Search the Community

Thanks RC-R, what you say makes sense. It's just frustrating that I can now get AP and AD to work successfully for several hours, presumably using the functions and drivers you refer to, only for the apps to crash/BSOD, when doing the simplest of tasks.

My go-to tool for chasing down BSOD events is WhoCrashed: https://www.resplendence.com/whocrashed

Thanks. That one is especially interesting, I think, because it specifically says your hardware has a problem. Here's one thread relating to that error: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/repeated-live-kernel-events-124-193-and-bsod-1a/25740a89-f2b8-47c5-8b94-cf36e4c8e30a And another: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/livekernelevent-124/4465d9d6-58bd-4c60-a0fb-b3602381a795 There are a bunch more you can find using an appropriate web search.

Many thanks All media Lab, I downloaded the driver version you refer to a couple of days ago. Walt and v_kyr happy to share crash details, attached is one from the Events Log, the other from the Reliability Monitor, both refer to BSOD CLOCK WATCHDOG TIMEOUT. If you would like to see anything else let me know, really keen to get to the bottom of this mystery.

@Richard H: v_kyr asked above whether you had checked the Details tab for more info when looking at the Event Log. I could ask the same for the errors in the Reliability Monitor. Please check the details to see what they say (and, if you're willing, please show us, too ). Again, the Affinity applications cannot directly cause a BSOD, but they can reveal issues in the hardware or issues in the drivers, by the amount and kind of work they cause during their processing.

The results of my day with AP and also AD are no and yes. Have I been able to get either program to work on my desktop tower, no. No matter what I’ve tried, rolling back drivers, updating to the latest, uninstalling and reinstalling drivers and programs, running scans, memory tests, conflict troubleshooting etc. etc., every time after a few minutes there it is again, the dreaded BSOD: CLOCK WATCHDOG TIMEOUT. The yes part of the day was my idea to install AP and AD on my travel laptop, a Lenovo ThinkPad 3 with respectable but obviously much lower specs than the tower: Intel 6405U 2.45GHz processer, 4GB ram, 128GB SSD storage, integrated GPU, Windows 10 Home. Both programs worked, albeit slowly, but flawlessly for hours at a time. What does one draw from this, AP and AD don’t like Windows 10 Pro? Is my bespoke build tower set up – ok you may laugh, but I don’t know what else to think – too “high end”? Having said that, if AP and AD don’t like the Nvida Quadro P4000 GPU, why will they still not work when I change the Performance Preference to “warp”? What can the conflict be? A friend suggested I install the programs on his new Windows 11 high-spec Dell XPS 17, it will be interesting to see what AP and AD make of that.

I think you're right, and I missed that you had WARP set in your Preferences. As you mentioned a BSOD with WHEA UNCORRECTABLE ERROR, have you tried searching the web for that failure? For example, according to https://www.lifewire.com/fix-whea-uncorrectable-error-4689907: Different programs exercise different capabilities of the system, and of the drivers. And thus some programs may fail when others run (or seem to run) perfectly fine.

I'm having exactly the same issue and I have the same hardware, XPS 15 4k 9560 7700k I'm finding the program freezes and crashes when closing a PNG file and then a short time later bsod.

To confirm, BSOD is caused by drivers only. Applications make use of the drivers, which is why it appears some "applications cause BSOD", but in reality, it can only be the driver. You need to find out which driver is causing it (probably GPU), and update / change it.

Hi @1.agata, BSOD has been mentioned a few times on the forum. These are normally caused by bad drivers on your system. Affinity applications can’t cause a BSOD directly. You would need to investigate the text that is displayed during the BSOD.

Thanks Fritz. To give an update: Following my last message, I inquired a bit more and checked how the system would behave with the Windows verifier.exe tool activated. This tool stresses the drivers and it appears that each boot of my machine was followed by a BSOD (System thread exception this time). I managed to access the DMP files and they pointed towards a file called hidclass.sys which often relates to input devices. By chance, I found a post on google that suggested that Logitech G-Hub (mouse driver) could be responsible. I uninstalled it and there was no BSOD at startup anymore with verifier.exe activated. Now I am not sure that this was causing the issue in Affinity Photo but it is likely. I have not had BSOD since. Time will confirm. Thanks anyway for your help. Maxime

Hi, Updated to Affinity 1.9.0932 last week. Download went well with no issues.However I tried using Affinity Photo yesterday and today and after a while I got a BSOD." "thread stuck in device driver" I have updated the BIOS and graphics drivers as has been suggested.Opened it later on this morning and again after a minute or two the bsod. haapened.This problem has only appeared since the update!! Any one else have the same issue? Can Affinity be rolled back if neccessary or are there any fixes available soon? Windows 10 64 bit. HP Zbook 15 u G6 1TB SSD 32GB RAM

The BSOD isn't caused by Affinity. User-mode applications are unable to cause a BSOD, only bad drivers, or faulty hardware. In your case, it's a driver for a cloud storage provider (e.g. OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc). Cldflt.sys is a proxy for your real cloud storage driver, so it can be difficult to know which provider is at fault. Unfortunately you're not the only one affected (and we're not the only app affected) - http://www.google.com/search?q=Cldflt.sys+BSOD We have an FAQ relating to this issue -

Thanks for the tip, Scott! Unfortunately, that did not solve my BSOD. The crashing point has evolved over time, initially I could not get the Designer even running. Now I get the BSOD when saving (with save as...) a file. The Designer store app version has clearly some different code than anywhere else. Many tend to blame Microsoft's updates for the BSOD as other applications have caused BSODs after the update. But who knows... perhaps somewhere exists an open source library that Serif's developers have been using to get the Designer into the MS Store? Other parties may have used that same faulty library causing the problem. Serif's responses on this forum have been just shrugging the problem towards Microsoft. I am still waiting for a permanent solution, either from Serif or Microsoft. I wonder if has anyone with Surface and MS Store app purchase got the Designer up and running?

The latest Windows update KB4524570 changed the symptoms, now the blue screen comes when trying to save or open a file. I have no means to tell who is to blame for the bug, Affinity or Microsoft. At least multiple users having the same setup and path are coming up: Surface, Store, cldflt.sys and OneDrive... My solution is utterly stupid to use even for a temporarily solution. I am an entrepreneur using my Surface to earn my living. Currently the Affinity software is the only one causing BSOD. I have not experienced BSOD in years with my business laptops. So far the best solution is to avoid using Affinity Designer and use other graphics tools instead. As I see it, the 50 eur purchase price has granted me right to complain about the matter. I don't even care to calculate what a single BSOD costs for me in terms of wasted working time.

What version of Windows? What GPU, graphics card are you running? Have you checked to see if you're running the most recent drivers? Don't rely on Windows for this, go to the manufacturer's website to get the most recent drivers. What version of Affinity Photo? It's important because some are still running the 1.9 version. Have you looked to see if Hardware Acceleration is enabled? Go to Preferences>Performance and at the bottom if there's a check in the box beside it, clear it. You'll be asked to restart Photo. After restarting are you still getting the crashing? Can you attach the Crash Report to your reply? Also according to Serif, their programs can not cause a Kernel Crash, or what's known as a BSOD of the system. This generally will indicate there's some other issue, and Affinity just might be bringing it to light.

@Bugeye, a failed stop code (BSOD) indicates a problem with a driver (the Affinity software itself cannot cause a BSOD as it runs in user-mode). Unfortunately I can't tell you which driver is causing the problem, but try uninstalling and reinstalling the latest graphics drivers as a start.

Many other companies also use crash reports to make their programmes more stable. And the crash reports for Affinity programmes do not only point to internal programme errors, often the reports also indicate damaged or missing DLLs and other libraries from the Windows system. Microsoft also collects such data whenever there is a BSOD (Blue Screen of Death). The device configuration is also sent there and stored and evaluated in a huge database.

I am on a PC. Window 10 Professional with Affinity Photo 1.7.1. I have a file that I saved and then upon saving and closing (or seconds just after) I encountered a fatal windows 10 error relating to the Graphics card and this caused Blue Screen of Death. Upon reloading I am unable to open the saved Affinity Photo file, stating the file type is "unsupported". I hazard a guess that saving to the disk was interrupted by the BSOD. However, I have the Affinity Photo backup saving (File Recovery Interval) system running every 300 seconds and this should have a version of my image I can work from. How do I find this file, on PC? I have found similar threads but those that give a Filepath are non existant on my system and also many comments / posts state this (File Recovery Interval) is only for power failure errors etc; which this exactly is. How do I restore my work? Many thanks. M

I have the same problem with Designer (1.10.xx.) I get the BSOD after a few hours without entering anything into the programme. I have no problems during the editing process. I'm using an ASUS Workstation with the newest drivers. Thank you!

Thanks for your reply. I understand that Affinity Photo can not cause BSOD by itself. However I am still wondering why these BSOD only happened while using this app whereas the system has been rock stable since one year, including when using other photos editors. Regards, Maxime

Hey Max Gr, welcome to the Affinity Forums. Affinity isn't capable of causing a BSOD—however as you pointed out, faulty hardware or more likely, on a new system, a bad driver. I'm not really qualified to suggest what may be causing the crash, however I have seen the IRQL NOT LESS OR EQUAL BSOD before and it was related to audio drivers. Not to sure about the other one I'm afraid.

Hi @Gibsonion, as Walt has already mentioned, user-mode applications are unable to cause BSOD, only kernel-mode software (such as drivers etc) can do that. Crashes in user-mode applications just kill the process that was running (i.e. the Affinity app) whereas crashes in kernel-mode software results in an unrecoverable situation for the operating system (which is why the BSOD is shown). I would suggest looking at display drivers (perhaps uninstalling and reinstalling the latest version). Note: Some anti-virus / anti-malware or even backup programs install drivers that can result in system instability too.

What are the details of the BSOD error? (That is, what did Windows say had failed.n A screenshot (perhaps via your phone) would be useful for that, unless you wrote it down when it happened.) By the way, BSODs are (I understand) caused by driver-mode (or deeper, more privileged) code, not by application code. The Affinity applications have no driver-mode code, according to Serif, and so they cannot directly cause BSOD failures. Given your description, I will take a wild guess that the error was reported against cldflt.sys, which is a driver module for Windows cloud services such as OneDrive. And Microsoft has issued various updates that have caused that problem, and some that have fixed it. When the error occurs, it can affect any application, even potions of Windows itself. If that is the reported error, then the following FAQ may be relevant:

Komatös: Thanks for the suggestion. I checked my BIOS and it is UEFI/BIOS. The image below was edited using Affinity Photo with HW acceleration turned on. I've been thinking more about this error and whether it is caused by hardware or software. If I had faulty hardware, my system would BSOD at somewhat random times and not in a particular application under particular circumstances. Now perhaps my hardware is configured improperly, but again why would it only show up with a particular application under particular circumstances. Is that the only application that exercises the improperly configure hardware? Given all the other image processing software I use, I doubt it. So I keep returning to something in Photo causing this unfortunate behaviour.