Unable to save to documents to specific drive

[J.G.Roeder]

I am experiencing an issue where I am unable to save new files to a specific drive on my system. This issue did not arise with 1.9.1 and was definitely present in 1.9.0. I'm unsure exactly when it started but it persists in 1.9.1 so I figured this was appropriate.

Whenever I attempt to save a new file it results in the "Failed to save document: <Untitled>" "Save failed because access to the file was lost" dialogue.

A file is subsequently created on the drive, but with size 0kb. 



I did find similar issues reported in the forum, but these all seemed to deal with external storage or network drives. In this case, the hard drive in question is neither. It is a standard internal hard drive Seagate ST250DM000-1BD141. Saving to any of the other five drives installed in my system ( one of which is an identical model ) works perfectly fine. I am able to open files which already exist on the drive in question. I am able to save to another drive, move the file to the offending drive, and subsequent saving works as expected. Only new files saved directly cause this issue. The issue is of course infinitely replicable as it happens even with a fresh install of Affinity Designer.

I have attempted a full reinstall.
Wiping preferences followed by a full reinstall.
I've checked permissions to the drive in question multiple times.
I monitored the windows event log for any hints.
I attempted disabling all anti-virus software.
I tried disabling my font manager. 
I even disabled google drive sync ( which I am not trying to save to ) just in case it was somehow interfering.

It's possible, even likely, the issue is still unique to my system but I've run out of leads to chase. 

OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro N
Version: 10.0.019041 Build 19041
Affinity Version: 1.9.1.979

[Dan C]

Hi @J.G.Roeder,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here, we're currently working through a backlog of tickets, so many thanks for your patience and understanding.

Is this an issue that you are still experiencing, or have you been able to resolve this since please?

If you are still experiencing this, we'd like to request you run the Windows Disk Checker tool, to scan for any obvious issues with the drive or permissions (though I do understand you have manually checked these!).

Can you also please check the Power Saving settings for your drive, as outlined here?

Many thanks in advance!

[J.G.Roeder]

Dan C, 

Thank you so much for the reply. I apologize for my delay as well, I simply neglected checking in as frequently after some time had elapsed. 

CHKDSK passed without identifying any issues.

As for the the Power Saving plan settings related to Hard disk. I am on desktop so battery wasn't applicable. "Turn off hard disk after" was set to 20 minutes. I updated this to 0 minutes, but experience no difference in the behavior exhibited by Affinity. 

Thanks again for your assitance!

[Old Bruce]

1 hour ago, J.G.Roeder said:

"Turn off hard disk after" was set to 20 minutes. I updated this to 0 minutes, but experience no difference in the behavior exhibited by Affinity. 

I think you should try 40 or 60 minutes, not 0 (zero)

[J.G.Roeder]

31 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

I think you should try 40 or 60 minutes, not 0 (zero)

Thank you for the idea. While my strong preference would be for this to remain at 20 minutes where I had initially set it. The reason for testing it with 0 (zero) is that zero is the equivalent of "never" for this particular setting. So if the turning off of the hard disk was somehow causing this issue, the setting 0 (zero) should mitigate it completely. If there is a specific reason you believe 40 or 60 minutes would help, please elaborate, because it's not immediately obvious to me. Thanks again!

Edited July 20, 2021 by J.G.Roeder
grammar

[Old Bruce]

My initial thought was the zero would mean the drive would 'go to sleep' after zero minutes. I am a Mac guy and am unfamiliar with how Windows works its energy saving. On the Mac lower numbers mean the drive goes to sleep sooner, lengthening the battery's life between charges, and therefore the file has to search for the location on the drive to save or read to or from the drive.

[Greyfox]

7 hours ago, J.G.Roeder said:

I updated this to 0 minutes, but experience no difference in the behavior exhibited by Affinity.

Do you get the same problem if you run Affinity Designer as an Administrator?

Have you by any chance compared the Security settings for that drive against those for the drives you can save to. (Windows File Explorer, select the drive, right click, select properties then the Security Tab.

[J.G.Roeder]

34 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

My initial thought was the zero would mean the drive would 'go to sleep' after zero minutes. I am a Mac guy and am unfamiliar with how Windows works its energy saving. On the Mac lower numbers mean the drive goes to sleep sooner, lengthening the battery's life between charges, and therefore the file has to search for the location on the drive to save or read to or from the drive.

Ah yeah, I assumed this was the case but there is always the possibility you had some specific information I did not. Any value above zero in windows settings is just "n minutes". Actually the Mac terminal utility for power management "pmset" also uses this convention. With the command 

pmset -a disksleep 0

Setting disks to never spin down for "all" profiles ( as noted by the -a flag). I really appreciate you taking the time to make a suggestion and even follow up with an explanation.

[J.G.Roeder]

7 minutes ago, Greyfox said:

Do you get the same problem if you run Affinity Designer as an Administrator?

Have you by any chance compared the Security settings for that drive against those for the drives you can save to. (Windows File Explorer, select the drive, right click, select properties then the Security Tab.

Yes I do get the same problem running as Administrator. I had previously attempted this but apparently forgot to include it in my original post. 

The settings on the Security tab are actually what I was referencing with the word "permissions". They are unfortunately identical for all user groups/names, so this does not appear to be the issue. Was a good thought though. 

[Dan C]

Thanks for the further information provided here!

I'd like to see if the beta version 1.10 acts similarly for you, can you please download this from the below link and install it alongside your retail version, so that you have 2 versions of the Affinity app installed?

Please note, we recommend creating a copy of any document before opening it in the beta, as once it has been saved in the newer version you will be unable to edit this file in version 1.9.3. Many thanks once again

[J.G.Roeder]

On 7/22/2021 at 10:50 AM, Dan C said:

I'd like to see if the beta version 1.10 acts similarly for you, can you please download this from the below link and install it alongside your retail version, so that you have 2 versions of the Affinity app installed?

Well once again I've taken forever to reply,  so long a new version released. 

I have tried the test per your original instructions using beta 1.10.0115 as a separate install and unfortunately the problem persists. 

as an addendum I have now also tried using current version 1.10.1.1142 and the problem is present there as well. 

No additional information to report as behavior and error messages were identical.

 

[Dan C]

Thank you for trying and confirming that for me, I'm certainly sorry to hear this behaviour hasn't changed for you!

It's definitely interesting that this is only occurring for one drive. Can you please try using Seagate Tools to check the health of this drive?

https://www.seagate.com/gb/en/support/downloads/seatools/

Another option (though somewhat drastic) is to try backing up the hard drive to a folder on another hard drive and then format your drive and try again - however we do understand if you wouldn't want to try this.