Eric5

It doesn't here Chris, crashes every time. The only way I got everything working was to reduce file size to about 1/4 what it was, but then I lose the characteristics I was hoping for.

Attached. displacement.tiff

I'm getting an immediate crash when attempting to load a custom displacement map. Two crash reports generated as I tried to load twice and crashed program both times. 3a2d3513-d60a-4416-a8ab-22c129ab4889.dmp a41498fe-63ae-4e51-83a7-2c2e1c0a110f.dmp

I'm attaching a video clip. Let me know if anything's unclear, but at the end, I show what I get if trying to use undo after the crop. testA.mp4

Unfortunately, I'm guessing that the reports aren't saying which hardware, only hardware? This is happening every time I use AP. My only defense has been to start frequently saving to hopefully offset anything lost when the blacking out occurs. In the days when I was using an HDD drive, I would have probably had to stop using AP, but I hope SSD isn't prone to the same errors from frequent reboots as HDDs were. If not, then I'll try and hold on to the program and keep using it. If so, I'm going to have to look for something else.

Hi Chris, I'm attaching the file with saved history. Take note that the crop was made in both x and y. Choose undo brush, select dust and scratches from history, highlight raster crop, and attempt to use the brush. You will see that it is attempting to restore image parts prior to the crop. If no crop is made, then the tool works normally. Oddly, even if the cropped image is "copy flattened" and then a new image is made "new from clipboard" and the same steps are performed, the undo tool will attempt to restore image parts prior to the crop. img127.afphoto

Latest beta. Crop and image, then try to use the undo brush after dust and scratches are performed on the cropped image. Undo appears to try restoring parts of the full image and not the crop even though undo selected after crop. Copying and saving cropped image to new layer has same error.

New behavior in Win 10 today. I was having the same black screen issues with an existing file I've been working on and closed Affinity. Upon reopening and rebooting, the file had been autosaved, and I proceeded to open the autosaved version. Screen flashes black, the file opens. Crash report created in Win and I am attaching along with other report. WATCHDOG-20181213-1019.dmp reliabilityreport.txt

@Mark Ingramtoday I decided to start Furmark's "CPU burner" before launching AP beta. This program runs, or attempts to run, the CPU at near the maximum until I tell it to stop. Affinity was then launched and I opened a file I've been working on. I proceeded to perform operations (add layers, refine, adjustment layers, etc) in order to keep CPU at or near 100% over the course of 45 min and no black screening. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and had to leave, but I don't think the CPU is the issue. @PaulAffinity true about ICE. I have found nothing better for huge panoramas. Even Photoshop can't compare.

Mark, no offense, but from what I am reading, it seems like everyone is taking guesses as to what could be wrong. All I know is that for weeks, Affinity is the only program where I have this black screen issue. If it were only exception errors, I could just close and restart the program and, with any luck, autosave will have saved most of my work. However, with this issue and happening with no warning (other than the most recent behavior of Affinity becoming non-responsive for 15 min before the black screen... and unable to shut down Affinity with task manager), is making me seriously question whether I want to continue trying to use Affinity. You mention CPU, but I have used test programs to stress CPU to the max (even with the fans greatly increasing in speed); test programs for both memory and GPU (also both stressed to the max).... none of these stresses have caused any black screens or crashes. I have used the desktop in question to compose huge 1 GB panoramas, oftentimes consisting of 100 separate images or more, with Image Composite Editor. Even Photoshop struggles with such sizes on this computer and I will admit will crash with no black screen, but ICE handles it well, quickly, and no crashes. So this desktop has handled heavy duty work without fail.. I'll continue trying to work on this for a while longer, but even my patience has a limit. Are there any other programs I could try to help diagnose the problem? Is there any way to conveniently record task manager or other relevant loggers since what I provided didn't seem to help? Any other suggestions? Just looking for answers. I really don't want to give up on Affinity unless I have no choice. And budget at the current time just doesn't warrant the cost of a new desktop.

Ok, ran Affinity again today and, as expected, black screen occurred after about an hour. This time, I tried watching the task manager and also ran a logging program called GPUZ for my video card. Unfortunately, no crash reports generated from Affinity, but I did get two "hardware error" crash reports in Win after reboot (they are attached). Note that Win acted a bit differently upon reboot this time with my screen going black for a couple of seconds twice just a few seconds apart, thus the reports Win generated. Not sure if related, but attaching. I am also attaching the logging text file for my video card. I don't think the card itself has issues from the data I see in the log, which appeared to keep logging right on through the black screening. Finally, I am attaching the error report generated at moment of black screen from Win reliability. Before running Affinity beta today, I ran a video card test using a program called FurMark. I ran both burn in and extended graphics tests for at least 15 min. I didn't see anything unusual with the card's performance. Today, I decided to see if there was any way to regain something of my screen after it went black. I first unplugged the monitor cable from the card and then reattached. This time, my mouse pointer was in the center of the black screen, rapidly flashing. I could move it somewhat if I moved the mouse, but it always went back center screen with rapid flashing. I then proceeded to try going into sleep mode, just backing off from manual shut down. I turned the monitor off and back on. Surprisingly, I now had a white screen with task manager on the foreground, with what looked like Affinity and the logging program at the bottom of screen. I tried to maximize either program, but no response. I then went over to Win menu to try a shut down. I was able to access the menu and tried to shut down several times, but no response. I finally shut down manually. Upon reboot in Win 10, the screen blacked out quickly twice and as described in the first paragraph above. I noticed something new with Affinity today too. About 10 min before the black screen, Affinity became non-responsive. I could move the mouse pointer and whatever tool I was using at the time's characteristics took the place of the pointer, but despite all efforts the program was frozen. I kept an eye on the task manager. Sometimes CPU would go to 90% but back down fairly quickly. Hard drive hardly varied from 0%. Only memory seemed to gradually increase and after I could regain task manager visibility, the reading was 75%. i don't know what to make of all this. I've dealt with computers for years, but I'm still not sure what this issue could be. Only happens with Affinity. From the report on the video card, I would say that it's not at fault. I have a suspicion, but I will reserve it until I see the response I get from the crash reports I'm attaching along with the other data. GPU-Z Sensor Log.txt momentofblackscreen.txt WATCHDOG-20181208-1755.dmp WATCHDOG-20181208-1755 (2).dmp

Mark, the main desktop here, Dell XPS 420, and the main laptop (Dell Inspiron 1545) both have 8 GB RAM. I only get the black screen with the desktop, but both have had frequent exception errors and when a report is generated, I have forwarded it appropriately. Just for the record, I ran PS for years on both computers. I sometimes loaded up to 1 GB single image files (100 image panorama composite) with up to 7 layers, making a final file at least 5 GB size. Although PS would slow down, it never crashed, even on my slowest laptop which only had 4 GB RAM. I would even get the message at start up on the laptop that the laptop's video card wasn't suitable. I don't know about black screens because they happen without warning, but when I have had exception errors, memory/ CPU usage have been less than 50% with hard drive less than 5%. I'll try to watch and see with task manager open before the next black screen and report here.

Mark, Yes, the entire screen, no cursor, nothing. The only way to get everything back is to reboot. If the driver, surely not two different drivers for two different cards tried, with each driver uninstalled and then respective drivers reinstalled depending on which card I used? By the way, the two separate cards tried are the ATI Radeon HD 3870 and the Ge Force 210. The latter is a little newer than the 3870 and has had better Win 10 support. So, if it truly is the driver for each card tried, are you saying there's no way around this? I made both cards used the most recent drivers. By the way, in the emailed response, you were asking if I was using Win 8. No (Win 10), but the program I was using to read and report the crash info may have reported it (AppCrashView). I was trying to get more complete crash info than standard Win provided. Honestly, your most recent post doesn't look favorable for me continuing to use Affinity as I had hoped unless a solution is found. Budget constraints are the primary reason I went with AP over Photoshop and hoped to keep it that way. Thanks, Eric

Newest beta downloaded as suggested and still getting black screen (roughly 90 min into use), requiring reboot to get everything back to normal. No other program does this and I use two different OS (Win and Ubuntu). Graphics card tested with intensive gaming test program and passes. Black screens occur on both video cards tried. Latest drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled. No crash report generated in beta folder, but I am attaching a report from Win. Since beta is not generating a proper report, and if the attached report is not detailed enough, is there something I can install to get the report needed? By the way, the black screen occurred with Win 10 in clean boot mode once again. blackscreen_beta.txt

Same here, essentially. I didn't need Photoshop for more than a couple of times a month either, so it didn't make sense to pay a monthly fee. I think Affinity is trying, but still have a few hills to navigate. Missing actions won't break it for me, but the program so far still isn't totally stable on my system. The developers are responding though and that's encouraging. One program I've reinstalled lately that I hadn't used in years is The Gimp. It's functionality and compatibility has greatly improved within even the last couple of years and I was pleasantly surprised! And still free! I use it to supplement some features AP doesn't yet have, such as content aware scaling and it did a pretty darned good job. There are plenty of portable Gimp versions around with its many useful plug ins already installed.

I thought that too originally, and switched out cards for a completely different one. Still got black screen over time. Latest drivers for both. No other program causes this even if intensive gaming is done. Note that the black screens occurred when I was not running a clean boot as I have been doing lately. So far, no black screens since clean boot but I don't know yet if that truly makes a difference as I haven't had time to run beta enough to find out. Both programs keep crashing, however. Of course, you have the report for beta, but unable to send report for stable because it wanted it emailed. When I canceled, there was no report still in the folder to send.

I think you probably hit this one right on, Mark. I was trying to get the program to crash so hopefully black screen or exception errors would appear and had quite a few files opened and working on multilayered project. With that many files opened, I'm not surprised it crashed but it doesn't look like it helped with my black screen/ exception errors I get with far less opened (which, having said that, Affinity stable did crash with an exception error also yesterday and offered to send a crash report via email but I canceled because on that PC I don't have net access... but there was then no crash report in the folder... is there a way to keep the crash report without emailing so I can upload it later?)

After still having crash and black screen issues with both versions of AP (stable plus beta), I decided to start with the clean boot process described here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/929135/how-to-perform-a-clean-boot-in-windows Please note that this crash occurred with all services disabled as I have not yet proceeded to the method described further down on the page titled "How to determine what is causing the problem after you do a clean boot" Symptoms: I opened several files and proceeded to do various task in AP beta. Within an hour, the program suddenly quit with no warning and no messages. A crash report is attached. With practically everything disabled, I sincerely hope significant progress can be made to determine why the program keeps crashing and/or causes black screening, with the latter that I have to reboot my system to get everything back to normal. 6ac2bcf9-f94e-4789-898f-e0e9b3c5f301.dmp

I haven't had time to fully revisit this, but I did find logs using Windows "reliability" search and they are attached. blackscreen_beta.txt exceptionerror_beta.txt

This will have to wait until I can duplicate the crashing/ exception errors perhaps later today. It almost always happens, just a matter of time. I don't think the blacking out of the video card/ screen is showing anything in AP though, only the exception errors, but I'll try again and see. Will post a log/ crash report if one is presented.

To the OP, the current answer seems to be that the "astronomy" actions originally designed for Photoshop will not work in Affinity. I actually contacted the author of Noel's (Noel Carboni) actions about possible development for Affinity and he has no interest, trying to instead encourage me to sign up with Photoshop. As others have pointed out, macros have a long way to go before they reach the level of actions: I started trying to use a trial of Photoshop CS6 with both Annie's and Noel's installed and displaying each action step while trying to emulate in Affinity. With Noel's, almost immediately stopped since Affinity lacks a duplicate document function which is often the first step of Noel's actions. It's going to take a lot longer than the 30 day trial period to try and emulate the actions with the macro's current state! Unfortunately, there is no way to convert Photoshop actions directly to macro format either as they appear to be different in nature.

I'm attaching the log, but I don't think it shows anything. Log.txt

I've been trying out the latest AF beta version running on my Dell XPS420 quad core with 8 GB RAM under Win 10. Latest Win 10 updates with latest video card drivers for the ATI Radeon HD 3870 card. As with the stable Affinity version, I am still experiencing occasional video card crashes where the screen goes black and the only way I can get back into the system is to reboot. I am also still getting exception errors where the note will appear and Affinity closes. Recently switched hard drives from HDD to SSD. Big increase of speed in all apps, including Affinity, but has not solved the issues. I checked task manager when the exception occurred at memory/ CPU both under 50%. Hard drive less than 5%. I'm finding that the issues occur over time, after I have been using AP for a while and layers have been manipulated and/or added and also as history increases. Can happen with two files open, but sometimes with just one. I've disabled all unnecessary apps in Win 10 including any start up programs that might have been using resources. I've turned off most graphics options, such as fading in and out of Win 10 windows. Another thing that keeps happening is that as Affinity is used longer, eventually when a task is tried, it either becomes nearly non-responsive or completely and have to shut down the program from the task manager. I've checked the folder for beta and see no crash reports generated, which I find odd especially with the video card crashes.

Downloaded the beta and tried it out. Interesting to see some of the changes implemented over the stable AP so far. Of course, the first thing I did was open the large Affinity multi-layered file and try manipulating the layers while observing the histogram. Result: seems better than current stable Affinity, but still issues. It seems to have to do with file size. The file I tried is like 4 GB. Anything done with layers was slow histogram response. I tried checking "layer" option and refreshing (pressing yellow triangle). I then found that if I did a copy flattened and opened from clipboard to a new file, the histogram response was nearly instantaneous most of the time. So whatever is happening must have something to do with file sizes as well.

Thanks, I may give it a try as, in addition to the slow histogram, the even more serious issue of video card crashing occurred once again. Thought I had it solved, but doesn't appear that way. Is the beta version a separate install from the stable? Serial needed from original installation? Thanks.