Catalina 10.15.3 | Beach Ball at Open

[Danconia]

Hi there,

Have a new MacBook. Installed Affinity Designer. I'm able to do everything including selecting a page size but as soon as that's done, I get the beachball and the program is otherwise unresponsive.

Is this a known issue?

Thanks,
Sean

[Dan C]

Hi Danconia,

Welcome to the forums

This sounds as though it may be a rendering issue, as the app is freezing when trying to draw the canvas.

Could you please open Affinity Designer>Preferences>Performance and provide a screenshot of your settings here?

I'd also like to try a reset operation, as although the app is recently installed this can help with oddities when using the app.

You can reset your app back to its default settings by holding down the CTRL key while launching the app. When the Clear User Data window appears, click Select All and then Clear. The app will now open.
Be aware that resetting your app back to its default settings will lose any custom settings such as keyboard shortcuts and brushes etc.

Please do let me know if this helps!

[Danconia]

Thanks for your help.

Tried it. No luck.

Here is a screen capture of the settings.

[Danconia]

I did update my Mac to the newest version 10.15.4 and last night it worked. Then I had to reinstall from scratch do to other programs not functioning correctly and I'm back to square one. I did everything that I could think of to downgrade to Mojave but on these new 2020 MacBooks, they are too smart for me. I even put the system back to the old framework (journaled) and it still wouldn't let me install Mojave. 

Basically, I can do anything other than open a new document. The minute I try, I get the beach ball.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Danconia
update Mac OS

[Danconia]

Not sure if any of this helps...

 

Date/Time:        2020-03-25 15:47:03 -0700
End time:         2020-03-25 15:47:19 -0700
OS Version:       Mac OS X 10.15.4 (Build 19E266)
Architecture:     x86_64h
Report Version:   29

Data Source:      Stackshots
Shared Cache:     0x678f000 1AA38D3C-DC7A-3725-818F-D2D95E93CCE9

Command:          Affinity Designer
Path:             /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/MacOS/Affinity Designer
Identifier:       com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner
Version:          1.8.2 (1.8.5)
Parent:           launchd [1]
PID:              1969

Event:            hang
Duration:         16.01s
Duration Sampled: 1.59s (process was unresponsive for 14 seconds before sampling)
Steps:            16 (100ms sampling interval)

Hardware model:   MacBookPro16,1
Active cpus:      16

Time Awake Since Boot: 1000s

--------------------------------------------------
Timeline format: stacks are sorted chronologically
Use -i and -heavy to re-report with count sorting
--------------------------------------------------

Heaviest stack for the main thread of the target process:
  16  ??? (Affinity Designer + 5956) [0x109e4e744]
  16  NSApplicationMain + 777 (AppKit + 12278) [0x7fff30b8eff6]
  16  -[NSApplication run] + 658 (AppKit + 201198) [0x7fff30bbd1ee]
  16  -[NSApplication(NSEvent) _nextEventMatchingEventMask:untilDate:inMode:dequeue:] + 1352 (AppKit + 259296) [0x7fff30bcb4e0]
  16  _DPSNextEvent + 883 (AppKit + 265369) [0x7fff30bccc99]
  16  _BlockUntilNextEventMatchingListInModeWithFilter + 64 (HIToolbox + 193913) [0x7fff32581579]
  16  ReceiveNextEventCommon + 359 (HIToolbox + 194292) [0x7fff325816f4]
  16  RunCurrentEventLoopInMode + 292 (HIToolbox + 195261) [0x7fff32581abd]
  16  CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 462 (CoreFoundation + 532478) [0x7fff3394dffe]
  16  __CFRunLoopRun + 874 (CoreFoundation + 534981) [0x7fff3394e9c5]
  16  __CFRunLoopDoObservers + 457 (CoreFoundation + 537639) [0x7fff3394f427]
  16  __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_AN_OBSERVER_CALLBACK_FUNCTION__ + 23 (CoreFoundation + 537845) [0x7fff3394f4f5]
  16  ___NSRunLoopObserverCreateWithHandler_block_invoke + 41 (AppKit + 9435472) [0x7fff3148b950]
  16  __62+[CATransaction(NSCATransaction) NS_setFlushesWithDisplayLink]_block_invoke + 266 (AppKit + 1968641) [0x7fff30d6ca01]
  16  CA::Transaction::commit() + 644 (QuartzCore + 8964) [0x7fff3f40d304]
  16  CA::Context::commit_transaction(CA::Transaction*, double) + 334 (QuartzCore + 14102) [0x7fff3f40e716]
  16  CA::Layer::display_if_needed(CA::Transaction*) + 757 (QuartzCore + 152681) [0x7fff3f430469]
  16  -[CAOpenGLLayer _display] + 580 (QuartzCore + 790660) [0x7fff3f4cc084]
  16  CAOpenGLLayerDraw(CAOpenGLLayer*, double, CVTimeStamp const*, unsigned int) + 304 (QuartzCore + 791439) [0x7fff3f4cc38f]
  16  -[TiledCAOpenGLLayer copyCGLPixelFormatForDisplayMask:] + 2533 (libcocoaui + 22813253) [0x10bfdea45]
  16  CGLChoosePixelFormat + 85 (OpenGL + 36325) [0x7fff3e446de5]
  16  ??? (OpenGL + 39068) [0x7fff3e44789c]
  16  ??? (OpenGL + 25569) [0x7fff3e4443e1]
  16  cglBadApplicationNotMuxAwareLockDown + 45 (OpenGL + 25249) [0x7fff3e4442a1]
  16  ??? (OpenGL + 23196) [0x7fff3e443a9c]
  16  IOServiceOpen + 39 (IOKit + 13304) [0x7fff366be3f8]
  16  io_service_open_extended + 137 (IOKit + 13458) [0x7fff366be492]
  16  mach_msg_trap + 10 (libsystem_kernel.dylib + 3578) [0x7fff6d83fdfa]
 *16  hndl_mach_scall64 + 22 (kernel + 819750) [0xffffff80002c8226]
 *16  mach_call_munger64 + 517 (kernel + 2303493) [0xffffff8000432605]
 *16  mach_msg_overwrite_trap + 722 (kernel + 1133218) [0xffffff8000314aa2]
 *16  ipc_kmsg_send + 309 (kernel + 1039557) [0xffffff80002fdcc5]
 *16  ipc_kobject_server + 568 (kernel + 1209128) [0xffffff8000327328]
 *16  ??? (kernel + 2135665) [0xffffff8000409671]
 *16  is_io_service_open_extended + 297 (kernel + 8769961) [0xffffff8000a5d1a9]
 *16  ??? (AppleMuxControl2 + 34840) [0xffffff7f81b36818]
 *16  IOWorkLoop::runAction(int (*)(OSObject*, void*, void*, void*, void*), OSObject*, void*, void*, void*, void*) + 62 (kernel + 8573694) [0xffffff8000a2d2fe]
 *16  ??? (AppleMuxControl2 + 34700) [0xffffff7f81b3678c]
 *16  ??? (AppleMuxControl2 + 36562) [0xffffff7f81b36ed2]
 *16  ??? (AppleMuxControl2 + 36789) [0xffffff7f81b36fb5]
 *16  ??? (AppleMuxControl2 + 58849) [0xffffff7f81b3c5e1]
 *16  ??? (AppleMuxControl2 + 4586) [0xffffff7f81b2f1ea]
 *16  IOEventSource::sleepGate(void*, unsigned int) + 75 (kernel + 8578795) [0xffffff8000a2e6eb]
 *16  IOGraphicsSystemWorkLoop::sleepGate(void*, unsigned int) + 9 (IOGraphicsFamily + 139137) [0xffffff7f813d6f81]
 *16  IOGraphicsWorkLoop::sleepGate(void*, unsigned int) + 100 (IOGraphicsFamily + 36532) [0xffffff7f813bdeb4]
 *16  lck_mtx_sleep + 112 (kernel + 1255424) [0xffffff8000332800]
 *16  thread_block_reason + 175 (kernel + 1317935) [0xffffff8000341c2f]
 *16  ??? (kernel + 1324017) [0xffffff80003433f1]
 *16  machine_switch_context + 200 (kernel + 2388456) [0xffffff80004471e8]

Process:          Affinity Designer [1969]
UUID:             209ACC73-0283-313D-B608-678A4B81B71C
Path:             /Applications/Affinity Designer.app/Contents/MacOS/Affinity Designer
Architecture:     x86_64
Parent:           launchd [1]
UID:              501
Footprint:        1178.66 MB
Start time:       2020-03-25 15:47:18 -0700
End time:         2020-03-25 15:47:19 -0700
Num samples:      16 (1-16)
CPU Time:         <0.001s (527.8K cycles, 203.2K instructions, 2.60c/i)
Note:             Unresponsive for 14 seconds before sampling
Note:             4 idle work queue threads omitted

[Dan C]

Thanks for that Danconia, this shows me that it appears to be Metal Compute at fault here - possibly due to Affinity detecting 2 compatible GPUs.

Could you please disable Metal Acceleration, then restart the app as prompted and see if this helps?

If not, re-open Preferences>Performance and tick Use integrated GPU only, then follow the same procedure as above.

Please do let me know how you get on!

[Danconia]

Thanks Dan,

So here is what I did and for now, it's working. I removed the dock which is this item that I purchased from Amazon and that solved the problem. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0838WTFD1/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1. TOTU Upgraded Universal USB-C 4K Triple Display Docking Station 

I'm going to look further into your suggestion and see if that's what was the issue somehow connected to the use of the dock.

Anyway, thank you again. Very much appreciated. I'm not an expert in Affinity yet but I want to move away from Xara to your ecosystem and I would have been very sad to not have been able to use it on this Mac, which would have been returned if that ended up being the case.

Best,
Sean

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response but many thanks for your update! This is certainly strange and not something I've come across previously, so I'll be sure to keep an eye out for this in the future.

I'm very glad to hear you're back up and running