Photo hangs when trying to use Curves Adjustment

[THart]

Like the headline says, my Affinity Photo ALWAYS hangs when trying to use the "Curves" function (either from the "Adjustment" tab or from the Adjustments Menu in the Layers tab). I've never got it working. All other functions (Exposure, Shadows/Highlights, etc...) work fine. Photo freezes completely and after waiting for minutes I only can close it, then Windows gives an AppHang Message (see attached picture).

My system: Affinity Photo version: 1.8.3.641; Win7 x64; 16G Ram; AMD FX6300 CPU; Nvidia 1030 GPU; no other "special" hardware.

Simplest way to reproduce for me:

1. open Photo, create "New..." document (Print, A4, all params default, click "create")
2. draw a rectangle or anything to get a new layer
3. with that layer selected, click on "Adjustments", then click "Curves..." ==> Programs hangs

Did an Internet search but only found a few results for this specific bug, many years old.

New installation

Trying to solve my problem, I completely uninstalled Photo, even deleted the user dir in C:/users/... ; restarted computer; installed newest version again ==> problem/bug stays the same.

I included 2 pictures. First pic shows app hang in the new installation after clicking on "curves" (="Gradiationskurven", still german language set). Second pic shows Windows error report after closing the program.

 

Any hints on what I am doing wrong or how my installation is messed up?

 

Thanks for your help.

 

Additional remark:

(My AffinityPhoto is a registered, bought version. A few days ago I installed the 90day trial of Designer and Publisher.)

I just tried to check this in Designer. And Yes, the problem described above is exactly the same in Designer.

 

 

Edited April 4, 2020 by THart
additional remark

[THart]

Ok, a little more investigating:

Installed Affinity Photo in the nearest VM I could get a hand to: VirtualBox, Win10 1903 x64.

Et voila: Everything works fine!!! (AF complained about no DX10 graphics card found, but still started)

 

Any idea what I have to do on my physical system to get rid of the problem?

[THart]

More things I have tried/checked. Checked the system requirements from here: https://affinity.help/designer/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Appendix/system_requirements.html?title=System requirements

• yes, I have .NET 4.7.2 installed
• yes, it is Win7 SP1
• yes, checked that Aero is enabled
• yes, I have enough free RAM, free disk space, monitor res. is 2560x1440
• installed newest version of graphics driver (but excluded PhysX)

I'm out of ideas now. Has anybody any idea what else I could try?

It is truly only the Curves function that makes Photo freeze, all other dialog boxes pop up immediately when clicking.

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Your kind of document works fine for me with a Levels adjustment.

However, applying a Levels adjustment to a document that is blank except for a vector object doesn't make a lot of sense, as far as I know. Do you have the same problem if you open a photograph and try the Levels adjustment there, where it would usually be used?

[THart]

Hey, Walt, thanks for your reply.

This happens to any document I open, to any jpg, png, afphoto, any filetype.

See the screenshots below what happens when I open the provided sample file "Laguna". I apply (just as an example that works) an HSL filter, no problem. Then I want to apply a curves adjustment ... app freezes, then crashes.

 

As of now I think this is not a bug in Affinity, but some system or graphics setting I changed in my Windows installation.

[THart]

I opened another sample file, "Val d'Orcia". There are some layers with Curves, see first pic.

But when I double click the icon to bring up the Curves dialog box, Photo again freezes, see second pic.

[THart]

Question as a workaround, if my problem can't be solved:

When I open a layer/jpg in the Develop Persona, then in the Tones tab there is a Curves option, see pic below. This function works fine.

Question: is this Curves function a suitable alternative to use instead of the Curves adjustment in the Photo Persona?

[HuniSenpai]

Yes, you can always use the tones adjustment panel if you want. The "develop persona" can always be accessed at the top left. So, if you need to do a curve adjustment on a layer, you can use that. However, it only affects the layer you have selected. And it's missing the picker tool and LAB adjustments. That panel is basically a watered-down version of the real thing.

Do you have any monitor calibration software or anything?

Is your graphics card's driver up to date? Have you recently installed a new GPU, meaning that the old drivers might be left over? Is the program laggy when zooming in or panning around?

Also, just a random idea, try turning off Windows Aero.

[THart]

Hello @HuniSenpai

thanks for your reply,

17 minutes ago, HuniSenpai said:

Yes, you can always use the tones adjustment panel if you want. The "develop persona" can always be accessed at the top left. So, if you need to do a curve adjustment on a layer, you can use that. However, it only affects the layer you have selected.

Alright, so I have at least something to work with.

 

18 minutes ago, HuniSenpai said:

Do you have any monitor calibration software or anything?

No, I have none of that.

 

20 minutes ago, HuniSenpai said:

Is your graphics card's driver up to date?

Windows device manager tells me graphics driver version is from 17.03.2020. thats the most current one.

 

21 minutes ago, HuniSenpai said:

Is the program laggy when zooming in or panning around?

My system is not the fastest, but Photo runs quite smoothly, even when opening the the big sample files. No lag when panning or zooming.

 

24 minutes ago, HuniSenpai said:

Also, just a random idea, try turning off Windows Aero.

Will try it, and report back if it helped.

 

Thanks for your input, bye for now.

[HuniSenpai]

28 minutes ago, THart said:

Hello @HuniSenpai

thanks for your reply,

Alright, so I have at least something to work with.

No, I have none of that.

Windows device manager tells me graphics driver version is from 17.03.2020. thats the most current one.

My system is not the fastest, but Photo runs quite smoothly, even when opening the the big sample files. No lag when panning or zooming.

Will try it, and report back if it helped.

Thanks for your input, bye for now.

Alright, I was thinking maybe a driver conflict. The FX-6300 came out in 2012, and the GT 1030 came out in 2017. Since the FX series chips don't have integrated graphics, you must have a dedicated graphics card to use the chip. If you purchased the FX-6300 around when it came out, you must have had a different GPU between 2012 and 2017. Have you done a GPU upgrade? 

If the old drivers for your old GPU were not cleanly removed, there can be driver conflicts. 

Anyways, since you're not having performance issues, I doubt it's a driver conflict. I'm starting to think this is a bug related to Windows 7. 

There's a histogram preview thing behind the regular curves adjustment, but not on the one in develop assistant. This might be the source of the bug-- it's one of the few differences I can find between the curves in the develop assistant and the CRL + M curves. 

If this is the case, I don't have any solution. I'm not a dev.

[THart]

Problem solved!!!

@HuniSenpai, you're a genius, prompted me in the right direction. 😄

Here is the Curves dialog I was looking for.

I will write another post where I describe what I did.

Thanks so much HuniSenpai!!!!!

 

[THart]

Ok here is what I did.

@HuniSenpai suggested to disable Windows Aero. According to the youtube video I activated a "Basic and High Contrast Themes" which don't use the Aero features.

This did not work, Photo did not start complaining that it needs Aero to work.

But then, I activated one of the built-in Windows "Aero Themes" (see the first picture below). And, I saw that I used a custom DPI setting (of 110%). I reset this setting to standard (100%), see the second picuture below.

With those 2 changes I restarted Windows. Then I started Photo ... and it worked.

 

Which one of the two changes did the trick, I do not know. So either resetting the Windows Themes or keeping DPI to standard.

 

Hey affinity dev team is that something you might want to look into?  @Mark Ingram

Edited April 6, 2020 by THart
submitted too soon