Affinity Publisher runs extremely extremely slow

[emedela92]

I happened to buy the Affinity Suite a couple of months ago, and I was very happy until I started to do my portfolio there (I had an old version in Indesign) So, it worked well until a couple of days ago, when it suddenly started to get lagged heavily. It's impossible to work on it anymore, even the slightest change takes around an hour to be done. I have a 16GB RAM computer, with a NVIDIA GFORCE 1060 and 6GB, which I think should be enough. I do know the document may be heavy, but anyway, it´s just 36 pages, is not that much (images, text... but being a publishing software should be capable of managing that) Is this something normal? Thank you.

[Lee D]

See this FAQ article we have on performance related issues, it advises what options the app has in relation to performance. Is the file being stored and loaded from a local location and how large is the file (MB)? Does this occur with all documents, even new blank ones or just this one?

 

[emedela92]

Hi, thanks for the reply.

Yeah, that's the very first thing I tried, I had already adjusted preferences in that screen reducing quality, nearest neighbour, both increasing and decreasing RAM (now it seems to work slightest faster with a bigger RAM usage (around 12GB, sometimes the program has reached them)) which already seems crazy, no 3DS Max, Revit, Twinmotion and all that consuming programs have never demanded me as much RAM with pretty large archives (not InDesign by far) I guess interaction with Photo and Design demands more RAM, and images are almost full quality, but still seems to much ( and I checked what it requires to work, only 4GB RAM, while I have 16). It works kinda well with smaller archives, so I bet it laids on the size of my images, but it's still a 36 pages document, not a full book or something like that, and right now I can't even save it, I can scroll but nothing happens when click on Archive. This is something I needed to print and it is just impossible to get it printed, it feels as if the software had kidnapped my work and my time so far.

In addition, when I get to click on print,  I face problems with it: I don't know why, having everything in the same fonts, some paragraphs just are printed in PDF like that: dhfgsdkfghsu## (I had printed it before with no issues) in fact it was working wonderfully until I added two pages a few days ago and it started to freeze and act crazy. 

The file is stored in a folder in D : and it is 85mb.

[brady n melser]

I am having the same issues. Before the most recent update it was working just fine on the exact same type of document. Now it takes FOREVER for me to adjust type and do very simple edits... Very unhappy.

[sbgraphic]

Hello,

Yes I agree some optimisation should be done… I've also noticed that Publisher document with only a few pages and with high resolution linked image .tif files e.g. with a few of layers in it (tested with .psd or .afphoto as well) are "not usable", it's much too slow I mean.
It takes ages to move typographic elements or move between pages… CPU usage is a maximum (over 250 < 400%) totally overwhelmed on my old MacPro 2008 (w. High Sierra). I tried to optimise the general performance settings… it's a bit better but honestly I'm going back to my old CS6 for now for such project as long as i can...

Even on my iMacPro 64 Go with the previous highest Vega card this is not running smoothly. So I guess I have to change my workflow to use affinity publisher.
Is it better on M1 ?

Like why it is not possible to choose to hide those layer pallet icons at minimum (like no icon at all) It would help to have shorter rendering time and would takes less screen space as well ?
I also don't mind having the possibility to have a linked element in low res… (like in Indesign options) that should be an option to improve rendering time on slower/older systems).

Thanks for all the work but this prevent me to get more confident in moving totally to Affinity for now...

[sbgraphic]

On 9/27/2020 at 2:46 PM, Lee D said:

See this FAQ article we have on performance related issues

I wonder why each time I restart Affinity Publisher the view quality setting is set — or revert back to — "Bilinear" (Best Quality) instead of Nearest Neighbour (Fastest)
Why this performance setting doest not stay as selected ?

Thanks,

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, sbgraphic said:

I wonder why each time I restart Affinity Publisher the view quality setting is set — or revert back to — "Bilinear" (Best Quality) instead of Nearest Neighbour (Fastest)
Why this performance setting doest not stay as selected ?

I think they're saved when the application successfully closes. If it crashes you might lose the changed settings.

[sbgraphic]

Fortunately crashing is not an experience I had too much at this time…
On my side those settings revert back to default (Best Quality) each time I restart or relaunched the app, ignoring my previous settings (at least on Mac OSX 10.13) 

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, sbgraphic said:

On my side those settings revert back to default (Best Quality) each time I restart or relaunched the app, ignoring my previous settings (at least on Mac OSX 10.13) 

That should not happen. Is there anything unusual about where you store your user's home folder or how you have set up permissions for it or any of its subfolders?

[sbgraphic]

Hi, no I guess no special permissions I can remember or special location for my user'd home folder actually (previously it was on a different drive too but now it all togther again with 10.13.x. Which permissions do I have to check or care about ? (I mean which folders or files ?)

If I compare App's permissions from Photo or Designer's privilege are system (read/write) and curiously Publisher does not have system as Read/Write but my user account ?How do I revert back to default system permission ?
Thanks !

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, sbgraphic said:

If I compare App's permissions from Photo or Designer's privilege are system (read/write) and curiously Publisher does not have system as Read/Write but my user account ?How do I revert back to default system permission ?

I see the same permissions as you do. I think this is because I bought AD & AP from the Mac App Store but APub from the Affinity store. Either way, that should not have anything to do with permissions for anything stored in your user account's home folder, so assuming you also bought APub from the Affinity store, I would check the permissions in your ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher folder, particularly those in its user subfolder.

Each should show that you have read & write permissions for all of them.

(Note that the ~/ prefix is shorthand for your user's home folder.)

[sbgraphic]

Quote

 I think this is because I bought AD & AP from the Mac App Store but APub from the Affinity store.

Yes, exactly, that's what I thought too. I will reapply user's permission to that folder to see if it does change something...
All the best !

[Daniel77]

I have optimized the Performance preferences as per suggestions above (see 2nd post in thread which leads this this article). I have a very small file. But cursor speed is a bit lagging. It might be due to Windows 11, or it might be related to Publisher. I'm just wondering if anyone has any more tips for speeding up the cursor speed (meaning the speed at which I can actually type). The file I have is very lightweight. About 200K and less than 20 pages typewritten material. There are no images or other files. Thank you.

Edited November 13, 2023 by Daniel77