Affinity photo doesn't recognize the file

[Alice Drori]

I updated yesterday the new affinity photo version and then worked on a file.

Today i tried to open this file again on affinity photo and I've got a message that the file type is not supported.

other files are opened as usual. 

What could be the problem?

[MEB]

Hi Alice Drori,
Welcome to affinity Forums
Seems that file was stored on an external drive and you we're working directly from there. If you leave the app/file open or minimised it's possible the OS puts the external drive to sleep. For performance reasons Affinity apps do not load the whole file to the memory and need permanent access to the file while you work on it, if that access fails it can lead to corruption/loss of data which was probably what happened here. If you don't mind uploading the file we may be able to recover it. I can provide an upload link if you wish to do it - just let me know.

[Pšenda]

4 hours ago, MEB said:

and need permanent access to the file while you work on it,

If Affinity "requires" permanent access to a working file, then why does it allow you to work on an external drive? Why doesn't it open this file read-only to avoid data loss?

[Jowday]

1 hour ago, Pšenda said:

If Affinity "requires" permanent access to a working file, then why does it allow you to work on an external drive? Why doesn't it open this file read-only to avoid data loss?

Exactly. Another usability issue. This one with disastrous results. Customers are notified about this issue when their work is lost. ZERO feedback or warnings from the software and documentation before the work is gone. "You just stepped on a land mine. Be advised that this minefield is dangerous. We will tell you more as the situation escalates. Somewhere else."

So many use all kinds of external drives these days - it is not exactly a minority problem only affecting left handed twins in a small village in Luxemburg.

 

[MikeW]

9 minutes ago, Jowday said:

..."You just stepped on a land mine. Be advised that this minefield is dangerous. We will tell the survivors more again and again."

There. I fixed it for you...

6 hours ago, MEB said:

...Affinity apps do not load the whole file to the memory and need permanent access to the file while you work on it, if that access fails it can lead to corruption/loss of data which was probably what happened here. ...

Back in the 1990s, I created a rather large application (still used today) that tested for a connection periodically in case of a network interruption. In case of an interruption, the application held onto the edits and the instant the connection was available, it updated the database. Same thing only different.

Affinity applications maybe can make a temp file of the whole file locally, work from that and write/update the original either periodically according to user specified intervals, or when a save command is issued. External drives can be tested to see if they are awake and in case they are not and just testing for the drive availability doesn't awaken it, can awaken it. And I suspect there is simple code that can prevent it from "spinning" down.

[thomaso]

4 hours ago, MikeW said:

Affinity applications maybe can make a temp file of the whole file locally,

... while this offer sounds that missing data do exist in the corrupted file and "simply" aren't readable by the app but developers only:

11 hours ago, MEB said:

If you don't mind uploading the file we may be able to recover it.

 

[MikeW]

36 minutes ago, thomaso said:

... while this offer sounds that missing data do exist in the corrupted file and "simply" aren't readable by the app but developers only:

I was referring to a future enhancement so users don't experience such problems. Nothing to do with the problem file. 

[thomaso]

If there is a way (or chance at least) to restore the file, then, in my understanding, the file isn't that bad or corrupted but "simply" needs some manual adjustment by a developer which could, at least theoretically, also be done by the app. From this view @MikeW's idea of a temp file of the whole file feels like being kind of reality already – stored within the file, otherwise there could not be any chance to restore the file after uploading the corrupted data itself but without any additional temp data.

[Alice Drori]

Thank you for your answer @MEB.

I don't mind uploading the file so you'll try to recover it.

All the files I worked on are on an external drive, so what can I do (beside backup every time I worked on a file) to minimize the possibility of damage? Do I need to copy the file to the computer drive and worked from there?

[Jowday]

See too many of these in here:

 

[MEB]

5 hours ago, Alice Drori said:

Thank you for your answer @MEB.

I don't mind uploading the file so you'll try to recover it.

All the files I worked on are on an external drive, so what can I do (beside backup every time I worked on a file) to minimize the possibility of damage? Do I need to copy the file to the computer drive and worked from there?

Hi Alice Drori,
Here's the link to upload the file.
Yes, we advise to work directly from internal/system drives, then save/close the file and copy/move it to where you need it. The same applies to files stored on synchronised cloud folders (like Google Drive, Dropbox etc), NAS and USB sticks - we are working to improve things here but since there are other processes involved, being the OS itself or third party sync services, it's a bit more complicated than it looks.

[Alice Drori]

13 minutes ago, MEB said:

Hi Alice Drori,
Here's the link to upload the file.
Yes, we advise to work directly from internal/system drives, then save/close the file and copy/move them to where you need it. The same applies to files stored on synchronised cloud folders like Google Drive, Dropbox etc), NAS and USB sticks - we are working to improve things here but since there are other processes involved, being the OS itself or third party sync services, it's a bit more complicated than it looks.

Thank you. 

 

[MEB]

Thanks for the file Alice. I've passed it to the dev team.

[konstantnnn]

Again, the same thing happened to me… but just one correction from my post — the last time I edited and accessed the file wasn’t actually on a Windows device, it was on an iPad — but the iPad never accesses the file system, it just imports the document in. And this issue still occurred?

[MEB]

Hi @Alice Drori,
Please check you PM's. I've sent you the link to the recovered file. Thanks.

Hi konstantnnn,
Seems your issue(s) is already being followed by the staff here. Any questions/issues you may still have please post there to make it easier for us to track customer's issues. Thanks.

[Alice Drori]

@MEBThank you very much!