Random crashing in the background

[cance440]

Designer frequently crashes while in the background doing mostly nothing. I have no clue what triggers it. I'm using a brand new Mac Mini M1 running Big Sur 11.3.  

[SPaceBar]

Hi @cance440 When it crashes do you get a crash log? If so could you upload it here so we can take a look please? 

Do you also know what other apps you tend to be using when Designer crashes? I have a new M1 laptop so would like to try and reproduce the issue.

[cance440]

I will upload as soon as it happens again. In the past week, it's been behaving though. Fingers crossed. 

[cance440]

Just happened again. Here's the log: 

EDIT: Just made a PDF of your log to save on scrolling.

Crash-log-cance440.pdf

[madPXL]

Same problem here with an intel iMac.

[SPaceBar]

Thanks for the crash log @cance440

So you know what you were doing when the app crashes? @madPXL I haven't been able to reproduce this yet.

[madPXL]

Sometimes when I come back from sleep mode the app crashed. Sometimes I do something else and within minutes / hours I get a pop-up with the crash. 

I'm working on a artboard file with multiple effects applied (blur, outer shadow, etc ...) with the latest version of Designer and the crash may appear multiple times per day but never when I'm working on it!

[SPaceBar]

Thanks for the extra info @madPXL This sounds like an issue that is currently being looked into by the development team so I have passed on the information.

[fbolte]

I have experienced crashes when I put my MacBook Air M1 to sleep by closing the lid while Designer is running, even in the foreground. When I reopen the MBA the next day, I saw a crash report from Designer. Two days in a row now.

Latest crash report:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/kdquqyphvtlheqm/crash-affinity-designer-2021-05-28.txt?dl=0

[norbinw]

I have crashes on my intel MBP 16.. Crash reports do nothing, I've posted them in another thread. Also now the app doesn't crash on itself, but when I close it, it closes, and when I open a random file, it says it has a recovery file... This happens a LOT of times.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, norbinw said:

Also now the app doesn't crash on itself, but when I close it, it closes, and when I open a random file, it says it has a recovery file... This happens a LOT of times.

Are they possibly files that you were working on sometime earlier when it did crash?

When you start the application, and it says there are recovery files, it is only recovering the files you were working on that had never been saved, and thus were still "unnamed". For any files that had names, it will only mention the recovery files if you actually try to Open those files again. (The Affinity Preference whether to automatically reopen files, or any system preference for that on Mac, may also interact with this behavior.)

[norbinw]

Nope. I was working on a random 2000x68 pixel banner, 2 layers, saved, delivered. Closed the app, no crashing (at least no crash report message). Then today when I open up the app, recovery.. so I pressed ok to see what's it all about, and it opened that 2000x68 pixel file.

But it happens randomly. Yes I don't save these files, I work on them, save a copy, mail them, then delete. But I do this quite often. Other times files I have saved open when pressing recovery.. Most of the time I just hit Don't open and work from scratch. But it's annoying.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks for the added workflow details.

[SPaceBar]

Thanks for the extra info @norbinw would you be able to make a video the issue and upload it here so I can try and recreate it?

[norbinw]

Yeah but I don't know how :)) as it happens randomly. And when I open a random file, SOMETIMES the app starts with a recovery notification.. Often not even related to the file I open.. For ex today I had the 2000x68 file open ,yet I only opened the app to work from scratch.

[SPaceBar]

@norbinw It sounds like there is a file in the app that is trying to recover and it's getting a bit confused. If you clear out any files that are in this location it should solve the issue. The location of the files depends on wether you are using the MAS version of the Affinity Store version.

Affinity Store:
~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Designer/autosave/
~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Designer/temp/

Mac App Store:
~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Application Support/autosave/
~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/Data/Library/Application Support/temp/

Mac App Store version ( Big Sur ):
~/Library/Containers/Affinity Designer/Data/Library/Application Support/autosave/
~/Library/Containers/Affinity Designer/Data/Library/Application Support/temp/
 

If you make sure that the relevant folders are empty the message should go away.

 

[SPaceBar]

@fbolte Welcome to the Affinity forums! Thanks for the crash log, I have passed it on to the developer that is looking into this issue.

[norbinw]

OK, there were quite some files in the autosave, and 1 in recovery. Deleted them all, will report if it happens again. Thank you so far.

[SPaceBar]

Thanks for letting me know. Hope it solves it for you.

[cance440]

Just deleted said files. I'll check back if it doesn't solve the problem. 

[SPaceBar]

@cance440 That will solve the constant recovery but not the issue that is causing the crash.