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Apps won't launch on Win10 after Upgrade to 1.9


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  • Staff

Hi @Walter Raczynski,

Welcome to the forums and I'm sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Version 1.9 introduces OpenCL Hardware Acceleration to Windows. As some users have found, their Graphics Card (GPU) drivers are out of date and this is causing Affinity to crash.

Please visit the manufactures website for your GPU and download the latest drivers manually from there, as installing them through Windows Updates will likely not use the latest version.

Once updated, restart your PC and try launching Affinity again.

 

If this doesn't help, I'd like to request a copy of your crash report to look into this further. Please see the below link for how to find crash reports - 

Once located, please upload the latest 2/3 reports here for me. Many thanks in advance :)

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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I am also getting this problem using Win10 on a Lenovo Ideapad 110 laptop with the Intel integrated graphics chip. There is no crash report. The application does not seem to get that far and bails out after showing a splash pane for a few seconds.

Driver Easy tells me that all my drivers are bang up-to-date.

Needless to say - 1.8 was running perfectly up to this morning.

Going to openCL is a major step. There is - or was - an issue in the Intel version of openCL. Topaz could not make AI Sharpen work on my Intel system configuration either. Their dev team had to make a special version not using openCL to get their application to work without crashing left right and center. This "repaired" test version was so slow, that the decided to refund my payment for the purchase.

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  • Staff

Hi @simono,

Sorry to hear you're also having trouble!

12 minutes ago, simono said:

on a Lenovo Ideapad 110 laptop with the Intel integrated graphics chip

Do you know what version of the Intel Graphics is running on your laptop? As there are multiple versions it may be according to the web (I'm assuming Intel HD 520)

14 minutes ago, simono said:

Going to openCL is a major step. There is - or was - an issue in the Intel version of openCL. Topaz could not make AI Sharpen work on my Intel system configuration either. Their dev team had to make a special version not using openCL to get their application to work without crashing left right and center.

Thanks for the information provided, once I know your Intel Graphics version I'll be sure to pass this information through to our devs :)

I believe by disabling OpenCL we'll be able to get your software back up and running!

Please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%AppData%\Affinity\Photo\1.0\Settings\

In the window that opens, please select PerformancePreferences.xml and open this in Notepad for editing.

The last line in this file, before '</Settings>' should read -

<UseHardwareAcceleration>False</UseHardwareAcceleration>

You may find that you already have this line in the file and you need to change True to False, or you may not see this line at all and it requires adding, so that you see the following -

image.png

Once completed, save this .XML file and close it.

Now try launching Affinity again, does the app open as expected for you?

13 minutes ago, simono said:

I think it is called openGL, not openCL.

I can confirm that there are both OpenCL and OpenGL standards, but Affinity is using OpenCL.

Many thanks in advance :)

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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Before I read your message, I de-installed 1.9 and then re-installed the older version 1.8.5. Luckily I still had the previous exe in my download directory. Now 1.8 is running again.

When I have time, I'll upgrade to 1.9 a second time and then set the appropriate disable in the XML file to see what happens.

 

 

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So, I found the xml file and put in the extra directive. IT DOES NOT HELP.

On another "channel' a guy said "nobody is forcing me to use hw acceleration" - I should simply disable it in the app.

This is of course absolute cr*p. Within the application I cannot disable anything. The app does not get that far. It bails out straight after showing the splash pane. The real gui never comes up.

It would seem that the gravity of this situation has not been fully recognized yet.

Anyway, now I will de-install the new version a second time and put 1.8.5 back in. That version is working.

The problem could be that you are already going through openCL for the initial gui displays with their panes and menus - i.e. long before any preferences regarding acceleration are actually checked. Once you just touch openCL - and it is not working properly on Intel - you are probably already down the drain.

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  • Staff

I'm sorry to hear the OpenCL fix hasn't worked for you - it's likely another issue causing the crash and we'll need a copy of your crash report to investigate this, as seen in my first post in this thread.

2 minutes ago, simono said:

On another "channel' a guy said "nobody is forcing me to use hw acceleration" - I should simply disable it in the app.

This is of course absolute cr*p. Within the application I cannot disable anything.

I'm not sure what leads you to believe this and I must ask you to refrain from such language here - as much as I understand you can't launch your app currently (of which the real reason is unknown and has only bee speculated thus far) and I offer my sincerest apologies for any inconveniences caused due to this, that does not mean that you're "forced" to use OpenCL, or that it cannot be disabled. Adding the line correctly into the XML will have disabled it within the app.

5 minutes ago, simono said:

It would seem that the gravity of this situation has not been fully recognized yet (...) Once you just touch openCL - and it is not working properly on Intel - you are probably already down the drain

I can confirm we have tested this implementation of OpenCL using Intel HD integrated graphics from various laptops/computers and have confirmed it's working as expected in our testings, so this is likely caused by a local issue. As mentioned above, we cannot be certain of this issue without copies of your crash reports - it may not be OpenCL related at all.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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According to the Oxford dictionary - and my humble knowledge of the english language - cr*p simply means very bad and is in no way vulgar. So please kindly refrain from giving me english lessons.

And do not forget - I have paid for this product and have just invested about 5 hours into trying to find out what the problem could be.

It also took some time to find the crash reports. They were not where I had assumed they would be.

CrashReports.zip

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  • Staff
27 minutes ago, simono said:

I have paid for this product and have just invested about 5 hours into trying to find out what the problem could be.

I appreciate this, as I have offered our support here and my continued apologies for any inconveniences caused. Unfortunately with updating and feature additions to the app this can sometimes cause unexpected issues for certain machines and we have to investigate each issue separately.

Many thanks for your crash reports provided, I have forwarded these to our development team and I will respond here shortly with any information we find.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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  • Staff

Thanks for letting me know Walter, I have checked and for my card the latest drivers available are 461.40 - however I appreciate this varies depending on your GPU model, your OS version etc!

Can you please confirm for me, have you tried following the above steps in disabling OpenCL?
As this has resolved the issue for other Affinity users, simply unfortunately not for simono above, so I am hopeful this would resolve the crashing for you.

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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Program parameters like -noopencl could possibly be a great additional option for users affected by the issue - and a bit easier to guide them through for supporters.

  • "The user interface is supposed to work for me - I am not supposed to work for the user interface."
  • Computer-, operating system- and software agnostic; I am a result oriented professional. Look for a fanboy somewhere else.
  • “When a wise man points at the moon the imbecile examines the finger.” ― Confucius
  • Not an Affinity user og forum user anymore. The software continued to disappoint and not deliver.
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

-<Settings xsi:type="Serif.Interop.Persona.Settings.PerformanceSettings" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance">


-<RAMUsageLimit>

<UnitType>Megabyte</UnitType>

<Value>8192</Value>

</RAMUsageLimit>


-<DiskWarningLimit>

<UnitType>Megabyte</UnitType>

<Value>32768</Value>

</DiskWarningLimit>

<UndoLimit>1024</UndoLimit>

<ViewQuality>1</ViewQuality>


-<AutoSaveInterval>

<UnitType>Number</UnitType>

<Value>300</Value>

</AutoSaveInterval>

<UsePerfectClipping>False</UsePerfectClipping>

<UseDithering>False</UseDithering>

<RetinaPassIndex>0</RetinaPassIndex>

<UseHardwareAcceleration>False</UseHardwareAcceleration>

</Settings>

So this is definitely correctly put in. Taken directly out of the xml file.

 

Here is a system info file

sysinfo Simon.Payne@t-online.de.txt

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  • Staff

Thanks for your system info file, this shows me that your Intel HD 620 Graphics chip is using driver version 27.20.100.8681 from 15/09/20. According to the below link, the latest drivers available are 27.20.100.9168
from 20/01/21

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/95443/Intel-Core-i5-7200U-Processor-3M-Cache-up-to-3-10-GHz-

I do recommend updating this driver as it will certainly help with stability and may resolve the crashing, however I cannot say this is the only fix, as there appears to be other causes for the app crashing currently.

It seems from your crash reports that your app is crashing within .NET, more specifically when accessing Windows Presentation Foundation and DirectX.

Firstly, can you please try the below tool to repair your .NET installation?

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=30135

If this does not stop the app from crashing then I'd like to try launching the app using a 'flag' to see if this allows the app to open. The easiest way to do this is through Command prompt, which can be opened through Windows Run (Windows Key + R) -

Type cmd, hit Enter (the command prompt should now be visible).

Type cd "C:\Program Files\Affinity\Affinity Photo\" , hit Enter

Type photo --no-hw-ui, hit Enter

This should hopefully open the app without crashing. Please do let me know how you get on!

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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So, I did it all, after adjusting the path - cd "C:\Programme\Affinity\Photo\".

The graphics driver is now updated from Intel. I ask myself - quite apart from Windows auto update and Lenovo auto update - what I just paid Driver Easy 17€ for. 

The Microsoft .NET tool complained, but did not repair anything. It just reported the issues to Bill Gates.

The direct launch photo --no-hw-ui reacted as before. The splash pane comes up with a pretty picture of a squid and disappears after about a second. 

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In the meantime I managed to update .NET to 5.0. This all did not help. Quite on the contrary. The Windows Update procedure got into an infinite loop which was very hard to get out of. It looked as though a boot-stick would be the only way to recover. The laptop did not boot any more.

Seeing the Affinity Photo 1.9 problem remains, I have re-installed 1.8.5.

Attached is the last 1.9 crash report produced after all the updating.

As I have said, the program bails out after showing the splash pane. You do not get to see any proper GUI etc. This is why I considered the advice to turn HW acceleration on or off to be crappy. The program does not get far enough to turn anything on or off because the GUI does not show up at all.

In the meantime the HW acceleration is turned off anyway using the directive you supplied in the appropriate XML file.

Luckily I am not in a production situation so if you want me to test a 1.9 debug version your dev people may feel free to contact me.

d4816e01-4900-474d-a7ba-bcbd795d228b.dmp

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One thing should be noted. If you are switching back and forth by re-installing different versions the file PerformancePreferences.xml is replaced by the installer - i.e. the directive UseHardwareAcceleration is not there anymore.

(I presume there is a checkbox somewhere within the yet-to-be-seen GUI that will plug the line in with an approriate True or False.)

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My machine is using an Intel i5 processor with an integrated GPU.

Gerätename    LAPTOP-QLS05N4J
Prozessor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz   2.71 GHz
Installierter RAM    8,00 GB

It seems that Affinity is not talking directly to the GPU anymore, but now going through openCL to utilize the GPU.

Topaz Sharpen Ai does something similiar. It goes through openGL to talk to the GPU. There are severe compatibility issues between the Intel chip set and openGL. The bottom line is that the Topaz application will not work on my system as long as the application is using openGL.

I suspect that openCL and Intel may be having similar problems to the combination openGL and Intel.

The question is - who is responsable for geting openGL and openCL to work on this Intel chipset? It is not Topaz, it is not Affinity and it is probably not Intel either. Then we have a happy bunch of volunteers who love putting in new features and absolutely loathe chasing bugs.

But this is speculation at the moment. The 100% proof that this is an openCL Intel issue is not there yet.

Of course, if you too are on an Intel i5 ...

 

 


 

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Seeing this question was never answered, you can use the 1.9 installation exe to de-install the new version. Then you can use the 1.8.5 installation exe to re-install the old version.

I do not know whether the de-install is really necessary, but I rather assume it is.

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2 hours ago, simono said:

My machine is using an Intel i5 processor with an integrated GPU.

Gerätename    LAPTOP-QLS05N4J
Prozessor    Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7200U CPU @ 2.50GHz   2.71 GHz
Installierter RAM    8,00 GB

It seems that Affinity is not talking directly to the GPU anymore, but now going through openCL to utilize the GPU.

Topaz Sharpen Ai does something similiar. It goes through openGL to talk to the GPU. There are severe compatibility issues between the Intel chip set and openGL. The bottom line is that the Topaz application will not work on my system as long as the application is using openGL.

I suspect that openCL and Intel may be having similar problems to the combination openGL and Intel.

The question is - who is responsable for geting openGL and openCL to work on this Intel chipset? It is not Topaz, it is not Affinity and it is probably not Intel either. Then we have a happy bunch of volunteers who love putting in new features and absolutely loathe chasing bugs.

But this is speculation at the moment. The 100% proof that this is an openCL Intel issue is not there yet.

Of course, if you too are on an Intel i5 ...

Below info is added by ZY Chang:

2 hours ago, simono said:

Based on the information from my own two computers, I am not sure openCL was the culprit to blame. I have two laptop PCs, one is quite old (Intel i3)and the other is relative new and fast (Intel i7).  I installed Affinity suite on both computers although 99% of the time I used them on my new computer.  After I updated the Affinity suite on my new computer (I was told the update was successful), I could not run them (only displayed the splash image with version numbers for a couple of seconds and disappeared and nothing came up again). I was worried and immediately tried to update the Affinity suite on my old computer, and fortunately they all work (although I did not manually update the Graphics driver for my old one, but I did for the new one).  After I ran %AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1\ on both computers, I noticed that the openCL was even not available on my old PC and yet the Affinity suite (1.90 version)  are working. That's why I doubt the openCL was the issue. Below are the info (log.txt) from my two computers after I ran  %AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1\:

The info from old computer where the new version works:

[DXCore] Found 2 adapters
Intel(R) HD Graphics
Version: 8.15.10.2900
IsHardware: Yes
Supports D3D12 Feature Level 12.0: No
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_0046&SUBSYS_031C0000&REV_12
LUID: 0x10C62
Microsoft Basic Render Driver
Version: 10.0.19041.546
IsHardware: No
Supports D3D12 Feature Level 12.0: Yes
HardwareID: PCI\VEN_1414&DEV_008C&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00
LUID: 0x10E2A
[OpenCL] Not available
[OpenCL] Not available
[OpenCL] Not available
Loading colour profiles
Monitors
Name: Generic PnP Monitor
Adapter: Intel(R) HD Graphics
Primary: Yes
Has user profile: No
Profile name: sRGB Color Space Profile.icm

System
Found 11 system profiles (parsed 11)
Loading colour profile (system): wsRGB.cdmp
Loading colour profile (system): wscRGB.cdmp
Loading colour profile (system): U28E510D.icm
Loading colour profile (system): sRGB Color Space Profile.icm
Loading colour profile (system): RSWOP.icm
Skipping colour profile (system): Proofing.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (system): Photo.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (system): MediaSim.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (system): Graphics.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (system): D65.camp
Skipping colour profile (system): D50.camp
Found 11 user profiles (parsed 11)
Loading colour profile (user): wsRGB.cdmp
Loading colour profile (user): wscRGB.cdmp
Loading colour profile (user): U28E510D.icm
Loading colour profile (user): sRGB Color Space Profile.icm
Loading colour profile (user): RSWOP.icm
Skipping colour profile (user): Proofing.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (user): Photo.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (user): MediaSim.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (user): Graphics.gmmp
Skipping colour profile (user): D65.camp
Skipping colour profile (user): D50.camp
Installed
Loading colour profile: AdobeRGB1998.icc
Loading colour profile: AppleRGB.icc
Loading colour profile: CoatedFOGRA27.icc
Loading colour profile: CoatedFOGRA39.icc
Loading colour profile: ColorMatchRGB.icc
Loading colour profile: Display P3.icc
Loading colour profile: JapanColor2001Coated.icc
Loading colour profile: JapanColor2001Uncoated.icc
Loading colour profile: JapanColor2002Newspaper.icc
Loading colour profile: JapanWebCoated.icc
Loading colour profile: ROMM RGB.icc
Loading colour profile: UncoatedFOGRA29.icc
Loading colour profile: USSheetfedCoated.icc
Loading colour profile: USSheetfedUncoated.icc
Loading colour profile: USWebCoatedSWOP.icc
Loading colour profile: USWebUncoated.icc
Loading colour profile: WebCoatedFOGRA28.icc
Imported
-- 7869.2986ms
Wintab: Failed to load Wintab32.dll
Wintab: Failed to create tablet context
Exit

The info from my new computer where the new version does not work:

[DXCore] Found 2 adapters
Intel(R) HD Graphics 515
    Version: 27.20.100.9168
    IsHardware: Yes
    Supports D3D12 Feature Level 12.0: Yes
    HardwareID: PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_191E&SUBSYS_38120000&REV_07
    LUID: 0xE276
Microsoft Basic Render Driver
    Version: 10.0.19041.546
    IsHardware: No
    Supports D3D12 Feature Level 12.0: Yes
    HardwareID: PCI\VEN_1414&DEV_008C&SUBSYS_00000000&REV_00
    LUID: 0xE63D

 

There was nothing mentioned after this.

 

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I see what you mean.

On a second machine, an Intel Celeron, a test version of Affinity Photo 1.9 just came up fine.

On my i5 laptop it still does not although I have installed the latest graphics driver directly from Intel. There is mention that the openCL runtime comes as part of the Intel grapics drivers package so this must be up-to-date too.

Maybe the problem has nothing to do with openCL and I am just biased due to the Topaz openGL problems I experienced.

On the other hand, if I look at your two logs and have understood your commenting correctly, AP 1.9 runs on the computer that says: openCL not available. In other words - it cannot use openCL because an openCL runtime is not even there.

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  • Staff

@simono & @ZY Chang I'm very sorry to hear that none of the above steps have helped here.

I've been asked by our developers to request a copy of your Log.txt file, which can be found in the below location -

%appdata%\Affinity\Photo\1.0\

You may need to change out 'Photo' for 'Designer' or 'Publisher' depending on the Affinity app you're using. Please note if you have since installed 1.8.5 then the Log will be for this version and you'll need to reinstall 1.9 again to generate this new Log, so I will understand if you do not wish to do this currently, as you have 1.8.5 working.

Many thanks once again!

Please Note: I am now out of the office until Tuesday 2nd April on annual leave.

If you require urgent assistance, please create a new thread and a member of our team will be sure to assist asap.

Many thanks :)

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