Entire project deleted

[henderpa]

I’ve just had a minor disaster in that Affinity Designer for iPad froze up while I was working inside of a Project and rearranging the order of my individual files. Suddenly it stopped responding to my input, and then began adding files from outside the Project into the Project before freezing completely. I waited, to no avail. I then closed AD, and reopened the app. When I did, the entire Project and all of its internal files were gone, including the two that had somehow been moved into the Project by AD during the glitch. They’re nowhere in the Files app, either.

I’m extremely curious about what caused this, but I’m certainly going to be doing continual exports of files as I work until I can be sure this won’t happen again. I lost about 20 designs.

Does the AD team have any sense of whether my files are at all recoverable, if I (for some reason) can’t see them in the Files app anymore?

Thanks! Hope this isn’t a problem that ever appears again...

[DM1]

24 minutes ago, henderpa said:

I’m extremely curious about what caused this, but I’m certainly going to be doing continual exports of files as I work until I can be sure this won’t happen again. I lost about 20 designs.

Hi henderpa, while you wait for mods to respond, it’s worth noting that on iPad, unless you use Save or Save a copy, any files stored on Project screen reside only in Affinity 'Sandbox' and can only be accessed by Affinity app. If there is a glitch of some sort, those files may become inaccessible (as you are finding out).

A safer workflow is to create your file, use Document menu to Save a Copy. Close your file. In Project screen close the file icon too. Now tap the + button and use Open from Cloud, navigate to the previously saved 'copy', and open that file. Now you are working with an .afdesign file (that can be accessed by other apps/copied/moved/backed up etc),. You also now have a new option under the Document menu called 'Save'. Every time you save, the original file will be updated. The icon on the Project screen now links to the .afdesign file. 
Good luck with recovering lost files. 
 

 

[Callum]

Hi henderpa,

This isn't something we have ever had reported before. Unfortunately if the files are no longer appearing in Designer there is nothing we can do to retrieve them. If this happens again if possible could you take a screen recording of it happening? I apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you.

[Horseflesh]

Try iMazing, the desktop app. It includes means to browse the iOS file system. I think that it is fully featured during the trial period. Good luck!