Layers disappear a nightmare

[srg]

Hello everybody, I posted before about problems with layers, impossible to write a legend, writing makes the layer disappear and sometimes  after saving and opening again a layer is gone, gone!

Also, after being able to write a caption (!!!!) and working for a while on the layer I discover that the caption is gone, in full or all except a couple of initial letters, usually  wrong ones. 

For me this is a nightmare.

I am wondering if anybody here is experiencing similar problems.

PS: This may help the developers who work(?) on these: the layers that disappears are one that have had only a clone or dodge tool work on them. May be because of the way I work but I hope it may be useful.

[srg]

I guess I am the only one with this problem, cannot believe it.....

And certainly I would expect at least a feed back from the support since I posted so many posts on this and others subjects.

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, srg said:

And certainly I would expect at least a feed back from the support

Bug reports are entered into a queue, and processed (as I understand) approximiately in the order they were created, though it may vary a bit depending on which members of the staff are free to work on them. In normal times I have had some take a few days, but some take a week or more before Serif could get to them.

You started this thread on Dec. 20, and Serif started their annual company closure on Dec. 24. It will end tomorrow, Jan. 4.. Since Dec. 24 they've been operating with only minimal staff available, so they will be behind on processing reports for awhile after they return.

[srg]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

Bug reports are entered into a queue, and processed (as I understand) approximiately in the order they were created, though it may vary a bit depending on which members of the staff are free to work on them. In normal times I have had some take a few days, but some take a week or more before Serif could get to them.

You started this thread on Dec. 20, and Serif started their annual company closure on Dec. 24. It will end tomorrow, Jan. 4.. Since Dec. 24 they've been operating with only minimal staff available, so they will be behind on processing reports for awhile after they return.

Thank you for the update. I started these  I think though that the bugs are such that is getting difficult for me to work. For no reason legends disappear, writing a legend is almost an adventure etc. these are simple things that should complains before that date but nobody told me if it is me or my set up or a bug in the software, something that can make a difference for me. Furthermore these bugs seems  that could be easily solved since in the previous version were not present, but can have a large impact on the face of an application that should be almost at a professional level, or so they claim.  

[walt.farrell]

You're welcome.

[Chris B]

Hi srg,

Sorry for the delay. As Walt said, we had limited support over Xmas and NY and all of QA were off (who normally respond to bugs/beta issues).

We're playing catch-up now as you might image so everything in our ticket queue wiill get answered eventually.

Back to the layer issue—are you referring to the double-click to rename which can then lead to the layer being updated whilst typing? There's a few threads with you regarding this and it looks like it has been acknowledged and logged by both Gabe and Miguel.

[srg]

On 1/6/2021 at 5:49 AM, Chris B said:

Hi srg,

Sorry for the delay. As Walt said, we had limited support over Xmas and NY and all of QA were off (who normally respond to bugs/beta issues).

We're playing catch-up now as you might image so everything in our ticket queue wiill get answered eventually.

Back to the layer issue—are you referring to the double-click to rename which can then lead to the layer being updated whilst typing? There's a few threads with you regarding this and it looks like it has been acknowledged and logged by both Gabe and Miguel.

But I am curious to know if anybody else have the same problems that for me are really serious and continuous.

[Chris B]

On 1/31/2021 at 3:47 PM, srg said:

But I am curious to know if anybody else have the same problems that for me are really serious and continuous.

Yes—other customers are seeing this but it has only been reported by yourself and 3 other people as far as I can see.

[srg]

On 2/3/2021 at 10:00 AM, Chris B said:

Yes—other customers are seeing this but it has only been reported by yourself and 3 other people as far as I can see.

The problem is still evident in 1.9.0 I was really hoping...

What you're are saying is that is due to my set up? In this case I am in trouble since is really a nightmare trying to write a caption and maintaining it (it tends to disappear) and the captioned layer too disappears more than  occasionally!

I think that four people reporting the bug mean that is a bug, and a very pernicious one.

[Polux]

I've got this problem too, twice, but only since yesterday (since 1.9 but I only use affinity from time to time). The whole layer case became empty, once for a layer and the other one for a group.

Edited February 5, 2021 by Polux

[Chris B]

On 2/4/2021 at 10:28 PM, srg said:

I think that four people reporting the bug mean that is a bug, and a very pernicious one.

 

Yes—this is a bug. 4 people reporting the issue is enough to warrant investiation. My initial reply may have come across wrong. I was not saying that just because only yourself and a few other people have the issue, we don't care. Apologies if that is how it came across. It's a tricky one to reproduce and not one we can get a recipe for. This means it's hard for the developers to debug and fix. 

[srg]

On 2/3/2021 at 10:00 AM, Chris B said:

Yes—other customers are seeing this but it has only been reported by yourself and 3 other people as far as I can see.

FINALLY!!! It must have been an Apple's bug because tonight I upgraded Big Sur to the 11.2.2 and all the problems with writing captions in the layers have disappeared! 

P.S.: After working with AP for a while now I see that the problems persist persist but only occasionally.

[srg]

On 2/8/2021 at 10:00 AM, Chris B said:

Yes—this is a bug. 4 people reporting the issue is enough to warrant investiation. My initial reply may have come across wrong. I was not saying that just because only yourself and a few other people have the issue, we don't care. Apologies if that is how it came across. It's a tricky one to reproduce and not one we can get a recipe for. This means it's hard for the developers to debug and fix. 

After working for a while I can say that unfortunately the layer problems, ie disappearance of the layer but not its effect,  difficulty of writing the captions and disappearing of the captions themself is still painfully present in both the Beat and the 1.9.1 of AF.

[srg]

On 2/8/2021 at 10:00 AM, Chris B said:

Yes—this is a bug. 4 people reporting the issue is enough to warrant investiation. My initial reply may have come across wrong. I was not saying that just because only yourself and a few other people have the issue, we don't care. Apologies if that is how it came across. It's a tricky one to reproduce and not one we can get a recipe for. This means it's hard for the developers to debug and fix. 

this is still present with AP v 1.9.3. A disgrace.

[srg]

On 2/8/2021 at 10:00 AM, Chris B said:

Yes—this is a bug. 4 people reporting the issue is enough to warrant investiation. My initial reply may have come across wrong. I was not saying that just because only yourself and a few other people have the issue, we don't care. Apologies if that is how it came across. It's a tricky one to reproduce and not one we can get a recipe for. This means it's hard for the developers to debug and fix. 

sorry to say that the problems persist in the v 1.10. Almost impossible to write a legend without going crazy and layers disappear after saving a file (probably they get merged in the process). It is getting so annoying and upsetting  to use AP. I was hoping that the new IOS releases  could also help but they did not. 

Hope somebody could finally try to solve this. 

[Chris B]

Honestly everyone is aware of this and is keeping their eye out for a recipe. I'm sorry it isn't fixed but without reproducing the issue it will be hard to sort  

[srg]

On 8/11/2021 at 11:19 AM, Chris B said:

Honestly everyone is aware of this and is keeping their eye out for a recipe. I'm sorry it isn't fixed but without reproducing the issue it will be hard to sort  

Hello, I upgraded my macs with the OS 11.5.2 and after an hour of work the problem seems almost completely solved. Only a couple of times I could not write a caption and that was probably related to trying to write before the caption was ready. So I feel the problems are solved and will post again after a more extensive work. So far so good and very happy that it was an apple problem.

[Chris B]

Thanks for the update srg. Keep and eye on it and if you feel dissatisfied then give us a nudge again. Cheers  

[srg]

On 8/20/2021 at 11:00 AM, Chris B said:

Thanks for the update srg. Keep and eye on it and if you feel dissatisfied then give us a nudge again. Cheers  

In general writing captions works without major problems (just need to be sure that the cursor is blinking) but one problem persists in the following sequence:

1) add pixel layer and write caption

2) fill with gray 50%

3) set overlay 

caption disappears. 

 

 

 

[NotMyFault]

5 hours ago, srg said:

1) add pixel layer and write caption

2) fill with gray 50%

3) set overlay 

 

1- how do you finish? Press enter, click somewhere else by mouse, …

2 - how do you fill? Click on swatch, use fill menu item, click on color panel, use keyboard shortcut 

3 - set blend mode to overlay - again how exactly? Use only mouse an cog wheel in layers panel? 

[Chris B]

Hey srg,

I think you aren't comitting the layer name change. I notice the caret stays active whilst you are clicking aorund the rest of the UI. So if I enter a layer name, then click the blend modes it does indeed nuke the name—I think there's room for improvement here. We should/could either commit the layer name change when focus is put elsewhere or try and avoid it nuking the layer name.

Leave it with me.

[chrisstahl]

I do not know if this is the same bug, but I am working on affinity designer 2.5.3 (on a m3 Mac running Sonoma 14.5) and the layer management is a nightmare. Having all objects in one list is something I may get used to. The software randomly closing and opening layers in the list, allowing that objects on locked layers can be selected and especially entire layers just completely disappearing are not things anyone should have to get used to.

Fortunately I did not lose a lot of work this time, but what about next time? This is horrible. I regret having bought this software. 
 

[GarryP]

Welcome to the forums @chrisstahl

23 hours ago, chrisstahl said:

The software randomly closing and opening layers in the list

Can you upload a video showing us this happening?

23 hours ago, chrisstahl said:

allowing that objects on locked layers can be selected

Layer locking in the Affinity applications is less 'strict' than some other applications. When a layer is locked it cannot be selected from the canvas and cannot change size, orientation, and some other things, but that’s pretty much it. (Some people have been asking for this to be ‘tightened up’ in various ways, for many years, but it’s not happened yet.)

23 hours ago, chrisstahl said:

entire layers just completely disappearing

I’ve never seen this happening without some user action (either deliberate or accidental). Can you upload a video showing it happening?