Affinity publisher slows down and stops working after adding pictures

[BendW]

The last month Affinity publisher soon after starting up stops working and is showing a colored ball. This occurs typically after having added 3 to 5 pictures. The format of the pictures doesn't seem to matter; aphoto, pdf, jpeg. The source was either ACDSee of Finder. I've tried a factory reset: no result. Deleting the files in Autosave en Temp, also without any result. A workaround or, even better, a real solution of this issue would be great.

I'm working on a Mac with the latest version of BigSur installed.  

[Dan C]

Hi @BendW,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! I'm going to need more information to investigate this issue further - can you please confirm for me:

• What are the specs of your Mac?
• What is the size of the Publisher document?
• Are these images being Linked or Embedded?
• When you say 'stops working' - are you simply seeing the coloured ball for a few seconds before you can return to using the app, or does the app never recover?

A screen recording showing the steps you're taking and the results you're seeing would certainly be helpful. If you're unsure how to take a screen recording, please see the below FAQ - 

Many thanks in advance  

[BendW]

Hi,

The specs are: iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017), 3,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro 560 4 GB, macOS Big Sur version 11.6

The size of the document is 162 mb

All of the images are linked

It gradually slows down. After adding a new picture its becomes, slow, after the next it becomes slower with the appearance of a colored ball. After the next one it takes ages and after the next the colored ball stays and the app does not recover. Saving is not working.

The document I am working on was started on a previous version of the app, Would that matter?

When trying to make screen recording, the ball disappears. Since the cursor needs to be on/in the active part of the screen. 

Thanks for the help

[BendW]

Maybe this report may help

error report.docx

[Dan C]

2 hours ago, BendW said:

The specs are: iMac (Retina 4K, 21.5-inch, 2017), 3,4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Core i5, 8 GB 2400 MHz DDR4, Radeon Pro 560 4 GB, macOS Big Sur version 11.6

Thanks for confirming that for me!

2 hours ago, BendW said:

The size of the document is 162 mb

My apologies, I could have been clearer here - what is the physical size of your pages/spread within Publisher? ie are you using A4 pages etc?

2 hours ago, BendW said:

All of the images are linked

It gradually slows down. After adding a new picture its becomes, slow, after the next it becomes slower with the appearance of a colored ball. After the next one it takes ages and after the next the colored ball stays and the app does not recover. Saving is not working.

I'd like to request a copy of your document to test this here, can you please upload a copy of your .afpub file & all the images being placed to the below link for me -

https://www.dropbox.com/request/ojLiP0ahuETzeMZc2Ksj

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know!

2 hours ago, BendW said:

The document I am working on was started on a previous version of the app, Would that matter?

It certainly shouldn't matter, but it's possible that this could be part of the cause. If you start a new file and place the same images, does the app behave any differently?

2 hours ago, BendW said:

When trying to make screen recording, the ball disappears. Since the cursor needs to be on/in the active part of the screen. 

I certainly understand, the reason I was asking for a screen recording is to see the exact steps you're taking in the app so that I can follow these and see if the same issue occurs for me - I don't need to explicitly see the 'spinning ball'

2 hours ago, BendW said:

Maybe this report may help

I can confirm that this report shows the app 'hung', but did not crash. Unfortunately these type of 'hung' reports do not contain the same helpful information that a crash report would show.

Does the app crash at all, or only ever 'hang'?

Many thanks once again!

[BendW]

Hello Dan

The upload has finished. I have not all the images included, already more than 200. If you really need them all, please let me know. Physical size will be clear from the document,

The app hangs and keeps on hanging. The app is stopped by a "forced stop"  In the meantime I will start a new file.

Many thanks

[Dan C]

Many thanks for the files provided!

I have tested this on 2 machines here, one Windows and one Mac - I did notice that after linking multiple of the .afphoto files that the app began to slow, but due to the size & 'placed DPI' of these files, some slowdown is to be expected.

However unfortunately I haven't been able to replicate the 'spinning ball' issue on Mac, nor did the app 'hang' and not recover.

I can confirm that we've made some recent changes/fixes  to how .afphoto files are handled within Publisher, which have been added to our latest beta.

Can you please try downloading and installing the beta from the below link alongside your retail version (so that you have 2 different Affinity Publisher apps installed) and let me know how the document performs for you there?

 

[BendW]

Hi Dan,

Thanks for the Beta and support.

Unfortunately I had to deal with the same issues.

I performed the following steps. 

• Creating two picture frames en filled them with a picture, by drag and drop from ACDSee PhotoStudio 7
• Saving the document: Save as ….  This was causing a delay of about 1 minute before finishing the saving proces
• Creating three new picture frames on the same page. From that point on, actually after the saving was finished, the app started to show colored balls after every click of the mouse 
• Trying to fill the picture frames caused the app to hang for 10 minutes.
• Shutting down ACDSee and trying to import from the Finder made no difference

At the moment I have started a complete new document as to build up the same book. I am importing aphoto-pictures. 

Would it be better to convert them to jpeg or similar format?

Up till now no issues. Be it that it takes time to start from blanc en build it from scratch: there are just three pages done

 

Hoping to hear from you

With regards

Ben

[Dan C]

No problem at all, I'm sorry to hear you're still experiencing similar issues!

19 hours ago, BendW said:

I performed the following steps. (...)

Can you please confirm for me, were these steps performed in your previous document that you have provided to me, or the new document you have referred to here?

19 hours ago, BendW said:

Would it be better to convert them to jpeg or similar format?

Converting the files to JPEG/TIFF would likely reduce the amount of RAM the document requires when open, but we hope that this should not be necessary.

Our team are still testing this issue further internally and we hope to have more suggestions for you shortly

[BendW]

Hi,

These steps were performed in the old document that I provided to you, and in the new Beta-app.

Included please find the preference settings.

[BendW]

Hi Dan,

As mentioned earlier. I started the same project, which give the issues, new from scratch.  This to exclude the possibility that a project working on during app-updates might be the cause of the issue described earlier. So all the templates and paragraph styles were to build up new.  I am sorry to say that already after a few pages slows down dramatically and at page five after adding three images starts to show a spinning ball after every stap taken. At the and it takes more than 10 minutes before I could save and shut down the app. The document is not to big and contains still not to much images.  (If you wish I could sent it to your drop-box)

I have contacted the Apples helpdesk. We have gone through various settings on the machine but could not find any causing trouble. Their conclusion was: Affinity is responsible for this issue?!?!

I really hope that you are able to come with some sort of solution.  Thanks

Ben

[MikeTO]

On 10/14/2021 at 7:21 AM, BendW said:

The size of the document is 162 mb

All of the images are linked

Some of your images are not linked if your document is 162 mb. I have a huge book on the go and it's only 9 mb.

Publisher should be able to handle the embedded images but you might as well link the ones that are embedded to improve performance.

Choose Document > Resource Manager and select any images that say Embedded beside them and then click Make Linked. Good luck!

[BendW]

Hi. The document that was uploaded to you had all the images linked (as far as I know). It is one of my standard settings. It might however appear otherwise since I did not provide all the images in the upload. I think it was three quarter or something, not all. Please see also my latest post about starting a new document from scratch, were the same issue occurs.

[BendW]

Hi Dan and/or MikeTo,  I might have come closer to the area which might cause the issue.  I started to make two complete new documents: one to be filled with only .jpg files and one to be filled exclusively with .aphoto files. After 6 pages of .jpg everything still smoothly, the book was to be build up fast. However after 5 pages af .aphoto (latest version of AP) the filling with images became slower (already) and after a few images more I was unable to work anymore.  Please let me know if it is appropriate to upload the files and images.  It cannot state that it is caused solely due to the .aphoto files. This year (January/February) I worked on a similar document, using .aphoto files with no problem. The latter images originated from a Raw file, whereas most of the images used in the document at hand originated from jpg files.

I would be very pleased if someone could help me out. Many thanks in advance

[MikeTO]

FYI, I'm not with Serif but Dan is.

[Dan C]

 Apologies for the delayed response here - many thanks for the further information and document provided!

I can confirm I have been testing with your document here and I have seen similar behaviour that you've reported, although not quite to the same extent (but this may depend on the specific system resources available etc.)

22 hours ago, BendW said:

I started to make two complete new documents: one to be filled with only .jpg files and one to be filled exclusively with .aphoto files. After 6 pages of .jpg everything still smoothly, the book was to be build up fast. However after 5 pages af .aphoto (latest version of AP) the filling with images became slower (already) and after a few images more I was unable to work anymore.  

I can also confirm that our developers have recently fixed performance issues with multiple .afphoto files within a Publisher document, and this fix is available in our latest beta!

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 at once -

Do you find the app performs better with your document(s) in the beta?

[BendW]

I'm really sorry to say that the new Beta is not performing any better.  I have worked with three documents: 1. The original document as it was uploaded to you: no improvement. 2. A nw document containing a few (20) images all converted in AP to .jpg files: the works fine, both in the old app and in de new Beta. 3 A new document containing the same 20 images, but in .aphoto format: this soon showed colored balls and after the last image added it hung.  I noticed however a strange phenomenon, the resource manager kept on saying: missing documents. Whatever I tried, it kept on doing so: I tried relocating, relinking and replacing nor did it help to proces the images in AP en completely replace them. Could this be something causing the issue? 

The issue is causing "some" frustration! How do I reinstall an old version A-publisher and would that be of any help?  Is is better to use .jpeg files in stead of .pphoto-files??

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response here!

I can confirm that following your report I have re-opened the 'fixed' issue regarding place .afphoto files in Publisher, as both using your document provided (and from other reports) I'm able to reproduce these slowdown issues, which certainly aren't expected.

On 10/23/2021 at 3:25 PM, BendW said:

I noticed however a strange phenomenon, the resource manager kept on saying: missing documents. Whatever I tried, it kept on doing so: I tried relocating, relinking and replacing nor did it help to proces the images in AP en completely replace them. Could this be something causing the issue? 

It appears as though this is a separate bug which appeared in the 1.10.2 beta and unfortunately has made its way to retail. As I understand it, the file will not be 'missing' and should be correctly updated within your document, simply the resource manager is showing the incorrect information. Saving and reopening the document should refresh the Resource Manager.

On 10/23/2021 at 3:25 PM, BendW said:

How do I reinstall an old version A-publisher and would that be of any help?

It may be that 1.9.3 would perform better for you if you wish to use .afphoto files, however as you are finding that 1.10 performs better with JPEG files, the choice is yours as you could continue to use this version with JPEG files rather than .afphoto files.

The 'rollback' procedure is different, depending on where the app was purchased from - did you purchase the app from the Affinity Store or from the Mac App Store please?

[BendW]

Hello

Affinity publisher was purchased from the Affinity store. Please can you provide instructions or a link with intructions for downloading and installing the version which would work with .aphoto files (1.9.3?). To date I have a large document to be finished. The forthcoming documents I could eventually work with JPEG files. Although it's not clear to me  what wold be the preferred choice in terms of quality. Could you comment on that?

Could you perhaps shine a light on where the issue would be fixed??

Thanks

[Dan C]

On 10/30/2021 at 4:56 PM, BendW said:

Affinity publisher was purchased from the Affinity store. Please can you provide instructions or a link with intructions for downloading and installing the version which would work with .aphoto files (1.9.3?)

You can find the previous versions available for download here - https://store.serif.com/update/macos/publisher/1/

If you re-name the current version of Affinity Publisher installed in your Applications folder to 'Affinity Publisher 1.10', or simply 'Affinity Publisher 2' you could then install 1.9.3 alongside the latest version, so you have the choice between the two versions.

Alternatively, you can simply remove 1.10 from your Mac, then install 1.9.3 as required.

I hope this helps

On 10/30/2021 at 4:56 PM, BendW said:

Although it's not clear to me  what wold be the preferred choice in terms of quality. Could you comment on that?

JPEG is a compressed format, whereas .afphoto files are not compressed - so technically .afphoto files can allow for higher quality but this may also require more system resources to embed/place in your document than .JPEG files.

On 10/30/2021 at 4:56 PM, BendW said:

Could you perhaps shine a light on where the issue would be fixed??

Unfortunately all I can confirm at this time is that the issue is logged with our developers and we're looking to resolve it asap!

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Dan C said:

If you re-name the current version of Affinity Publisher installed in your Applications folder to 'Affinity Publisher 1.10', or simply 'Affinity Publisher 2' you could then install 1.9.3 alongside the latest version, so you have the choice between the two versions.

If you do that, do the two versions share the per user APub preference files (the *dat & *.propcol files, any Studio presets you may have created, autosave files, & so on) or are they maintained separately? If shared, would that not possibly cause issues?

[Dan C]

9 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If you do that, do the two versions share the per user APub preference files (the *dat & *.propcol files, any Studio presets you may have created, autosave files, & so on) or are they maintained separately?

As far as I'm aware, a separate folder/location is not created and therefore the app would share these resources.

For example, if I have 1.9.3 & 1.10.4 Affinity Photo installed, then create a new brush in 1.9.3, close and open 1.10.4, the brush is showing here also.

11 minutes ago, R C-R said:

If shared, would that not possibly cause issues?

It certainly could, although we've never experienced that locally - we wouldn't recommend using this method for a continued period of time, however for testing purposes myself and my colleagues regularly have multiple versions installed at once and thus far we haven't seen this cause any corruption with the propcol files etc.

Therefore as above, I'd only recommend this method for testing purposes,  however due to the same propcols & settings being used it should ensure that the only conceivable difference between the application versions is the code itself, and not a user setting.

For any other users reading this thread, the above method only works with purchases directly from the Affinity Store, as this is not possible when purchasing through the Mac App Store

[BendW]

Hello,  Thanks for the time being. I've renamed publisher 1.10.4 and I've installed 1.9.3 and as expected it works fine with both .jpg and .aphoto files. For the near future I surely hope that the latest a publisher will seamlessly work with .aphoto files.

Greetings