Missing files on iPad

[bpedit]

It's been a few months since I've opened Designer on my iPad Pro. When I did so today, all my previous files were missing. This includes those in the Files app as well as the ones resident in the program. Another poster reported a similar issue in which restarting the iPad revealed the missing files, this did not happen for me. Any ideas?

[Dan C]

Hi @bpedit,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble. Unfortunately this is the first report of it's kind that I'm aware of, as the Affinity apps have no way to 'reset' themselves when left alone.

Can you please confirm:

• Did you uninstall/reinstall the app at any point?
• When you mention files in the Files app, were they saved locally or to iCloud? I assume they were saved in the 'Affinity Designer' folder?
• Do you have a backup of your iPad at all?

Unfortunately there is no 'application logs' of sorts for me to see what may have happened with this app. Do you know if the application is set to auto-update?

[bpedit]

Thanks for the help. I do not use iCloud and I had not backed up the iPad since creating these files, no on auto-update. However, almost all the files were iterations of the same project and the salient file was backed up to my desktop. So, no great harm. I may have installed an update but don't remember reinstalling.

But I'm now curious about the role of the iOS 'Files" app. While researching this issue, I read that the files ("on this iPad") stored within the Files app are merely pointers to the actual files which are kept within the originating program. (This info was a few years old.) But when I would save a file from AD into Files, then remove it from AD, the files would appear to be in Files but not within AD. I guess this is misleading.

[Paul Mudditt]

On 1/29/2021 at 11:06 PM, bpedit said:

Thanks for the help. I do not use iCloud and I had not backed up the iPad since creating these files, no on auto-update. However, almost all the files were iterations of the same project and the salient file was backed up to my desktop. So, no great harm. I may have installed an update but don't remember reinstalling.

But I'm now curious about the role of the iOS 'Files" app. While researching this issue, I read that the files ("on this iPad") stored within the Files app are merely pointers to the actual files which are kept within the originating program. (This info was a few years old.) But when I would save a file from AD into Files, then remove it from AD, the files would appear to be in Files but not within AD. I guess this is misleading.

On my iPad folder is external to the App, so files within the App and those in that folder may be different. One very dangerous caveat, IOS will delete the On My iPad Affinity folder if you uninstall the app so not only do you lose the temporary files stored within the app you also lose any that you have saved in the On my iPad folder. The solution, only store in an iCloud folder if you want a secure copy of your files. Personally I wish they would remove completely the option to store in On my IPad, and it certainly shouldn’t be the default at least.

[Alfred]

18 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

One very dangerous caveat, IOS will delete the On My iPad Affinity folder if you uninstall the app

It’s the potential for deletion, rather than the caveat, that’s dangerous! But we knew what you meant.

[DM1]

5 hours ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Personally I wish they would remove completely the option to store in On my IPad, and it certainly shouldn’t be the default at least.

Preferably, allow the user to select the default destination folder (as with Slices).

[Dan C]

On 1/29/2021 at 11:06 PM, bpedit said:

However, almost all the files were iterations of the same project and the salient file was backed up to my desktop. So, no great harm.

I'm glad to hear this, many thanks for letting me know

If you have any further confusion regarding Files on iOS and implementation with Affinity please don't hesitate to ask!