Can't run Publisher, Continual Spinning Rainbow

[SueWAuthor]

Hello,

This is the second time this has happened to me in a matter of months.

I'm on a MacBook Pro running the latest version of Publisher.

It has corrupted my file and whenever I launch, it shows the broken file with almost all of the pages missing, and then freezes and goes to the spinning rainbow of death. As I said, it corrupted an earlier file in the exact same way a few months ago. 

At present, I cannot open any files at all in the program because it keeps trying to recover the file it broke. It opens and freezes.

Fixes I have tried that have not worked:

• rebooting
• renaming the file (it still finds it)
• duplicating the file and throwing away the original (it finds the duplicate and tries to open it)
• dragging the file to the desktop (it still finds it and tries to open it)

I can no longer use the program to work on any of my files at all. Publisher just keeps trying to open that file and freezing.

As a side note, that file represents 6 months worth of work, so I'm pretty frustrated.

(I managed to find a fix back in June when it happened, but I don't remember what I did)

Suggestions?

Thank you.

[thomaso]

Just an idea: To avoid previous files getting opened you could try to rename the according preference folder (inside your user Library) to prevent APub from using it and its nested "autosave" folder.

Affinity Store version:
~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher

Apple Store version:
~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinityPublisher

[SueWAuthor]

3 hours ago, thomaso said:

Just an idea: To avoid previous files getting opened you could try to rename the according preference folder (inside your user Library) to prevent APub from using it and its nested "autosave" folder.

Affinity Store version:
~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher

Apple Store version:
~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinityPublisher

Thanks for the suggestion, thomaso.

Under containers, there's no com.seriflabs.affinityPublisher that I could find. 

I did find this folder called  com.seriflabs.affinitypublisher.savedState  under saved application state.

Per your suggestion, I renamed that and it opened the program without the file opening, yay! Thank you.

But the file is still broken. I opened it and once again got the spinning wheel of death. Suggestions there?

[thomaso]

Good to hear you managed to make APub open again without previous documents. Unfortunately I don't know how Affinity temp files are stored in the MAS version. If you have macOS TimeMachine active you might want to copy an earlier state of the related temp file(s) for a later restore.

Possibly a Serif moderator will offer to take a look to your corrupted document and maybe able to fix it.

[SueWAuthor]

Thanks again, thomaso

[Jon P]

Can you upload the document here and we'll take a look.

Thanks!

[SueWAuthor]

Thanks, Jon P -- so just now I decided to try one last thing and I was able to open the file. I'm not sure which piece of what I did worked, but

1.  I duplicated the file
2. I changed the file name to one word. Before it was "Trace and Learn Hieroglyphics.afpub" including the spaces. I renamed it "Hieroglyphics.afpub"
3. I opened the file
4. It also opened one that had crashed alongside it in recovery mode
5. The renamed file is now working fine
6. Could the issue be with having spaces in the file name?

If you're still interested in seeing the broken file, let me know.

[Old Bruce]

7 hours ago, SueWAuthor said:

1. Could the issue be with having spaces in the file name?

 

Mac OS has always allowed spaces in "File Names.txt"

 

[SueWAuthor]

so, the file is broken again...

[Jon P]

I'll take a look, if you can upload to the above link again so I'm looking at the latest version that'd be helpful!

Thanks