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When I open Affinity Photo all the text in Windows 10 disappears.


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I just bought the software yesterday, and when I open the program, almost all the text disappears. Text showing programs, folders or files is gone, I just get icons, which means I can't open any photo or navigate. And it doesn't get fix until I restart Windows. I close Affinity and the text is still gone. Just a restart works. I deleted the font cache and nothing, same thing keeps happening. I use other graphic design programs and nothing like this has ever happened. What could be the problem? 

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I know that is seems suspicious that it happens when you run Affinity, but I don't think there's any way that an application-level program like the Affinity ones can cause that.

I think you have a Windows problem, or a driver problem that's causing this, and there are reports in the Windows forums since at least 2015 of this happening.

Here's one, for example: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-explorer-folders-and-files-have-missing/f9394940-ad50-4966-bc18-2a20db14be0c?auth=1

Here's a Google search that will find a bunch more, unrelated to Affinity: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=windows+10+file+labels+disappear

They all have various suggestions for repair actions to take.

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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I already did the windows fixes but is not the same case, my text is there all the time until I open Affinity, then is back after a restart. It may be a driver but I don't know which driver that Affinity uses can make this happen. 

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If I had to guess (and it would be purely a guess) it would be your graphics driver, or OneDrive or GoogleDrive (or some other cloud drive like them).

Maybe someone from Serif, or another user, will have another idea. But you might also check the list of 3rd-party programs that have been known to cause problems when using Affinity. This FAQ entry covers both graphic drivers and 3rd-party software:

 

-- Walt
Designer, Photo, and Publisher V1 and V2 at latest retail and beta releases
PC:
    Desktop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 64GB memory, AMD Ryzen 9 5900 12-Core @ 3.00 GHz, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 

    Laptop:  Windows 11 Pro, version 23H2, 32GB memory, Intel Core i7-10750H @ 2.60GHz, Intel UHD Graphics Comet Lake GT2 and NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Laptop GPU.
iPad:  iPad Pro M1, 12.9": iPadOS 17.4.1, Apple Pencil 2, Magic Keyboard 
Mac:  2023 M2 MacBook Air 15", 16GB memory, macOS Sonoma 14.4.1

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just talking just to myself:
I see someone taking a Screen-Recording with the Smartphone (instead of using e.g. OBS..)
But I also see "pro-Software" like Adobe-CC-Software (??)
I see a messy desktop
I see horror-Software like "realplayer" (anno 2020?) and an "ebay"-Icon, really?
I see some more icons I do not recognize.. perhaps for a good reason.

I think to myself: there are probably a 1000 reasons for issues on such a computer - don´t touch this...

Fritz
 

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Ebay icon came with the computer, I have never clicked on it, it was easier to use the smartphone because after I open Affinity I have to do a restart so everything is OK again. So I'm using the phone to write here. 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi hgokuh,

I have been hit by exactly the same issue, on a clean and up-to-date Win10 PC that has worked flawlessly for months.

I recently installed the excellent Affinity Photo and Designer applications. Today, when opening Designer, all text disappeared from most windows, exactly as you show in your video.

This strange behaviour is not a fault of Affinity nor your fault (even if Fritz_H insinuates so in his useless comment, that is not worthy of any decent community). However, it is clear from our identical experience that some components used by Affinity software trigger the issue on our Windows 10 installations.

I was lucky enough to try something that solved the issue for me (being a computer engineer might have helped, for once!). I post it here in case it helps you and future users affected by the same problem. Affinity software is too good to have its reputation spoiled by a rare Win10 conflict!

What solved the issue for me

The disappearing text seems to be caused by Windows 10's font cache. Resetting the font cache did the trick. Here's how:

  1. Stop both the "Windows Font Cache Service" and "Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0" services (e.g. by running "services.msc")
  2. For me it was also necessary to disable "Windows Font Cache Service" to prevent it from immediately restarting once stopped
  3. Delete all the contents of "%WinDir%\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache"
  4. Delete "%WinDir%\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT" (if it exists)
  5. Optionally set the a.m. services in manual mode if you had to disable them at point 2
  6. Optionally restart Windows

I wrote a short batch file that automatically does all of the above, I keep it on my desktop in case the issue happens again. I attach it here for your convenience, you can use it at your own risk (same goes for the instructions above). I hope it solves the problem for you as it did for me.

Good luck!

Alex

Fix font cache.bat

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13 hours ago, alex-g said:

Hi hgokuh,

I have been hit by exactly the same issue, on a clean and up-to-date Win10 PC that has worked flawlessly for months.

I recently installed the excellent Affinity Photo and Designer applications. Today, when opening Designer, all text disappeared from most windows, exactly as you show in your video.

This strange behaviour is not a fault of Affinity nor your fault (even if Fritz_H insinuates so in his useless comment, that is not worthy of any decent community). However, it is clear from our identical experience that some components used by Affinity software trigger the issue on our Windows 10 installations.

I was lucky enough to try something that solved the issue for me (being a computer engineer might have helped, for once!). I post it here in case it helps you and future users affected by the same problem. Affinity software is too good to have its reputation spoiled by a rare Win10 conflict!

What solved the issue for me

The disappearing text seems to be caused by Windows 10's font cache. Resetting the font cache did the trick. Here's how:

  1. Stop both the "Windows Font Cache Service" and "Windows Presentation Foundation Font Cache 3.0.0.0" services (e.g. by running "services.msc")
  2. For me it was also necessary to disable "Windows Font Cache Service" to prevent it from immediately restarting once stopped
  3. Delete all the contents of "%WinDir%\ServiceProfiles\LocalService\AppData\Local\FontCache"
  4. Delete "%WinDir%\System32\FNTCACHE.DAT" (if it exists)
  5. Optionally set the a.m. services in manual mode if you had to disable them at point 2
  6. Optionally restart Windows

I wrote a short batch file that automatically does all of the above, I keep it on my desktop in case the issue happens again. I attach it here for your convenience, you can use it at your own risk (same goes for the instructions above). I hope it solves the problem for you as it did for me.

Good luck!

Alex

Fix font cache.bat 835 B · 0 downloads

Thank you, I will try it when I get home. I have not use any Affinity software because of the issue, I hope it works for me too. 

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  • 1 year later...
  • 8 months later...
On 6/26/2021 at 10:28 PM, Ruy R said:

Is this issue solved? It happens all the time I try to use the 3 apps!

Did you follow the advise given in this thread (link blow)?

the issue is most probably not caused by Affinity Apps, it only triggers the issue which is caused by Microsoft OS, apps, or fonts.

There are other apps that can cause the issue. It is actually windows explorer who hangs when trying to load the fonts. I got the same issue unrelated to Photo after installing the official Microsoft HEIC/HEIF codec back, and opened a folder containing large number  of heic files shot on iPhone. This lead to the exact same systems (Affinity apps not involved at all). Trigger was using „details“ view and trying to show more exif data in columns like capture date. This leads to explorer showing some filenames for a Split second, then blank window similar to your video in other thread. Then explorer takes several seconds for every single file to show the data, or come to a full stop and crash.

 

 

 

Mac mini M1 A2348 | Windows 10 - AMD Ryzen 9 5900x - 32 GB RAM - Nvidia GTX 1080

LG34WK950U-W, calibrated to DCI-P3 with LG Calibration Studio / Spider 5

iPad Air Gen 5 (2022) A2589

Special interest into procedural texture filter, edit alpha channel, RGB/16 and RGB/32 color formats, stacking, finding root causes for misbehaving files, finding creative solutions for unsolvable tasks, finding bugs in Apps.

 

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