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Slow startup (all Affinity apps)


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I don’t experience these startup delays at all on either my laptop or desktop — both machines with the M1 chip and both running Big Sur.  Photo, Designer, and Publisher consistently open within 2-3 seconds.  All Affinity apps were purchased directly from Serif.


24" iMAC Apple M1 chip, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16 GB unified memory, 1 TB SSD storage, Ventura 13.6.  Photo, Publisher, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.3.
MacBook Pro 13" 2020, Apple M1 chip, 16GB unified memory, 256GB  SSD storage
,  Ventura 13.6.   Publisher, Photo, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.1.1.  
 iPad Pro 12.9 2020 (4th Gen. IOS 16.6.1); Apple pencil.  
Wired and bluetooth mice and keyboards.9_9

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1 minute ago, jmwellborn said:

I don’t experience these startup delays at all on either my laptop or desktop — both machines with the M1 chip and both running Big Sur.  Photo, Designer, and Publisher consistently open within 2-3 seconds.  All Affinity apps were purchased directly from Serif.

Yes, it's been stated that the problem is with the App Store versions of the apps.

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32 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Did you try the "copy App" trick?  Make copies of each Affinity app and put those down in your Dock and launch.  For me, it's worked much better with just a few bounces on initial launch (after a fresh boot or restart) and almost immediate if quit and relaunched.

Do you mean if you quit the app and immediately launch it,, it still bounces 14 times?  That's not right, even for Affinity.

Thanks. 

Yes, if I quit the app and immediately relaunch, I get 14 bounces.  I only have 8GB of RAM, so maybe that's the issue.  Will try again with copying the apps, but as I said in my edited post, I bought directly from Serif and copying the apps didn't work the first time.

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13 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

I don’t experience these startup delays at all on either my laptop or desktop — both machines with the M1 chip and both running Big Sur.  Photo, Designer, and Publisher consistently open within 2-3 seconds.  All Affinity apps were purchased directly from Serif.

Can we trade computers? :) :) :) 

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1 minute ago, jimfbk55 said:

Can we trade computers? :) :) :) 

Not a chance!!!!😄  I love them both.  I contacted Apple Tech Support before buying them and was strongly advised to go for the 16 GB memory.  It seems to be the trick because not only do the apps open in 2-3 seconds but also I can do all sorts of fiddling with filters, adjustments, colors and styles, grouping and ungrouping, changing personas in midstream, and otherwise giving the apps a potential nervous breakdown, and they just consistently sail through.  (With periodic Saves, naturally.)  I purchased my first copy of Photo from the MAS in 2017.  I  deleted it and repurchased Photo along with Designer and Publisher from Serif.   Worth every penny!!


24" iMAC Apple M1 chip, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16 GB unified memory, 1 TB SSD storage, Ventura 13.6.  Photo, Publisher, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.3.
MacBook Pro 13" 2020, Apple M1 chip, 16GB unified memory, 256GB  SSD storage
,  Ventura 13.6.   Publisher, Photo, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.1.1.  
 iPad Pro 12.9 2020 (4th Gen. IOS 16.6.1); Apple pencil.  
Wired and bluetooth mice and keyboards.9_9

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5 minutes ago, jmwellborn said:

Not a chance!!!!😄  I love them both.  I contacted Apple Tech Support before buying them and was strongly advised to go for the 16 GB memory.  It seems to be the trick because not only do the apps open in 2-3 seconds but also I can do all sorts of fiddling with filters, adjustments, colors and styles, grouping and ungrouping, changing personas in midstream, and otherwise giving the apps a potential nervous breakdown, and they just consistently sail through.  (With periodic Saves, naturally.)  I purchased my first copy of Photo from the MAS in 2017.  I  deleted it and repurchased Photo along with Designer and Publisher from Serif.   Worth every penny!!

Thanks.  In the spirit of the New Year, my offer to trade still stands.

The performance is great and I'm very happy with the app and don't have any problems with it, just the slow loading which isn't really a big deal, just a minor annoyance.

Happy New Year!

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@jimfbk55  Happy New Year to you too!!


24" iMAC Apple M1 chip, 8-core CPU, 8-core GPU, 16 GB unified memory, 1 TB SSD storage, Ventura 13.6.  Photo, Publisher, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.3.
MacBook Pro 13" 2020, Apple M1 chip, 16GB unified memory, 256GB  SSD storage
,  Ventura 13.6.   Publisher, Photo, Designer 1.10.5, and 2.1.1.  
 iPad Pro 12.9 2020 (4th Gen. IOS 16.6.1); Apple pencil.  
Wired and bluetooth mice and keyboards.9_9

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  • 1 month later...

I read through all the posts, the tricks, etc.  I just launched Publisher...42 seconds on this machine (see image).  Publisher said 'we have an update' so I ran it.  1.10.4 is now installed.  I restarted and it was available in ~ 3 seconds.  Publisher was purchased from Serif.  My Designer and Photo were purchased through Mac App Store.  They both launch in about the 40-45 second range, just like the last Designer version from Serif directly.  So, maybe there is hope that the next D/P updates on Mac App Store will have fixed this trust/JIT/etc issue.

While the launch time is one issue, the trust issue is equally annoying as right clicking in the Finder on a file format that D or P can handle produces a list absent of D or P!  THIS IS REALLY ANNOYING as I have to go and select "another app" each time to be able to launch the file in D or P.  I'm hoping, no praying, this problem of trust (JIT, or whatever) gets fixed, and if the little guy (Serif) can't persuade the big guy (Apple) to fix the issue, then Serif on their own will change the JIT flag (whatever) code to eliminate the delay...find another way to implement the code feature that does not spark the YARA (??) check by macOS.

For Heaven's sake...Affinity products were one of the earliest to embrace macOS technology in their field (photo and vector editing) as alternatives to other big guy (Adobe) lease-ware behavior.

For now, let's restart the computer and see if Publisher 1.10.4 still opens in a few seconds.  Cross your fingers!

 

Screen Shot 2022-02-05 at 8.36.27 AM.png

--

Stuke

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1st start: 13 seconds (better, not great)

2nd start:  6 seconds

Maybe we should configure all Affinity apps to launch on start-up, kill them, and then they're be fast apps on macOS once again!

 

but...let's try this tomorrow once the date changes.

 

--

Stuke

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1 hour ago, Stuke said:

Maybe we should configure all Affinity apps to launch on start-up, kill them, and then they're be fast apps on macOS once again!

This is a way to work. You can do so in the OS preferences in the Login Items tab of the Users & Groups panel.

This "Slow start for Affinity applications purchased from the Mac App Store and used on the more recent Mac OSes" problem has been noted. It seems to be caused by an Apple Security check that is too... aggressive.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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4 hours ago, Stuke said:

While the launch time is one issue, the trust issue is equally annoying as right clicking in the Finder on a file format that D or P can handle produces a list absent of D or P!  THIS IS REALLY ANNOYING as I have to go and select "another app" each time to be able to launch the file in D or P.

FWIW, I am running Catalina, not Monterey, & do not have this problem with AP or AD, both bought from the Mac App Store. I think in Monterey there is some setting in System Preferences > Security & Privacy that must be set to allow the Affinity apps to access files stored in various places, but I am not sure which one it is.

Hopefully, someone using Monterey can explain more about that.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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I am on Monterey and all Affinity Apps, either bought through the App Store as well as from Affinity directly show this "slow start" behaviour, sometimes even if not started for some days (without machine reboot) again. Immedeate re-launching the apps (this goes true for both app store as well as Affinity versions) is fast as almost instant.

Would really enjoy seeing this being fixed.

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6 hours ago, M1chael said:

I am on Monterey and all Affinity Apps, either bought through the App Store as well as from Affinity directly show this "slow start" behaviour, sometimes even if not started for some days (without machine reboot) again. Immedeate re-launching the apps (this goes true for both app store as well as Affinity versions) is fast as almost instant.

Would really enjoy seeing this being fixed.

Buy lottery tickets.  You have a better chance of winning the lottery than Serif/Affinity fixing the app.  ;)

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  • 1 month later...

I was seeing this long boot issue on a clean install of Monterey 12.3 with Affinity Photo 1.10.5. It did not matter if I opened the applications previously or not, the boot time was always extremely long. Duplicating the app to the desktop and then overwriting the original with the copy did indeed work. When I first opened the new copy, inside the Applications directory, the "Validating Affinity Photo..." dialog flashed. This makes me think it has something to do with certificates and apple security procedures. I'm certain that Serif can work around this issue but boy has there been some foot dragging...

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 5/29/2021 at 11:16 AM, Dave Tuck said:

Tried the copying app suggestion.  30 sec load time reduced to around 3 seconds for all 3 Affinity apps.  Fix works well and so far (after 2 days) load time has not gone back.  also copy to desktop, then deleting from applications and dragging back over stops you have to change the name of the app.  Doesn't really change the time it takes but have had problems with apps before when changing names.

Dave your way worked for me BRILLIANT! 5 seconds start up when it used to be nearly 25 seconds. I'm using masOS Monterey. Any future Mac updates I check if its slowed down Affinity again or not, but thanks made my day lol

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1 hour ago, Billy2022 said:

Dave your way worked for me BRILLIANT! 5 seconds start up when it used to be nearly 25 seconds. I'm using masOS Monterey. Any future Mac updates I check if its slowed down Affinity again or not, but thanks made my day lol

While it seems like a solution, copying the app trick does revert back to 17-22 bounces after some time.  Trust me on this.  

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1 minute ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

While it seems like a solution, copying the app trick does revert back to 17-22 bounces after some time.  Trust me on this.  

Yes I am aware of that but its usually after a Mac up date :) Then I just repeat the whole process which is 2 mins lol

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  • 3 weeks later...

One year later... MacOS 12.4 and still 40~50 bounces. Some times I click again the app because they are soooooo sloooooow when starting... Really is so difficult to address this issue? All my other apps from others vendors just fly in my M1 MacBook Pro

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5 minutes ago, Nousmedis said:

Really is so difficult to address this issue?

Apparently, this is something that Apple has to help Serif resolve because it is somehow related to stricter security restrictions in the latest macOS version(s).

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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I "had" the same problem with my new M1 Max MacBook and I tried a couple of suggestions I found here in the Affinity forums and while one suggestion (copy app to Desktop, rename or delete original app, copy app back to Applications folder) cut the start up time almost in half, it still took quite a bit longer then Publisher which opens in 2 secs.

So I was looking in the Preferences in Designer and I noticed that Display rendering was set to OpenGL so I changed it to Metal and restarted my MacBook Pro and Designer and Photo now open in 2 sec. just like Publisher.

Hope this helps everyone!

Screen Shot 2022-05-17 at 9.25.29 PM.png

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  • 1 month later...
2 hours ago, Matheus Amazonas said:

Any updates on this? I get that it's a problem that requires help from Apple, but please keep us up-to-date. It's been a long, long time.

You sort of answered your own question.  If they cared, they'd redesign their software to work like literally every other app that doesn't stall on start.  I would guess they have zero resources working on this.

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In the meantime, I hardly ever use Affinity Photo. I now use the equally excellent Pixelmator Pro for most of my tasks. It's just annoying to have to wait 30 seconds each time to launch Affinity Photo for tasks that can be done in 10 seconds. Pixelmator launches in just 2-3 seconds.

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