Snoopy20111

This roughly reflects my own experience, though I got somewhat different results (see below, I didn't go quite as in-depth as you did). I can confirm that everything still works if you only hide the folder and not all sub-folders and files, which I must sheepishly admit I was doing and didn't report. Renamed it as you suggested. After doing more tests for my previous response, I ended up with the MSIX version installed (shows up in "Apps" rather than "Programs") and renamed the .affinity folder to .affinity_xyz. Interestingly, when launching each of the three apps, the programs started up just fine and created a new .Affinity folder. What's more, they seem to have forgotten my Affinity login, prompting me to log-in for a "one-time license check," so presumably that information is stored in and retrieved from the .Affinity folder. I've also attached a screenshot of my permissions for the .affinity folder, with identifying bits like my name, Username, and Computer name struck out. To my amateur eyes, all seems to be all in order; both System and Administrators have the same rights I do (which is all of them, minus Special Permissions, whatever that is).

I currently have the MSI versions installed and they began/ceased to work when I unhid/hid the .Affinity folder in my User directory. Running the programs as Administrator with the .Affinity folder hidden did not affect the issue. I uninstalled the MSI versions and re-installed the MSIX versions and had the same behavior there. Notably, I also have my AppData folder unhidden if that changes anything, since I had to access it more than a few times for other applications. Interestingly, if I re-hide the AppData/Affinity folder specifically, I get the same error at Initialization. So that's two folders that just happen to break everything when hidden! Regardless, it's a bit odd that any such version would simply fail from a hidden/unhidden folder like that. Checking the .Affinity folder's permissions, my username has all the same as Administrator and System. If it is a permissions thing, which it definitely could be if you're not replicating the issue, then it's one I'm not sure how to address for the layman like myself.

Hi folks! I wanted to report a bug I encountered yesterday and found my fix for. Upon launching any of the three programs, they would get stuck with just the splash screen saying "Initializing..." until the following message appeared: Naturally, this was confusing, as all Affinity programs were working just fine the day before when I'd updated them, and I've never touched my firewall settings! My setup and required details: Computer Specs OS: Windows 11 Home, version 22H2, OS Build 22621.3007 Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-9300H CPU @ 2.40GHz RAM: 16.0 GB System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor Using all three programs, Photo, Designer, and Publisher Using the latest release versions (2.3.1) Yes, I reproduced it, and found the issue + workaround (see below) What I tried (without success): Restarting my PC Uninstalling and re-installing all Affinity Products Once with the MSIX installer and "app" Once with the EXE installer and "programs" Adjusting and opening up my Firewall settings Today (as I post this) I have found the issue: Hidden Folders! Many programs on my PC have created folders on my PC at C:\Users\[my username] that start with a dot; as I understand it, these are common with cross-platform programs and normally get hidden by Mac OSX and Linux machines, but not necessarily by Windows, and they were starting to clutter my User directory, so I marked them and the contents inside as hidden. Shortly after, my problem above began. As soon as I un-hid the folder C:\Users\[my username]\.affinity, lo and behold, the programs started right up, and when I hid the folder again, the issue returned. My other PC running a different AMD setup with Windows 11 had the exact same issue when I hid and unhid the .affinity folder. Possible cause in the program: According to a Stack Overflow page I found while looking up how to hide the folders in the first place (as well as another page with further details linked from there), it appears that if a Windows program calls CreateFile with the CREATE_ALWAYS flag but no definition for FILE_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN, operations will fail on hidden files. While I can't speak to what the Affinity programs are doing while initializing, I imagine the issue could be this, or something similar. I hope this is helpful for others who have a similar problem, and for Affinity developers to hopefully fix the issue when it's possible to do so.