adolphsen

Since the developers are not responding, has anyone tried updating Monterey to 12.1 and if so, does it make any performance changes to AD? I'm still on 12.0.1, but at this point I'm reluctant to do any updates to the OS at all.

Agreed, which is why I called it a temporary fix since Serif is not responding. Also updated my post with a correction to how I experienced the consequences of detaching symbols. Absolutely agree. Plus bulk delete instead of having to right-click one symbol at a time.

How to temporarily fix the constant lag: The performance issues seem to be related to the Symbols panel. Either due to the amount of symbols you have, the complexity of them or the number of times a symbol is used in your artboards – or maybe all three. I check all three boxes, but experienced a drastic improvement in performances after removing all symbol from the Symbols panel. While it's probably not ideal for some to delete all symbols from the Symbols panel, this does not unlink the symbols already used in artboards from one another. So you will still have the benefit of changing one symbol in an artboard, and see that change reflected in all instances of that symbol used in any other artboard. If you need another instance of that symbol, you just copy it from one of your artboards rather than dragging it from the Symbols panel. Deleting all symbols from the Symbols panel can take a while as it's currently only possible by right-clicking every single symbol individually and choosing "Delete Symbol", but you will see the lagging gradually disappearing for each symbol you delete. I also noticed that the load time of opening the AD file after deleting all symbols was reduced more than 50%. --- Correction dec. 3: After continued work with this approach, it seems like deleted symbols from the Symbols panel are in fact unlinked on all artboards. I do, however, still have files where all symbols are now deleted, but are still linked in my artboards. I don't know why this is.

Hi @stokerg, I was wondering if you could provide a status on a fix for this issue. I hate to be pushy as I could've just waited updating to a newly released OS, which is what I normally do, but working in AD over the last month has just been unbearable to a point where I need to look for alternatives. If you could provide some sort of time horizon for when a fix is expected, I can at least consider if it's worth going through the pain of downgrading macOS. Thanks in advance from a long-term and otherwise happy user!

That's an interesting observation. My first intuition was that it might be related to linked files, which had some performance issues when it was first introduced a few versions back. As a UI designer I rely heavily on both symbols and linked files. I did some further investigation on symbols after testing an even more complex file than the one I posted about yesterday. This more complex file performed way better, though still laggy, even though it has more artboards and more layers. Doing a Symbol count (using Select > Select Object > Symbols) shows 835 symbols in this more complex file while the more laggy file from yesterday has only 456 symbols, so this doesn't fully explain the performance issues. Maybe the complexity of each symbol come into play as well?

@stokergTo elaborate a bit further, the issue seems to affect pretty much every aspect of AD. A few examples of cases that now has a lag + beach ball loader: Scrolling in panels Clicking a layer in the Layers panel Moving a (simple) object on stage Undoing and redoing simple actions (like moving an object) Selecting/deselecting an object Hovering over bounding box hot spots (e.g. the resize handle) Changing tool (using keyboard shortcuts) I'm thinking of trying to reinstall AD as it's currently so laggy that I can hardly use it, but will need to make sure all my keyboard shortcuts, studio presets, etc. are kept. Hope this helps!

Thanks @stokerg and thank you for the quick reply I've just uploaded the AD file to your Dropbox. It's quite complex with several artboards each containing hundres if not thousands of layers, but I've worked with even more complex files previously without any performance issues. I tried disabling the Layers panel but it doesn't seem to change anything. Also tried disabling all other panels (using Tab key), but again no changes in terms of the lagging. As a test I tried creating a new AD file and draw a few simple shapes. No performance issues here, so it's possibly related to files with many layers(?)

@stokerg, same issue here. After updating to macOS Monterey (12.0.1) over the weekend, Affinity Designer has become super laggy. Simple actions like moving an object, undoing or changing between open files/tabs gives me the beach ball loader. Never had any of these issues prior to Monterey. I've tried screen recording it, but it's a bit difficult to see as the beach ball doesn't show in recordings. I'm on AD 1.10.4. Any way to quick fix this until a new AD release hopefully solves it? It has pretty significant impact on my workflow. Thanks! My specs: MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2019) 2,3 GHz 8-Core Intel Core i9 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4 AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB Intel UHD Graphics 630 1536 MB Screen Recording 2021-11-02 at 13.33.07.mov