Slow startup (all Affinity apps)

[luispedrofonseca]

It's beyond ridiculous this issue is still happening after years of being initially reported. Is this still being investigated or have you reached the point of not caring at all?

[DEMinSoCAL]

3 hours ago, luispedrofonseca said:

It's beyond ridiculous this issue is still happening after years of being initially reported. Is this still being investigated or have you reached the point of not caring at all?

Isn't the answer obvious?

[befehr]

I’ve migrated back to Inkscape (if you can believe it), and Illustrator (I get it free because I submit images to Adobe Stock), but now with the Pantone craziness…and I used to be a big Corel nerd but they’re bat sh!t crazy costs and typical unstableness is a big NOPE… I don’t know where to go from here. 

[DEMinSoCAL]

According to an email I just received, "Something BIG is coming...".  New versions?  Probably.  Free upgrades to those of us that already bought?  Hopefully (but unlikely).

Will the apps launch quickly?  Not unless Apple fixed something on their end.

[DEMinSoCAL]

Anyone try Affinity V2 apps to see how fast they start?  Web or App Store versions?

[Matheus Amazonas]

2 hours ago, DEMinSoCAL said:

Anyone try Affinity V2 apps to see how fast they start?  Web or App Store versions?

I just did, restarted my laptop and opened the new apps. On a MBP 16" (M1 Max) both apps took about 3 seconds to load completely. The splash screen is displayed in less than 1 second.

I didn't time the startup time of the old apps, but it was much longer.

[pharwood]

Startup is a few seconds on Mac mini M1. Thanks Apple.

[Peterjshd]

Looks like the fix comes with price tag 50€ … thanks

[DEMinSoCAL]

6 hours ago, pharwood said:

Startup is a few seconds on Mac mini M1. Thanks Apple.

Pretty sure Apple had nothing to do with it, otherwise V1 apps would launch lickety-split now.  But glad to hear V2 launches like every other app now (fast).

[pharwood]

Sarcasm!

[DEMinSoCAL]

Just launched Designer 2 after having launched it this morning, and it took 23 bounces on the dock before it launched.  (MBP 13 M1)

Disappointing.  

[MikeSky30]

I know this is beating a dead horse but why has this not been resolved after years of being reported? Has a serif employee even responded to the issue? I got version 1 of publisher, and it wasn't doing it but since I upgraded to V2 it's doing it all the time now (I'm on pc desktop).  I understand they have a lot on their plate but deal with problems that are years old before going on to dealing with new ones. 

And I feel like there are lots of people that like this software...so LISTEN to YOUR BASE when they have been complaining about the same issues for years. 

[Guest]

Just bumping this again as I'm noticing 30+ second initial start times again with all of the apps.

I'm running a clean install (2 days ago) of Ventura 13.0 on a 14" 2021 MBP M1 Pro 32GB, 2TB.

Edit: Doing the "copy/trash/paste hokey-pokey" of the Affinity apps, creating copies from the /Applications folder and temporarily moving them to the ~/Desktop (or ~/Downloads) folder, then dragging the original versions from /Applications to the trash, and then dragging the copies from ~/Desktop (~/Downloads) back to the applications folder, restarting and then launching the apps does seem to resolve the issue. The apps all now launch in roughly 2-3 seconds as expected.

I'm not sure if this fix is permanent, but so far it does seem to have done the trick.

Edited November 11, 2022 by Guest
Document potential fix.

[Patrick Connor]

26 minutes ago, Bryan Rieger said:

Just bumping this again as I'm noticing 30+ second initial start times again with all of the apps.

Sorry, We have not found a solution. We know and there is no need to bump this thread. It happens for most users. If we ever find a solution I am sure we will let you know.

[Delden]

On 11/11/2022 at 5:21 PM, Patrick Connor said:

Sorry, We have not found a solution. We know and there is no need to bump this thread. It happens for most users. If we ever find a solution I am sure we will let you know.

M. Connor,

By spending 4000+ USD on an 8-core 5 Ghz machine, I expect a substantial speed-up of my workflow. You can’t just tell people that « there is no need to bump this thread » and call it a day. This problem was introduced by Serif when Serif decided that it was a good idea the change the welcome screen. So, there is a solution, but Serif doesn’t want to acknowledge it. And this thread is almost 2 years old.

You might think that the problem is just happening when people open your applications, say once a day, which is acceptable. But it’s not and here is why.

I use all Affinity products mainly for corporate publication. I produce periodical complex reports with Publisher involving data merge. Here is one use case.

The reports are produced using a 10 pages layout for 200+ entities. Each record has circa 250 linked fields pointing to SVG icons and plots. As Publisher always crashes after 15 records (apparently the number of open files exceeds a limit somewhere), I have to manually create batches of 15 records, manually export the PDF, then close Publisher, open it again, then set the new batch for the next records, on so on. So, I have to manually do it myself instead of taking one step (that would already last almost 2 hours just to generate the merge). And as Publisher has no scripting capabilities, it must be done by taking the time of a real human that has to click everywhere for hours because of your bugs. Of course, this has to be repeated every time the customer asks for a modification.

It doesn’t stop here. These reports are produced in 6 languages. And all this $hit has to be repeated. In your opinion, how many unchargeable hours are wasted because of this, M. Connor? In this case, the total number of Publisher reboots and manual interventions is 214!!! How ridiculous does it sound to you? That's almost 1.5 hours of waiting time, not including the manual interventions.

So now, M. Connor, stop insulting your customers by:

1. saying that there is no solution (because the problem was created by Serif itself),
2. minimizing the problem (because you apparently are unaware that some customers don’t produce only basic documents)
3. Ruining the performance of expensive machines with poor software development decisions.

SO YES HAVING TO WAIT 30+ SECONDS EVERY TIME YOUR APP CRASHES HAS AN IMPACT.

In the use case I mentioned, there are several bugs (usability, performance, and plain bug old bugs😞

1. There is no reason that the merge process is not fully multithreaded. My CPU is used at max 20-25% during the whole process (8 cores, 16 threads available).
2. Why is there a limitation in the number of opened files on a 64 GB RAM configured machine having more than 3.5 TB free disk space (which can be used for swap)?
3. Why do you want us to wait 30+ seconds every time your app crashes ???

As I was considering upgrading to Affinity 2.0, I also read another thread regarding the new software packaging policy (using apps on Windows).  People are not so happy with that.

So far, I bought all your apps 3 times: for macOS, for Windows, and iPad. I also bought your books. That tells you how involved I am in your products. But the Serif attitude is ruining the Affinity experience in professional use cases.

The time for excuses is now over, as it becomes more and more painful to use your apps in a corporate environment. I also had to convince management and colleagues to use Affinity instead of Adobe products. That wasn't easy, but at that time I was convinced that it was a good idea to support Serif instead of the same big techs. They won't make the same mistake, and Serif's attitude is largely contributing to this.

Listen to your customers.

[Ian69]

I had very long start-ups on my intel-based MacBook Pro and iMac - around 30 seconds - with previous Affinity apps purchased though the Mac App Store. I’ve just upgraded to the version 2.0 apps, and have used this as an opportunity to switch to downloading directly from Serif. Huge difference - two bounces, then a two second pause, and they’re open. Finally working how they should be 😄

[zibrah]

Hi, I really really wish this would get resolved. V1 was slow to open for me but V2 takes a really really long time, way more than it should.

All of my other photography and non photography apps open very quickly. It shouldn't matter whether I bought it at the App Store or from Serif.

It seems to me that it may never get fixed..... If it is really is a better way of going, I am wondering about asking for a refund from Apple and buying at the Serif store. It really seems like that would be a hassle and also opportunity for something to go wrong . I shouldn't have to do this anyway.

If an Serif moderator/employee could jump in and maybe give hope for the App Store version of this problem being really being fixed in a reasonable amount of time that would be reassuring.

If a Serif moderator/employee could verify that the Serif store version does not do this, then if I get a refund from the App Store is it going to be a mess If I have already bought the three apps and have a key/license currently registered (from the App Store) with my account at Serif.  Does the App Store key/license get revoked and removed from my account and then a new license/key from the Serif store automatically take its place?   I just wish it would work and that I didn't have to consider this.........

Intel Macbook Pro

[Flavio da Costa]

In my case, since after updating to macOS Big Sur (the last system for my MBP late 2013, with Nvidia gpu), all the Affinity apps (version 1.10.5) had very slow startups. In High Sierra was always very fast. But there's a solution, i think the videocard is the culprit: Go to Affinity Designer Menu >> Preferences >> Performance >> Choose "Display: Open GL" and check "use only integrated GPU (requires restart)". Restart Now. Affinity opens very fast again. Do the same for Photo and Publisher.

[Stuke]

SERIF...just help us love you!  FIX THIS ISSUE, now!

[Paulm]

If the problem is the Apple app store version of the apps, what might save the day, is if all version V1 users and V2 users who have purchased from the Apple app store can download there apps from Serif for free.

 

[Dan C]

1 hour ago, Paulm said:

If the problem is the Apple app store version of the apps

Unfortunately the cause isn't explicitly the Apple App Store - from the reports we've had it seems to affect the App Store more frequently than the Affinity Store, but there are also users who experience this issue with the Affinity Store version, so this would not provide a resolution for all of our users.
Equally, not every user experiences this issue on launch from the either install method.

1 hour ago, Paulm said:

what might save the day, is if all version V1 users and V2 users who have purchased from the Apple app store can download there apps from Serif for free.

All V2 macOS / Universal licenses (Windows specific licenses for clear reasons can't be used on macOS) are already compatible with both the Affinity Store and the Mac App Store, meaning V2 license holders already have the choice of their install method - however unfortunately this simply isn't possible for Affinity V1 licenses, due to the differences in how licensing works in V1 compared to V2.

[MikeSky30]

I have already posted about this issue but it seems to have resolved itself with all three apps. Startup is pretty much instant now. Perhaps it was with the updates but everything seems to be working smooth now. 

[Arroyodorado]

I also had the slow launch issue (10+ secs) with the Appstore versions of Photo and Designer.

Deleted them and all the related data, downloaded the apps directly from Serif.

Boom, they're back, fast as lightning!

 

macOS Ventura 13.3.1
Apps 2.0.4
MacBook Pro M2, 2023

[tariq]

bump for 2023

[Dan C]

We have investigated this problem thoroughly, and unfortunately have found it to be intractable due to our application file size and the security that Apple builds into all it’s operating systems.

To support the different hardware Apple now makes, since 1.8.6 we have distributed a Universal Application (compiled for Apple-Silicon and again for Intel based macs) within the same .DMG installation file. These Affinity applications are consequentially almost twice as big as previous, but we have to provide both versions to support all types of current macOS hardware.

It seems the time required by YARA/Gatekeeper anti-virus checking, which occurs when first launching the app, is exponential with file size and therefore this delay out of our control - because we need to serve up a universal app through the mac App Store, and currently provide the same Universal App download from the Affinity Store.

The reason it happens every time you restart your mac is that the YARA/Gatekeeper system may have been improved since last time it checked our application, so it does not “save” the fact our application has already been checked. Other applications are likely much smaller files and so start quicker.

Unfortunately due to the above reasons, we do not currently have an option to reduce this start-up delay as it is intrinsically built into macOS security protocols and not controlled by Affinity directly - though we have informed Apple of this and will continue to monitor this in future macOS updates.

We may investigate an option in the future to provide separate installation files on macOS for each hardware type, from the Affinity Store directly - though we do not have any direct plans for this currently and unfortunately it would not change the behaviour experienced when using the mac App Store version.

Our apologies for any inconveniences caused due to this.