Affinity Designer: Painfully Slow to Load Document

[scottqmarcus]

I'm trying to open an .eps in Designer. As of this point, it's said "loading 1 document" for about 10 minutes. Although this doesn't happen all the time, it happens with enough regularity to make this app close to worthless (although it usually "only" takes a couple of minutes instead of 10 + counting). 

TBH, I'm not even really sure it's loading it as all the menu items are available while this is happening - except for Quit. It won't let me quit saying, the app is loading a document and can't be quit until it's loaded. 

It even lets me load other documents while it's doing it's thing. 

What gives please? How do I get past this? (I'm now waiting 15 minutes. I've forced quit and tried again twice; same problem.)

[Pšenda]

Try HW Acceleration off.

https://www.google.com/search?q=loading+1+document+site%3Aforum.affinity.serif.com

[Dan C]

Hi @scottqmarcus

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

As Psenda has suggested, it's likely OpenCL Hardware Acceleration causing this document to fail to load.

Please navigate to Edit > Preferences > Performance and uncheck Enable OpenCL Hardware Acceleration at the bottom of the dialog.

Restart the app as prompted and then try opening this document once again. Does this now load as expected for you please? 

[scottqmarcus]

Thank you but that's not an option I see. 

I'm on a Mac. Under Affinity Designer > Preferences > Performances, I see "enable metal compute acceleration" Is that what you mean?

[Dan C]

My apologies, the issue you originally described is one that can occur on Windows with relative frequency, so I had assumed this was a Windows based system!

I have not heard of the Mac app struggling to load documents previously, but it certainly could be caught in a similar 'loop' to Windows.

Please try disabling Metal hardware acceleration and then restart the app as prompted. Now try loading this document - does it open as expected please?

Is this happening for one document only, or any document you try and open in the app?

What file format is this document please?

Many thanks in advance 

[Pšenda]

14 hours ago, scottqmarcus said:

Is that what you mean?

On 7/27/2021 at 1:15 AM, Pšenda said:

Try HW Acceleration off.

[scottqmarcus]

I have disabled it. Unfortunately, I deleted the file I used but it happens often enough that if should happen again, I'll let you know.

[scottqmarcus]

Update: I found the document. I tried to open it again. This time I can see in the loading message that it's at 7.2% and stuck. So, I guess this didn't fix the problem.

[scottqmarcus]

Damn! One more correction. That number is the size of the image, not the loading amount. My mistake. (Don't I feel stupid?)

Anyway, it does seem to be working. I found the document again and reloaded it and it worked fine. Sorry about that.