Slow startup (all Affinity apps)

[Patrick Connor]

@Kron777

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums  

The slow start-up issue is just that, slow then normal afterwards. This specific problem does not go on to result in slowness later in things like develop, so I suggest you make your own new thread in the relevant bugs forum with any sample files you can provide and a recipe/description of the changes you are making in develop.

[Dave Tuck]

On 5/29/2021 at 11:58 AM, Paulm said:

Hi Dave

Is the load time still around 3 seconds after you have rebooted your machine?

Thanks

Paul M

 It's the 12 June now and after a number of re-boots the load times have reverted back to 30 seconds again.  A shame it had held until a couple of days ago.    I've just re-copied the apps again and the load times are back down to 3 seconds.  Annoying but it is quick fix!  Only takes a minute or two.

[Dave Tuck]

I updated the OS to 11.4 (Mac) the other day, I wonder if that's when the slow start-up times came back.  Just a theory but ...  If it slows down again I'll keep a careful note upgrades that precede a slow down.

[Kobold]

Try Pixelmator Pro instead of Affinity Photo  ......  really fast start, and super fluid action. And not toy overloaded like Affinity Photo. Waiting for Pixelmator Designer now  ...........   (this was a joke!) 

[R C-R]

6 hours ago, Kobold said:

Try Pixelmator Pro instead of Affinity Photo  ......  really fast start, and super fluid action.

I sometimes use Pixelmator Pro but one thing about it that I do not like is I have as yet not found a way to fluidly zoom to any magnification I want. I guess I have become spoiled by Affinity's support for zooming with the mouse wheel (or equivalent), its Navigator panel, & its incredible range of zoom levels.

[rudluc]

I also only use Pixelmator Pro since I have to wait so long when starting Affinity Photo. I think Affinity has lost a lot of its popularity since this problem started and even more the longer it goes on. If you could at least load the old version, which still launched quickly.

[Kobold]

Shit, have to use Affinity again on my M1 Mac, ......  with Affinity silicon support  ..........  20 seconds .........  go make a coffee!

Why I am posting this? Because this is not acceptable what Affinity guys are doing. They never been focused on fixing bugs, they always been focused on bringing new stuff, often stuff nobody really needs. I call it gimmicks.

As soon as I find an alternative to designer, I will put it somewhere else .........   on my M1 Mac I did not even install Photo due to these reasons ......  

Could be really great apps  .........  but: Could be if ........

[Delden]

Apparently, it would have been more honest to say "We won't fix it", but they didn't do that.

At this stage, it is a real disappointment.

[Dan C]

20 minutes ago, Kobold said:

Why I am posting this? Because this is not acceptable what Affinity guys are doing. They never been focused on fixing bugs, they always been focused on bringing new stuff, often stuff nobody really needs. I call it gimmicks.

4 minutes ago, Delden said:

Apparently, it would have been more honest to say "We won't fix it", but they didn't do that.

I'm certainly sorry to hear you both feel this way.

Please see the previous post from earlier in this thread - 

As stated, this issue is caused due to Apples YARA malware scanning and Affinitys' use of the JIT runtime flag, meaning there's only so much we can do here at Affinity to resolve this issue.

We're working directly with Apple to try and achieve this, however it will likely also require an update from Apple directly to address this.

Once we have further information to provide, we'll be sure to update our customers.

We of course apologise for any inconvenience in the meantime, but please do know we're not simply ignoring this issue.

[Delden]

Thanks Dan C, it's good to know that you're not ignoring it. 

More heavy apps currently installed on my Mac don't behave this way. Do you have more information on the root cause, technically speaking ? Why are Affinity apps in particular affected by this ?

[Dan C]

No problem at all

I'm not personally well versed in the technicalities of this - but I believe it is mostly due to Affinity being a 'Universal Mac App' - meaning it has both the code for Intel based macs and M1 based macs in the same download.

We're aware there are other 'Universal Mac Apps' that do not exhibit this behaviour, and I believe this is where the JIT/YARA issue starts for the Affinity apps, however I couldn't provide any more information than this without guessing myself, apologies!

[Dan C]

My apologies, this is not information I had been made aware of.

As I understand it, the Welcome Screen and My Account dialogs that use an embedded browser require the JIT flag that Affinity sets, to stop the app from crashing on certain macOS versions - however the JIT flag in conjunction with YARA scanning is reset each time the Mac is restarted, so the app goes through the 'extended check' that you've mentioned, even if the package hasn't changed since it's last scan and this is what causes the delay in opening.

Although not absolutely integral to the Affinity app, I don't believe we have any plans to remove the embedded browser functionality at this time as we have worked hard to implement these features to the app and we feel they benefit our users.

Hopefully Apple will provide an update regarding this shortly, so that our customers can continue to use the new features of the Affinity apps, without macOS scanning the app each time it is launched.

[rudluc]

I would find it useful if Affinity would offer the old versions again that did not yet have the delayed start. That should have happened a long time ago! Instead, they want to stick to this stupid start screen and make the users wait. Who knows when Apple will react and whether they will do it at all!

[Dan C]

You can find legacy versions available to download from the following links, though we only officially recommend running the latest version available.

However the Welcome Screen has been part of Affinity apps essentially since launch, so I am not sure that a previous version will open quicker on Big Sur - this is untested as we're focused on bugs in the latest release/beta version. 

Photo - https://store.serif.com/update/macos/photo/1/ 
Designer - https://store.serif.com/update/macos/designer/1/
Publisher - https://store.serif.com/update/macos/publisher/1/

[rudluc]

Thank you very much! But unfortunately, the download source is of no use to me. I have got the applications from the Mac AppStore.

[Delden]

Thank you, Dan.

At least, now it is safe to assume that:

1. Serif will not swap to another web framework despite the welcome screen and the log in page being mostly useless for the vast majority of users.
2. In a pure Apple's "You're holding it wrong" fashion, there will be little chance that Yara & co it won't ever be fixed.

So I understand that passing annoyances to the end user is totally acceptable and that Serif doesn't mind to alter its good reputation by delivering unsatisfactory products.

I admit that I'm being a bit harsh, but these apps were working perfectly before adding these connected things. What are you planning ? Yet another market ? Yet another cloud storage ? Yet another subscription model ? No, thanks. It was precisely why I've chosen Serif products in the first place.

Honestly, I was rather happy to stop using Adobe products, but it seems that Serif is taking the same road.

 

[Dan C]

2 minutes ago, rudluc said:

Unfortunately, the download source is of no use to me. I have got the applications from the Mac AppStore.

I'm sorry to hear this, unfortunately Apple do not allow us to distribute old versions through the AppStore as they only offer the latest version for download, my apologies.

2 minutes ago, Delden said:

1. Serif will not swap to another web framework despite the welcome screen and the log in page being mostly useless for the vast majority of users.
2. In a pure Apple's "You're holding it wrong" fashion, there will be little chance that Yara & co it won't ever be fixed.

As I'm not a developer, I couldn't possibly confirm either of these - I'm simply trying to relay the information that I have.
I don't believe that we have any plans to remove the web browser from the app, but should an alternative be provided that continues to allow the Affinity app to function as our devs want it to as well as reducing this launch time then I see no reason why we wouldn't at least consider swapping frameworks - but again this is pure conjecture as I don't have access to the same information that our developers have.

[Delden]

5 minutes ago, Dan C said:

As I'm not a developer, I couldn't possibly confirm either of these - I'm simply trying to relay the information that I have.
I don't believe that we have any plans to remove the web browser from the app, but should an alternative be provided that continues to allow the Affinity app to function as our devs want it to as well as reducing this launch time then I see no reason why we wouldn't at least consider swapping frameworks - but again this is pure conjecture as I don't have access to the same information that our developers have.

Yeah, devs are sometimes living in an obscure world, dealing with complicated dragons and wizards related stuff. For some, it's even a magical dimension... 😂

Thank you again for your time, I appreciated it !

[Patrick Connor]

19 hours ago, BofG said:

One of the other staff already confirmed on here in another thread that the issue is your software has an embedded browser for the welcome screen/user account functionality. That has security implications (a full JS runtime for example) and so triggers an extended check by the OS.

I think you may have misunderstood and AFAIK Dan's explanation was correct. Assuming that I am that member of staff from another thread, I was explaining that the JIT flag is the likely cause of the extra security testing, but I meant to say that the JIT flag had been included because the browser control crashed on certain hardware without that flag (so JIT is a way to avoid an Apple bug). The browser control itself is not new to 1.9.0 and not the cause of the slow down.

Am I right in thinking that I am the "other staff" in another thread, or is there more info on this from someone else?

I am in discussions with the developers about this, but we seem to be between a rock and a hard place right now, and any solution like you are suggesting would require a huge amount of re-engineering and is not practical in an update like the current one.

[Patrick Connor]

22 minutes ago, BofG said:

would you need the JIT flag without it?

nope not as far as I understand, and we are looking to see what can be done about exactly that

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, BofG said:

You say the browser isn't the cause of the slow down, but it is the root of it - would you need the JIT flag without it?

Note that the earlier statement was that the JIT flag is required because without it, Apple's browser code fails. The JIT flag bypasses that failure.

So, yes, the decision to include the browser was made by Serif, but as I understand it the JIT flag would not be needed if Apple's browser worked properly without it on some levels of the system. So the issue is still an Apple one, in my opinion. They could either fix the browser problem, or they can fix the scanning during startup problem.

Serif should not have to do a major redesign to fix Apple's problem.

[R C-R]

10 hours ago, Delden said:

At least, now it is safe to assume that:

1. Serif will not swap to another web framework despite the welcome screen and the log in page being mostly useless for the vast majority of users.

FWIW, I do not think it is safe to assume that either the welcome screen or direct in-app access to a user's Affinity Store account is mostly useless for the vast majority of users.

For example, the Welcome screen provides access to sample files, special offers, & a direct links to the official tutorials & to these forums. So it is quite possible that users who rarely if ever post anything here make regular use of one or more of those features.

The Affinity Store account feature is very handy for those with limited storage space, since it simplifies installing & uninstalling extra assets as needed, bypassing the need to sign into the store, download selected ones individually, & install them manually; or have to search through a bunch of folders if they are not added to the assets panel. It also provides a nice centralized view of which purchased extras are & are not installed. We also do not know what other enhancements they might be planning to add to this feature or how many users might find that useful.

[h_d]

The issue is only experienced by those of us who have bought our Affinity applications from the Apple App Store. Windows users are unaffected, and likewise Mac users who have bought their application directly from the Affinity Store.

I'm on macOS. I bought Photo and Designer from the Apple App Store and Publisher directly from Affinity. I get slow launch (30 or 40 bounces in the Dock) every couple of days from Photo and Designer, and that's it. 

It would be great if Serif fixed it, but until they do I'd rather sit back and wait for those bounces than pay Adobe. Stop obsessing.

[Delden]

6 hours ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, I do not think it is safe to assume that either the welcome screen or direct in-app access to a user's Affinity Store account is mostly useless for the vast majority of users.

For example, the Welcome screen provides access to sample files, special offers, & a direct links to the official tutorials & to these forums. So it is quite possible that users who rarely if ever post anything here make regular use of one or more of those features.

The Affinity Store account feature is very handy for those with limited storage space, since it simplifies installing & uninstalling extra assets as needed, bypassing the need to sign into the store, download selected ones individually, & install them manually; or have to search through a bunch of folders if they are not added to the assets panel. It also provides a nice centralized view of which purchased extras are & are not installed. We also do not know what other enhancements they might be planning to add to this feature or how many users might find that useful.

Good points, indeed.

Still a nice to have rather a must have, but this is just my personal opinion. The fact is that this "nice to have" stuff comes a the cost of a huge performance hit (including people that don't need it) and having spend good money on powerful hardware, is still debatable though.

Example : working on Publisher, having to open Designer to create a diagram and Photo to adjust settings of an image creates a triple penalty in this scenario. On a 8 cores machine, 64 gigs of RAM it is not acceptable. Sure, once open everything is smooth, but it still remain an avoidable and annoying hiccup.

No matter its usefulness or slowness acceptance, it still is a bug affecting all users.

[Delden]

3 hours ago, h_d said:

The issue is only experienced by those of us who have bought our Affinity applications from the Apple App Store. Windows users are unaffected, and likewise Mac users who have bought their application directly from the Affinity Store.

I'm on macOS. I bought Photo and Designer from the Apple App Store and Publisher directly from Affinity. I get slow launch (30 or 40 bounces in the Dock) every couple of days from Photo and Designer, and that's it. 

Not sure if I understood correctly what you said. Can you confirm that users having bought these apps directly from Serif are not experiencing this bug ?

If so, is it possible to transfer the licences, uninstall the versions installed from the AppStore and reinstall these apps directly from Serif ? Using that new log in thing (that precisely slows down the apps) offers authentication and license management, right ? 

This would be a fully satisfactory, definitive and solid workaround.