ighor is what most people experience. Only if you open/reopen the app in short succession (i.e. within 10-15 mins), it starts quickly. Any other time it will be a slow start. So if you open the app 10 times a day, you will probably experience the problem 10 times a day. As per earlier communication the issue appears to be the unusually large executable code that Affinity Photo is built on. I'm not a software engineer, but if that's the case, I would not be surprised if a solution would still be a long way away....

Thank you @Patrick Connor for this response. This helps a great deal of understanding what is going on and fits the experiences exactly. So the conclusion is that there is something in the Affinity apps, which is different than other apps which causes this behaviour in response to stringent Apple security measures. It keeps me wondering what would have happened if your first response would have been: 'you're right we're another month into it, still no solution, and workaround stopped working. Let me check with engineering', to come back a little later with the response above. Probably the difference between a happy client and an unhappy client. Customer support is all about communication.

I'm sorry Patrick, but you're doing it again. You put the blame on Apple, don't acknowledge this is something Serif should fix and even suggest something along the line of 'Affinity is such advanced software that even Apple can't catch up'. And all of this because of a perfectly reasonable request to get an update after four months on a very annoying bug in your software that is acknowledged by your own engineering team. As an FYI, I also posted the request for an update in the other thread that discusses this problem, so you may want to have a look there as well to ensure everyone is updated that it is everyone's problem and not Serif's. Since it is clear that this is my problem to solve, I will subscribe to Adobe Photoshop now. A pity, as I really liked the new astrophotography functionality in AP 1.9.

@Patrick Connor, any update on this? This post is again a month old. The duplicating app work around has worked for a while, but not anymore (related to an automatic Affinity and/or Big Sur update?). It is very frustrating to see that still after all these months Serif does not seem to be able or willing to fix a very annoying issue for its users. That fact is even more frustrating than the slow opening. Oh, and the Affinity apps are the only ones having this problem. All other apps have seen a smooth transition to Big Sur/unified apps.

Serif, we're now yet another couple of weeks/months into this. Is there any update on this issue? The copy app work-around has worked for a while, but the problem is now back in full swing again. Possibly related to automatic updates of either the Affinity apps, or Big Sur? Anyway, it is getting extremely frustrating now. And the frustration is partly the wait every time you open the app, but for a much bigger part the apparent lack of willingness and/or ability from Serif to do anything about this.

Serif did mention that the problem was not solved in 1.9, but apparently they decided to release anyway.

My beta-version had the same issue (only tried Photo)

This is a very, very, very concerning statement.....

Thank you @Patrick Connor for this workaround. This worked for all three applications, both MAS (Photo and Designer) and non-MAS (Publisher). Very thankful for this. It is good to hear something again from Serif after a long silence. But please don't try to make this an Apple problem (see my other post as example). No other unified apps (and there are many by now) have shown similar behaviour, and the problem occurs with both MAS and non-MAS versions. There could very well be something on Apple's side that attenuates the issue, but Serif owns this problem. And from your messages it looks like Serif still has no idea what the issue is, hasn't solved it in a new release, can't replicate the issue for non-MAS versions, and found a workaround purely by accident. As happy as I am with the workaround, it has not taken away my concerns on Serif's abilities to solve problems.

Second restart is very fast if done within several minutes. After 10 mins or so, restart is slow again. Seems to affect bot direct downloads from serif as well as from App Store.

Yes, there are reports from Serif that they have identified it as an issue and are working on it. And as you say it also seems that it is affecting all versions and pretty much all three applications. After three months or so it is beyond comprehension that this is still not fixed. It is annoying me several times a day, to the point that I’m completely fed up with it now. Serif, if you don’t have the resources, let us know and we’re happy to pay for upgrades. But the business model can never be to cater a product to the professional market at a cheap price but not deliver a professional service. Because that is what this is: service (or lack thereof). Bugs happen, but quality of service is how you deal with those.

This issue is now known for 1.5 months. Another thread on it can be found here: It is reported by many people, with various configurations, and acknowledged by Serif. The problem however is that there is still no sign of any solution. @stokerg , any update on perspective of time to resolution? It's nice that it is in Dev team for investigation, but it is so already for 1.5 months and not much is happening there. And if there is, some communication on what is happening would be appreciated.

Any update? We're now 1.5 month since the issue surfaced. It is getting rather silly now to still not have a fix or explanation why it's still an issue. The frustration level increases each time the issue occurs (several times a day) and has now reached the level of being very annoyed with Serif's handling of it.