Slow startup (all Affinity apps)

[M1chael]

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.

[DEMinSoCAL]

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. 

[Strawberrydit]

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...

[Billy2022]

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

[DEMinSoCAL]

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.  

[Billy2022]

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

[Andrew Berth]

I bought a new MacBook Pro (M1 Max 32GB) a little while back. The problem is as present as ever.

[Nousmedis]

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

[R C-R]

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).

[mliving]

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!

[Matheus Amazonas]

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.

[DEMinSoCAL]

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.

[rudluc]

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.

[Aikinai]

I also stopped using Affinity Photo. The main benefit over Photoshop was launching immediately, but now that Photoshop launches faster, I might as well just use that.

[Dan C]

Unfortunately there's been no further development update regarding this, however;

20 hours ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

If they cared, they'd redesign their software to work like literally every other app that doesn't stall on start

This is not true, and would not resolve this issue. Many other apps are being reported for slow loading issues, since 2020, for example:

https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000055901-Why-Does-SkySafari-6-Pro-Takes-A-Long-Time-To-Open-On-MacOS-And-Can-It-Be-Faster-Answer-The-Time-To-Launch-Originates-With-MacOS-GateKeeper-Scanning-The-App-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253960836

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/big-sur-apps-slow-to-launch.2279325/

https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/apps-launching-very-slowly-m1-macbook-air

As I understand it, this appears to have begun after Apple changed how codesiging and Gatekeeper works, meaning the apps have to be fully checked on each 'new run' (ie following a system restart), as this data is no longer held locally.

More information regarding this can be found below:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/25/macos-has-checked-app-signatures-online-for-over-2-years/

https://eclecticlight.co/2018/12/22/how-thoroughly-does-gatekeeper-check-existing-apps/

We're still working with Apple to try and reduce the time these checks take, however we cannot circumvent macOS security as a third party app.

[Alfred]

13 minutes ago, Dan C said:

we cannot circumvent macOS security

Even if you could, I wouldn’t like to see you do something so reckless!

[Dan C]

5 minutes ago, BofG said:

at the top of page four of this very thread it's essentially been confirmed the security check is due to the embedded browser used in Affinity for the welcome/user screen

This was, at the time, what we believed to be a potential cause of this slow loading - however from the further information we've since gathered / been provided by Apple, we don't believe this to be the only reason, as the aforementioned Gatekeeper changes for macOS app signatures occurs with, or without an embedded browser/ 'JIT' flag.

[DEMinSoCAL]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

Unfortunately there's been no further development update regarding this, however;

This is not true, and would not resolve this issue. Many other apps are being reported for slow loading issues, since 2020, for example:

https://support.simulationcurriculum.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/1500000055901-Why-Does-SkySafari-6-Pro-Takes-A-Long-Time-To-Open-On-MacOS-And-Can-It-Be-Faster-Answer-The-Time-To-Launch-Originates-With-MacOS-GateKeeper-Scanning-The-App-

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253960836

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/big-sur-apps-slow-to-launch.2279325/

https://www.applevis.com/forum/macos-mac-apps/apps-launching-very-slowly-m1-macbook-air

As I understand it, this appears to have begun after Apple changed how codesiging and Gatekeeper works, meaning the apps have to be fully checked on each 'new run' (ie following a system restart), as this data is no longer held locally.

More information regarding this can be found below:

https://eclecticlight.co/2020/11/25/macos-has-checked-app-signatures-online-for-over-2-years/

https://eclecticlight.co/2018/12/22/how-thoroughly-does-gatekeeper-check-existing-apps/

We're still working with Apple to try and reduce the time these checks take, however we cannot circumvent macOS security as a third party app.

So the lingerling "logical" questions are why this happens MOSTLY with Affinity apps and why it only happens with the App Store versions?  Does Pixelmator Pro, for example,  not use codesigning and somehow bypasses Gatekeeper as the reason their app launches immediately?  

Why do your Web versions, for the most part, not delay on start?

Secondly, there is no way to provide Affinity Web Store replacements for people that can prove they bought the Apple App Store versions since this seems it will never be fixed? 

Also, YES...there are reports of other apps (mostly complaints of MS Office) that exhibit similar behavior, but if you read the posts, most say they have no issues with other apps (except MS Office, in the case of the particular thread).

It just seems if Apple changed something, then why isn't EVERY app exhibiting the delay?

[Dan C]

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

why it only happens with the App Store versions?

This isn't the case, it can happen with both the Affinity Store and the App Store version of the apps - the App Store versions are slightly slower to launch than the Affinity Store versions as Apple has to initialise these apps within a 'Sandboxed' environment, but the aforementioned macOS security changes affect both versions.

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Secondly, there is no way to provide Affinity Web Store replacements for people that can prove they bought the Apple App Store versions

This is not possible, based on Apples Developer agreement. I have covered this in further details in regards to Affinity iOS here, but the same applies to macOS apps from the App Store -

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Does Pixelmator Pro, for example,  not use codesigning and somehow bypasses Gatekeeper as the reason their app launches immediately?  

25 minutes ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

why isn't EVERY app exhibiting the delay?

I'm unable to answer this, I don't know enough about how other apps may be coded, perhaps Apple Support will be able to assist further with this - as I'm only provided information regarding the Affinity apps for technical support.

[wyperion]

Solution :

1) Duplicate Affinity App in your App folder.

2) Delete original App.

3) Rename duplicated App with the original name.

 

It's worked on Mac MacStudio M1, but I don't know why

[Vicente Negrin]

Hi, there is a solution to the slow start of the app purchased in the appstore, you can see it on youtube,
search for “vicen negrin solucion a la velocidad de arranque en Affinity Photo en Mac”.

[Komatös]

32 minutes ago, Vicente Negrin said:

search for “vicen negrin solucion a la velocidad de arranque en Affinity Photo en Mac”.

Hi and welcome.

Not all users here are native Spanish speakers and will not be able to understand your solution on Youtube.

It would be nice if you could post your solution here in text form; you can also do this in Spanish.

[M1chael]

as far as I understand he downloads a trial of Affinity Photo, replaces the app store version (and backups that app store version before), starts the trial (accepts the license agreement), and finally replaces the trial with the backed up version of the app store.

not sure if this will *really* help to the case, to be honest.

[DEMinSoCAL]

23 minutes ago, M1chael said:

as far as I understand he downloads a trial of Affinity Photo, replaces the app store version (and backups that app store version before), starts the trial (accepts the license agreement), and finally replaces the trial with the backed up version of the app store.

not sure if this will *really* help to the case, to be honest.

Interesting, but none of the "fixes" I have found to work long term.  They may work for a few weeks, but then...BAM!  back to the 17-23 seconds of bouncing icon on the dock.

[Vicente Negrin]

Hace 2 horas, M1chael dijo:

por lo que entiendo, descarga una versión de prueba de Affinity Photo, reemplaza la versión de la tienda de aplicaciones (y hace copias de seguridad de esa versión de la tienda de aplicaciones antes), comienza la prueba (acepta el acuerdo de licencia) y finalmente reemplaza la versión de prueba conla versión de copia de seguridad de la tienda de aplicaciones.

no estoy seguro de si esto *realmente* ayudará al caso, para ser honesto.

Efectivamente, es como lo has traducido, 1 hacer copia de seguridad del affinity photo de appstore.

2 Instalar la version trial de la web y ejectutar la app.

3 cerrar la app y reescribir la version trial por la version de la appstore y listo !! A mi me funciona perfectamente, y lo han probado varios amigos y a todos les funciona perfecto. Un saludo !!