PhilipPeake

All I can say is that my expectations have been colored by my experience with Adobe, which was far from pleasant. With CS6 I bought a Mac license since I had enough of Windows in so many ways. Then, of course, they wanted a subscription. No. Not playing that game. When Apple moved the Mac to 64 bit binaries only, my CS6 became useless. I did have a separate, perpetual license for Lightroom, and thought that for my purposes it just might be enough, as it was getting more capable all the time. The updates became more and more difficult to locate. Every path led to a subscription page and support were not helpful. Eventually, they just backed out of their commitment to the perpetual licenses and abandoned the people using them. That has left a VERY dirty taste in my mouth. I will not, under any circumstances rent software - that is what it is. Particularly with a proprietary storage format. Time will tell if the nice words actually mean anything. I suppose that at the worst, it would open an opportunity for a new startup to address the market not interested in software rental.

It installs fine, and will run if I run it as administrator. I am pretty sure it is one of those random Windows 10 things ... permissions somehow incorrect. The other products run fine. The little bit that gets recorded in the system/application logs and running it with a debugger all point to a function being called to create a directory, very early on in the initialization - before the splash screen, which fails. Unfortunately, I can't determine where this is supposed to be created, or its name. Where do I open a support ticket?? All I could find were the forums...

No. The one downloaded directly from Serif. I just wish it would output an error message somewhere, saying exactly where it tried, and failed to create a directory, which is what the problem is, as far as I can tell.

I have the latest upgrade and it has exactly the same problem.

I have no idea what to do to get any attention for this problem. @Callum Suggestions please??????? Is there support for these products? or not?

Another data point: I wondered if it might be something specific to my account/filesystem, so created a new user. Same results.

Really, I think the quickest way to answer this is to show the above trace to one of the devs who will probably quickly be able to identify where the failure is, and what directory creation fails???

The problem isn't installation. It installs just fine, and as I said, will actually run if I use "run as administrator". There is no anti-virus software. You can see (above) from the rather basic trace of execution which is all I was able to do, it fails when trying to create a directory - but doesn't log anything, so no idea where it was trying to create this - knowing that would probably allow me to check permissions and probably fix this. Note that photo1 and all other V2 products work fine as MSIX or MSI installations.

I have mentioned this problem ever since version 2 was released. I hoped it was just a problem with MSIX, but apparently not. Photo V2 won't start - unless it is run as adminstrator. As a normal user it doesn't even get as far as a splash screen. What debug I could do is listed here: Unfortunately, there has been no official response to this. As far as I can tell, early in the start-up sequence it checks for the existence of some directory - not finding it, it attempts to create it. That fails, and the error appears not to be caught and/or reported, so I have no idea where it is trying to create this directory to verify permissions.

Is there really no way to submit a support ticket and get any help from Affinity on fixing a problem??????

Running under WinDBG this is where it fails: 75c000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CRYPTBASE.DLL ModLoad: 00007ff9`40d50000 00007ff9`40d82000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\SSPICLI.DLL ModLoad: 00007ff8`ebf30000 00007ff8`ebfdb000 C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo 2\libidmlimport.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`d7650000 00007ff8`d794c000 C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo 2\libpsd.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`c1e90000 00007ff8`c2b01000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\System\b187b7f31cee3e87b56c8edca55324e0\System.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`c1410000 00007ff8`c1e85000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\System.Core\570b7aac439a9e98f47d508ba4ab1330\System.Core.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`c0f00000 00007ff8`c140f000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\WindowsBase\a2c12f5d341e09f5027a441f5d99f563\WindowsBase.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`40730000 00007ff9`40748000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\CRYPTSP.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`3fe60000 00007ff9`3fe94000 C:\WINDOWS\system32\rsaenh.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`a4be0000 00007ff8`a5a3d000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\PresentationCore\279c66539c296fb059d7762fbaf0a6ce\PresentationCore.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`a34a0000 00007ff8`a4bd1000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\Presentatio5ae0f00f#\eeb75ecbe3c76c0768c7e5f07e7a387b\PresentationFramework.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`eb1a0000 00007ff8`eb417000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\System.Xaml\5373b77997cff8767cdd7c55868335d0\System.Xaml.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`2bbd0000 00007ff9`2bd1f000 C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\clrjit.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`e1750000 00007ff8`e1947000 C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\WPF\wpfgfx_v0400.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`ebe90000 00007ff8`ebf2a000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\MSVCP140_CLR0400.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`ebd70000 00007ff8`ebe8f000 C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\WPF\PresentationNative_v0400.dll ModLoad: 00000262`19050000 00000262`190be000 Serif.Windows.dll ModLoad: 00000262`190c0000 00000262`1912e000 Serif.Windows.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`e0a40000 00007ff8`e0b73000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\System.Configuration\5f4650136157b1ab3ef2655cd0808eee\System.Configuration.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`a2bf0000 00007ff8`a349b000 C:\WINDOWS\assembly\NativeImages_v4.0.30319_64\System.Xml\db3df155ec9c0595b0198c4487f36ca1\System.Xml.ni.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`3ef20000 00007ff9`3f6b2000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\windows.storage.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`40850000 00007ff9`40880000 C:\WINDOWS\System32\Wldp.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`40da0000 00007ff9`40dbf000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\profapi.dll ModLoad: 00007ff8`f17e0000 00007ff8`f1825000 C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo 2\Serif.WinRT.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`3dfe0000 00007ff9`3e5a0000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d2d1.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`3f720000 00007ff9`3f813000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\dxgi.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`3ec70000 00007ff9`3eed3000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\d3d11.dll ModLoad: 00007ff9`3c740000 00007ff9`3c923000 C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\dcomp.dll (64f8.612c): CLR exception - code e0434352 (first chance) ModLoad: 00007ff9`1f4b0000 00007ff9`1f61a000 C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\diasymreader.dll (64f8.612c): CLR exception - code e0434352 (!!! second chance !!!) KERNELBASE!RaiseException+0x69: 00007ff9`40e8cd29 0f1f440000 nop dword ptr [rax+rax]

Yes. Same result. Little blue rotating circle for a couple of seconds then nothing.

This is now an official request for support with this problem. Affinity and Designer run with no problem. However, Photo2 refuses to start. It doesn't even get as far as the splash screen. Runs fine if I run as Administrator. Using what few tools I have to try to diagnose the problem, it appears that it checks for the existence of a directory, and not finding it, attempts to create it - and fails. It would be REALLY useful if it output an error message somewhere saying what failed, but not that I can find. What I really need is to know what/where this directory is, because it looks like a permissions problem, but I have no clue where to start looking. Philip

The Event Viewer supports my theory that it is a permissions problem: Application: Photo.exe Framework Version: v4.0.30319 Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception. Exception Info: System.UnauthorizedAccessException at System.IO.__Error.WinIOError(Int32, System.String) at System.IO.Directory.InternalCreateDirectory(System.String, System.String, System.Object, Boolean) at System.IO.Directory.InternalCreateDirectoryHelper(System.String, Boolean) at Serif.Interop.Persona.Application.EnsureDirectoryExists(System.String) at Serif.Interop.Persona.Application.get_AppDataPathForAllUsers() at Serif.Interop.Persona.Application..ctor() at Serif.Affinity.Application..ctor() at Photo.Application.Main(System.String[]) Now all I really need to know is where is it trying to create this directory???

I had (have) a problem with V2 photo on my windows system. Publisher and Designer (V2) run with no problems Photo2 doesn't start up. It fails before displaying even a splash screen or writing any error messages. I was hoping that an MSI install would fix the problem. It does not, it fails in the same way. If I run as administrator, MSI or MSIX, it runs - asks for license details. That looks to me like some sort of permissions problem. With the limited diagnostics I could get with an MSIX install, it *looked* to me as if it was failing on a directory creation? I get the same sort of result trying to debug the MSI install - but I am not a Windows programmer, and don't have real tools to track down the string containing the name of the directory I think it is trying to create: Maybe this makes sense to someone?? Probably needs someone familiar with the start-up code on Windows. Note the stack ... InternalCreateDirect... (Directory??) Remember - works as Admin, not as me ... Philip

Nathan - Mine crashes/exits before the splash screen. All I see is a the small blue rotating circle for a couple of seconds. The crash folder is empty. The control-launch does nothng, still just the rotating blue circle for a few seconds.

For what it is worth (practically nothing...) I have a Windows 10 VM running under VMWare Fusion on my Intel Mac. I wondered what would happen ... so applied all the latest Windows patches, downloaded Photo2, installed, and it runs just fine.

Unfortunately, that has been a standard answer to getting things to work on Windows since Windows 3 😞 Windows is a secondary platform for me, and I can most definitely live without it and it's continual headaches. That, of course is no consolation for those that use Windows as their primary platform ... I think all that it really shows is that keeping Windows up to date via patches, really doesn't ...

Well, at least yours started the first time. Mine never started. I am trying to be generous, and assuming that all the effort is concentrated on the real installer rather than this app-crap and that will fix he problem.

Since it runs when started as Administrator, I doubt that it is graphics related. It seems to be related to permissions. The event log looks like it dies when trying to create a director - of course, it doesn't say which - typical Microsoft.

You would have to convince me that they spent time and money doing different graphics code for designer and publisher first - both run fine.

Your current symptoms sound similar to mine - process starts (visible in task manager) for a few seconds, then silently exits before even displaying the splash screen. Not sure why yours won't run when run as administrator ... but then, I don't really understand why it won't run as me (or you). I am hoping that the more traditional installer version (when we get it...) might fix these problems. ???

First directory has ok permissions. Second didn't exist - created it, tried running - same result. (deleted it) Crash and log show nothing.

Don't use it. Other than the default windows one.