Affinity Publisher crashes when saving

[David V]

Having bought and started to use Affinity Publisher only very recently I am encountering what appears to be exactly the same crashing problem. The entire program "disappears" and, like M.Maciel's original post, I get no warning of the crash.

I am using the latest 1.9.0.932 version downloaded a couple of days ago. While it seems that I can create and save new test projects, the larger one I've been working on cannot be modified further or resaved without the crash repeating. Attempting to save it to a new file name doesn't work either. It creates an empty file under the new name and then crashes without saving anything to that file. After the first crash I gave permission for the crash report data to be sent to Serif/Affinity though I'm not sure if that means it always sends the crash reports every time it crashes as, after trying 3 more times to revive the project, it didn't ask to send crash reports but created them on the C: drive (C:\Users\$USER\AppData\Roaming\Affinity\Publisher\CrashReports\...) If required I can supply the various crash report files.

I note that the various attachment_Log.txt files created on each crash have the following error message repeated 3 times at the top of each log file.

[DXCore] Error 0x80004002 (298): Failed to create adapter factory!

I did try restarting the computer in case that might make a difference but it didn't. Note that the porject CAN be exported to PDF without problem - however, saving or modifying it invokes the crash!

So, HELP! I need to resurrect that project for work.

 

[SPaceBar]

Hi @David V Welcome to the Affinity forums. I'm sorry to hear you are experiencing a crash when saving, thanks for all the information. I have split the thread into two posts so I can gather information from you both individually.

As it sounds like your issue is document specific can you zip up the project that is having the issue and upload it here please? Could you also include the most recent crash log from the CrashReports folder too please? I can then take a closer look for you.

[David V]

Thanks for the quick response, SPaceBar.

 

I have zipped up the entire Crash Reports folder and and uploaded that along with the zipped up project.

 

Regards

David

[SPaceBar]

Hi @David V Is it taking a while to upload as the folder is currently empty?

[David V]

Yeah! Looks like the second crash reports zip got stuck on uploading. I reloaded the page and submitted them one at a time. I think it's worked ok this time.

[SPaceBar]

Yes, I can see them in the folder now. Thanks, I'll take a look.

[David V]

Cheers!

[Move Along People]

-

[SPaceBar]

I've been able to recreate the crash, it's down to a corrupted pinned text frame on your Master page. I'm going to have a go at trying to delete it, it might take a while.

[David V]

That's interesting because I found that there was a box I don't remember putting there on the left in exactly the same position in relation to the visible box as you show it on the right. I did delete that one but can't remember if the crash happened soon afterwards or not. I see that attempting to delete the one you show doesn't fix the crash.

I suppose the question are:

1) How did a corrupted box get created in the first place?

2) Can the program delete such things harmlessly if they are detected?

3) Can you find out why they cause the program to crash and put in something to prevent that crash?

Good luck tracking it down!

[SPaceBar]

It's a known issue, we do have a couple of methods of reproduction but are keen to make sure we haven't missed any. If you can remember working on that corner of the master at all recently that could be very helpful. Did you pin anything on that page during one of the last few times you worked on it?

Can you also let us know where you store the file? Is it local or on an external drive or storage space?

[David V]

I don't think I had been working on that area of the master for at least half an hour before the crash. It had done a successful save a few minutes before - I did lose the last paragraph of what I had been working on and a bit of formatting around an image but that, thank goodness, was all.

The file was stored on my network, which is a separate Ubuntu Linux Server with access using Samba via mapped drives.

It might be worth noting that the text for the document already existed as a LibreOffice Writer file. After setting up the initial master pages in Publisher and then creating a whole bunch of "normal" pages with connected text boxes, I copied and pasted the entire text from Writer into Publisher. Then I copied in the images in one by one and, in some cases, changing the text and adding other images as I went along updating the document. I only started working on the Publisher document earlier yesterday at just before 10am so, while it may look like a largish doc, it hadn't spent much time actually existing as a Publisher document! Because I have CRON jobs taking automatic hourly backups of all recently changed files in the area in which the file was stored on the server I could, if required, supply you with the hourly copies of the file from each of those backups from 10:00 until 19:00 which was the last one backed up before the crash happened. This might help in pinning down what possible operations I might have performed which have caused this problem in the first place.

What I do remember doing on the master pages was to set up the coloured blocks onto which I then overlaid the page numbers. Initially, these were set just below the initial "bleed" boxes but at some point I adjusted the page bleed margins and then moved the boxes further towards the page edge (though then within the bleed area). It was later on when I noticed the "extra" box on the bottom left and deleted it. I hadn't noticed the equivalent one on the bottom right which you later discovered.

PS For some reason when attempting to add replies to this forum thread, I have had to reload the forum page several times before this "wordprocessor" box stays open. I click in it, it opens and a second later, it shuts itself down again and refuses to open up so I can reply! I'm using Firefox 85.0.1 which, although it has NoScript, uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger installed and running, these are all disabled for this site. I haven't yet tried another browser.

[SPaceBar]

Thanks for all the info. I think the extra box on the left might be key to the issue. If you are able to zip up and upload those copies of the file I would be happy to take a look to see when the issue started.

I've just sent you a PM.

[David V]

I have now uploaded the files with each one containing the time it was saved as part of the title. I uploaded these to the DropBox link you gave above.

Thanks for the PM but DropBox wouldn't let me download the fixed file (I tried in 2 separate browsers).

PS This forum "wordprocessor" box doesn't work in Firefox properly at all - as mentioned a couple of messages back it keeps closing down as soon as I try to type anything into it! I've had to use another web browser in order to respond to this.

[SPaceBar]

Thanks for the files. I will check them out. I have reset your PM.

I will also look into the Firefox issue. Thanks

[SPaceBar]

I had a look through the earlier saves and they were very helpful, thanks for sending them. Did you by any chance pin the page numbers or the colored boxes that they sit on? 

[David V]

I think the answer to that is "not consciously". As I only started using Publisher 4 days ago I am very much still in the stage of feeling my way around it. In fact I am only now reading up on how pinning works and, I suspect I have not been using pinning where I should have done when adding images within the body of the main document text - but that's for me to get the hang of! All I remember is that I did as I described in the PM I sent yesterday. I think I just positioned the page number boxes over the coloured boxes but used the useful green indicators that show when things are aligned to existing objects as a guide to where they ended up. What I thought I did was recolour the boxes at one point but not recreate them. So, how two sets of boxes ended up there is a bit of a mystery to me.

Regarding the Firefox issue - I just had the same thing happen on a different Chromium-based browser (Iridium) so it turns out not to be restricted to Firefox after all. What it does seem to be connected with is the link sent out by email when a forum post is updated. In this case it was the following:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/133736-affinity-publisher-crashes-when-saving/&do=findComment&comment=738909

If I stay on that page then the issue occurs in both Firefox and Iridium. I also tried Google Chrome - as a non-logged in user the box stays open. However, if I then log into the forum on Chrome and re-use the above link then the problem arises again. In all cases one way to get around it is to click on somewhere else (e.g. my profile) and then use a link from there back to the forum thread. Once that redisplays the wordprocessor box stays open as it should do. Here is the link:

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/133736-affinity-publisher-crashes-when-saving/&do=findComment&comment=737811

Now the obviously noticeable thing I can see (apart from the comment ID) is that the link from the email has expanded the ampersands (&) between the URL parameters into & amp; (space added in case the forum re-converts it! If it does then you might not see the issue in the first link above). I suspect this might be due to the email preprocessing client I'm using which is FireTrust's MailWasher. This has the ability to display emails in both plain text and HTML and, by default, shows the plain text version along with a button to display the HTML version (this "plain text first" view helps detect spam links that say they are going to one place but are, in reality, going somewhere else). It was the link from plain text version that I was using to return to the forum where I was seeing issues. The HTML view of the same email appears to have the same link but clicking on it doesn't give the issue as I suspect the & amp; gets converted on the fly. So, either I've got to remember to use the HTML version of the link or a possibly better solution might be for your forum code to check for expanded ampersands and convert them back if detected, though it should be coupled with code that, when creating a URL, needs to make sure that any other characters, such as = and &, are fully encoded using PHP's urlencode function or JavaScript's encodeURIComponent function.

Aren't computers fun!

David

[SPaceBar]

I have recreated the layers in the screenshot below which involved pinning the rectangle using the Inline in text option. I've still got to work out to how to break it though.

Thanks for the Firefox info. I've downloaded and installed it so will get logged in and take a look.

[AlanPickup]

One of the things I have noted in later versions of Publisher is that previously I used to double click on the canvas to get the move tool highlighted, but quite often lately it has created an object based on the tool previously selected. I have had rogue blank txt boxes on the canvas, and sometimes only noticed them in the layers panel as a empty text frame. Could not recreate in latest beta.