davidlower8

I can also report that disabling iCloud Drive in settings seems to be working for the moment. I haven't had any issues open files.

@Chris B Ok I will do this and report back. In the mean time, and this is a serious offer, if you want to send a dev down to me and use my computer to debug, I'd be over the moon. I live 3.5 hours away, admittedly quite a car drive. But I will at least host the individual and feed them (for free naturally). You can even take my computer away with you if needs be.

@Chris B Although I can't comment on what has been done behind the scenes or indeed what discussions are taking place. I can only go on the feedback from these forums. For me this isn't just a silly bug that is annoying at best. It is a software breaking bug. The software literally cannot be used. For me that should be of the upmost importance to fix. No one has reached out to me to try and problem solve this. The only discussions I've had is when I have complained and then it is a case of 'well we can't reproduce it'. The fact that 3 people have created an account specifically to post on this thread in the last weeks speaks volumes. You can guarantee the number of people that have this issue, but haven't posted anything is way higher. Don't get me wrong, I want this software to succeed. I love Affinity. In fact I was one of the first purchases of the original Affinity. I purchased it on day one of launch and have been with you through the entire journey. But this is a SOFTWARE breaking bug and it a very clear I am not the only one. I do sympathise, as a developer myself, it is very difficult to narrow down bugs. But a bug of this severity, I would be on the phone to the client, or whoever, and be asking them a thousand questions until I could narrow down the possibilities. Regarding the thread you posted: That is nice to see. This shows you are aware and trying to do something about it. Until you pointed it again I wasn't aware of it. My two cents though is that I don't believe it has anything to do with Sonoma. I posted this thread back in April way before Sonoma came out. Additionally, I am not overly convinced it is anything to do with iCloud either. In my previous comment I mentioned I was opening a document it different ways. This document was created, saved, and all assets used - within the whole iCloud ecosystem. On some occasions the document opened and on others it didn't - it seemed completely random. I've had documents completely outside of iCloud also not open. Regarding this particular document it is highly likely the assets used came from an iCloud source. But remember you sent me a document saved on your machine, the only way I could open it. Well those documents have sat in a folder outside of iCloud. One of them after months of inactivity now doesn't open. This is a bitch of a bug.

@liven22 & @DavidH2 Unfortunately, I have flagged this multiple times and even shown the staff that many other users have this issue. Still they don't seem to think it is a big enough issue to warrant a deep investigation. I am also considering moving over to Figma, which I was hoping to avoid. If I can't use this software what options do I have? I'm gutted to be honest. Interestingly, I noticed yesterday that one file I am currently working on won't open again (even without a Mac update). However, if I opened it with Affinity already open using File > Open Recent - it opened. If I quit and tried again it wouldn't open. But if I opened Affinity by right clicking on the file and then Open With Affinity - it worked. It wasn't always consistent. But I was desperate at this point. I generally leave Affinity open all the time now for fear of never being able to open a file again. For debugging purposes this bug occurs even when I haven't upgraded the Mac. My file is saved in iCloud, created in iCloud and has never moved from iCloud. All assets I bring into Affinity (logos, images, icons etc) are all from my downloads folder which is also on iCloud. So the whole system works within iCloud. So I'm not overly convinced this is an iCloud issue or even a Mac update issue. But I am not sure.

The key issue to this problem is when you update Mac iOS. For some reason certain updates trigger this issue. If a file opens after an update it is highly doubtful you will be able to reproduce this issue. For example I used a file a week ago. I updated the Mac for a small update and when I tried to open the same file it refused to open. So for your testing purposes on your end I’d suggest making a blank file with numerous images and icons (all pulled from iCloud folders). Save the file in iCloud and then update your Mac. It mean using an older version, not necessarily reverting back to major release but rather previous small updates. I'm willing to help but I need direction on how to do this or what you need. I’ll try and make a video explaining my folder overview.

So this bug is back and boy is this SUPER annoying. I can't open any old files. I can't even open them in Publisher now so the above solution I can't even test. Come on Affinity. @Nopemann has given you a solid lead as to the origins of this issue. Currently this whole software suite is unusable and it's getting to the point I can't use it for client work for fear of losing progress. It's super frustrating as I have a very tight client deadline and I can't open the file.

Yeah this solution doesn't work for me unfortunately. I just get the name of the colours which isn't helpful. Thank you for the suggestion though.

Hi, Could I please request that a hex value box be added to the swatches panel like you have done with the colour wheel. Currently if I want to grab the hex value of a swatch (which is quite often) I have to select the swatch > go to the colour menu (which defaults to the edit view - which is annoying) > Then I have to select colour wheel from top right menu. It is a very verbose way to grab hex value. Can we just add it to the swatches panel. Thank you.

Thank you @thomaso.

@Nopemann Thank you so much for this feedback. That has been very valuable. @Chris B Hopefully you can see the above comment and maybe that will help solve this bug from your end. As to the solution it is an interesting one. I'm pretty sure I have zero embedded documents in all of the files that crash with this bug. I could be wrong and I will certainly check. But as a whole I don't use embeds for this kind of reason. Anyway thank you again for the feedback. EDIT: So I had a look and it turns out all 'images' were embedded which would make sense. I normally copy SVGs from the embed file straight into my document (so there is no embedding). Anyway relinking the images will need to be the case. Either way this bug doesn't seem to be affecting me any more but I don't know what I have done to change it in the last 2 weeks.

@Chris B Ok I set up a test user and the files all opened instantly. However, logging back into my normal account I opened the files and they all opened as well (albeit quite a bit slower). I tested this a few days ago and the files were definitely not opening. I should mentioned I did just update my Mac today with the latest update (a small patch I believe). So either the update to the Mac has triggered something or logging in and out to a new user triggered something. On the new user account I obviously had to download Affinity and it asked me to confirm registration. I doubt that would have been a thing. I will keep an eye on this and see if a new update breaks that files. But this is the FIRST time in months I have been able to open a file after a Mac update.

@Chris B This is true regarding the windows issue but I've have also linked 3 others and that was only after a very quick search. It is obvious this is a big issue affecting other people. In the mean time I will set up a new user account. Is this the long term solution? I have to use Affinity Designer on a guest user account going forward. I appreciate bugs are not easy to diagnose. But it's clear I'm not an isolated individual. This is also a product breaking bug, I literally can't use Designer. NOTE this bug is not affecting the Photo or Publisher.

Is there a fix to this yet? I've tried to be patient but this is getting quite serious (this is affecting my paid client work). It is clear others have the same issue. I literally can't use the software.

I have the exact same issue. What actually is the solution? The only solution I have found is someone else saving the file on their machine (renaming it) and then sending it back. I have narrowed the bug down to whenever I update my Mac Affinity just breaks permanently. For the those that say we shouldn't save in iCloud that isn't a very good plan long term as I want to access these files on the fly. I have used Affinity with iCloud since it first launched. I've never had a problem. I understand things change and I'm willing to help Serif figure out what the bug is and so remove iCloud from the equation (but iCloud is not the problem here). However it doesn't look overly obvious that Serif are trying to fix this issue.

@PLANETHUMAN I have this exact same problem but I am on Mac. I have narrowed down my issue to every time I update my Mac with a new update Affinity Designer does not open ANY files - it just goes into a permanent state of loading. I have to physically ask someone to open a file and save it on their machine and then send it back to me. I can then open the file fine until I update the Mac again. I literally can't use the software in this state. You can see my thread here