"Save failed because the file could not be written to." - Affinity Designer

[AnthonyMW]

I appreciate this topic has been noted many times before. Disappointing then that it is still occurring. This has happened before.

 

I'm working on 2019 16" MacBookPro AF designer v.1.10.4. I've been working on the same document for several weeks, saving regularly. Now I can't even 'Save As' a new document/file.

Edited December 6, 2021 by AnthonyMW

[Hangman]

What actually happens (if anything) when you attempt to save the document, do you get any error message or nothing at all? How big is the file in terms of Mb/Gb, what is the main content of the file, is it pure vector graphics, heavy on fx, use a large number of fonts, include raster images, had you done anything specific in your last edit before the file refused to save?

If the prior saved version you have of the file still opens in AD, is it a file you are able to upload (if not the moderators can provide a dropbox link to keep the file private). Without seeing the file it is really difficult to offer any useful advice, seeing the file may allow people to pinpoint the cause of the probem.

[AnthonyMW]

2 hours ago, Hangman said:

What actually happens (if anything) when you attempt to save the document, do you get any error message or nothing at all? How big is the file in terms of Mb/Gb, what is the main content of the file, is it pure vector graphics, heavy on fx, use a large number of fonts, include raster images, had you done anything specific in your last edit before the file refused to save?

If the prior saved version you have of the file still opens in AD, is it a file you are able to upload (if not the moderators can provide a dropbox link to keep the file private). Without seeing the file it is really difficult to offer any useful advice, seeing the file may allow people to pinpoint the cause of the probem.

Thanks for your help, Hangman. 

Hmm, just done a little backtracking and it appears that the file stopped saving after I 'placed' an artwork/.afdesign item. It seems a bit strange and annoying that you can't do that. I guess I'll have to export the .afdesign files as .svg before 'placing' back in.

To answer some of your other questions:

•13Mb size, purely vector, very little if no FX.

attached files of overall A5 artwork and the offending 'Michelin mine' file that causes the problem.

my A442B decals.afdesign michelin mine.afdesign

[Old Bruce]

Not a problem here. I could place the Michelin Mine into the A442b.

I did get a notice about a missing font. So I am guessing it is one of those. Oddly it is not from the Michelin Mine file.

[AnthonyMW]

4 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Not a problem here. I could place the Michelin Mine into the A442b.

I did get a notice about a missing font. So I am guessing it is one of those. Oddly it is not from the Michelin Mine file.

Oh! that's strange. However, if you then try and adjust 'Michelin mine' once placed (double click the file once placed and it reopens separately as an embedded artwork, then put an outline around the characters, for example) it no longer saves.

[Hangman]

Very strange, as per @Old Bruce all is working fine for me, even double clicking a previously placed 'Michelin mine' file, making an edit then going back to the original file, it is saving without issue...

As a test you could make a copy of your main file and either convert the artistic text to outlines or delete the text elements and see if the problem persists, if that resolves the issue then again as the ever brilliant @Old Bruce suggests, it is likely to be a font related issue so then perhaps outline or delete one specific font at a time to identify which font it causing the issue (assuming that is indeed the problem).

The main artwork has a complete mix of colour spaces and colour profiles, not relevant to the issue but just wondered if that is important for what you're doing?

[AnthonyMW]

Thanks again. Can you tell me how you identify the different colour spaces/profiles? I can't find that information. Thought I had made everything RGB.

[Old Bruce]

10 minutes ago, AnthonyMW said:

Can you tell me how you identify the different colour spaces/profiles? I can't find that information. Thought I had made everything RGB.

View > Resource Manager

then select an image and the info will be on the right. 

[Hangman]

@Old Bruce beat me to it... in fairness I think there are only two logo's affected, one uses CMYK US Web Coated (SWOP) v2, the other RGB Display P3 (instead of document sRGB profile). May not matter for what you're doing but just thought it worth mentioning.

[stokerg]

Hi @AnthonyMW,

Well this is odd, when i first tried adding a stroke around the placed file and then tried a Save As on the main document, i did get the failed to save error and even got a zero KB file created where i saved to.  However, when i tried again, i couldn't replicate it and haven't been able to since (i've tried a number of times).  I've also had someone else on the Tech Team try and it worked first time for them. 

Where do you store your files, locally or on a Cloud/Network or external drive?  In my tests, both files were stored locally, so i doubt it will be a file location issue.

 

 

 

[AnthonyMW]

35 minutes ago, stokerg said:

Hi @AnthonyMW,

Well this is odd, when i first tried adding a stroke around the placed file and then tried a Save As on the main document, i did get the failed to save error and even got a zero KB file created where i saved to.  However, when i tried again, i couldn't replicate it and haven't been able to since (i've tried a number of times).  I've also had someone else on the Tech Team try and it worked first time for them. 

Where do you store your files, locally or on a Cloud/Network or external drive?  In my tests, both files were stored locally, so i doubt it will be a file location issue.

 

 

 

Hello. Thanks for looking at this for me.

My files are all stored locally. Yes, when it's happened, it reverts the file to zeroK. It seems to me that it is something to do with 'placing' an Affinity file within an Affinity document. When I do, and then resize, recolour etc it won't let me save the document. If I export the file as an .svg then place it within the document, mess about with it, all seems ok.

[euronesia]

I just experienced this error again as well. Also "save as" produced 0 byte file, but apparently the original project file still had data and when I opened it, it had it's last changes. So I tried again and it's been working fine.  But having this error puts me at risk on losing the whole project file.

In my case, I had 15 Arboards in one project file, on each artboard I imported another 1 paged Affinity Designer project file. So when I need to modify I just double click it. It really loosens my workflow on my old machine running Mojave and helps me work faster and organized. All files are stored on external drive connected through USB port.

This is really dangerous, I stopped using this technique in Affinity Designer because of this problem when I was running on High Sierra, now since I installed Mojave I decided to give it another go... but apparently the error still appears. 

Any chance on stability update on this problem?

[AnthonyMW]

 

40 minutes ago, euronesia said:

I just experienced this error again as well. Also "save as" produced 0 byte file, but apparently the original project file still had data and when I opened it it had it's last changes. So I tried again and it's been working fine.  But having this error puts me in risk losing the whole project file.

In my case, I had 15 Arboards in one project file, on each artboard I imported another 1 paged Affinity Designer project file. So when I need to modify I just double click it. It really loosens my workflow on my old machine running Mojave and helps me work faster and organized. All files are stored on external drive connected through USB port.

This is really dangerous, I stopped using this technique in Affinity Designer because of this problem when I was running on High Sierra, now since I installed Mojave I decided to give it another go... but apparently the error still appears. 

Any chance on stability update on this problem?

Sorry that you are experiencing the same.

As I mentioned previously, I think, it certainly seems to be something to do with working on a 'placed' file, Affinity, .eps, .svg. I now do all the work on the file I want to place outside the main file and haven't had the 'Failed to save...' message since. It's a shame though, as Euronesia suggest, it doesn't help the workflow.

[ATPR75]

On 12/18/2021 at 9:02 PM, euronesia said:

I just experienced this error again as well. Also "save as" produced 0 byte file, but apparently the original project file still had data and when I opened it, it had it's last changes. So I tried again and it's been working fine.  But having this error puts me at risk on losing the whole project file.

In my case, I had 15 Arboards in one project file, on each artboard I imported another 1 paged Affinity Designer project file. So when I need to modify I just double click it. It really loosens my workflow on my old machine running Mojave and helps me work faster and organized. All files are stored on external drive connected through USB port.

This is really dangerous, I stopped using this technique in Affinity Designer because of this problem when I was running on High Sierra, now since I installed Mojave I decided to give it another go... but apparently the error still appears. 

Any chance on stability update on this problem?

I may have found a fix! (Kinda)
 

I have just been having this same issue in AD2.

Im working on a banner and I’ve been dragging in pre-made .afdesigner files to keep my work consistent along the branding, and if I need to update one element, I can and it will update on all my other files automatically. 
 

Problem is on this one banner, I needed an element to be slightly different, so I just changed its type to embedded, and edited the embedded file as needed so that it wouldn’t mess with the linked file (and all the documents that contain that file)

I then continued working on other parts of my work, and then went to save as my battery was running low on the train. Bam, file could not be saved because it could not be written to.

I found the only way to save it again was to re-link all .afdesigner files. (Annoying because my changes to the embedded file were lost, but still better than losing the whole document.)

 

seems like a weird bug.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Saving Failed increasing frequency of reports" (REF: AFP-4826) has been fixed by the developers in build "2.2.1 Release".

This fix is in the current customer release.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us