Failed to save document

[Nef]

Hello everyone, new to the forum here (long-time follower). I've been using Affinity apps since the 1.0 version and just want to say they are great products! Anyhow, I'm writing here because for the last few days I'm having some hard issues with Designer (and other Affinity apps) regarding saving documents. I the next section I will outline the problem and steps that I took to try and combat it. Also, I will attach a screenshot of the error message.

 

BASIC SYSTEM SPEC:

OS: Windows 11 21H2

OS Build: 22000.376

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

GPU: Nvidia GTX 1080

RAM: 32.0 GB

 

Affinity Designer Build: 1.10.4.1198

Affinity Designer Beta Build: 1.10.5.1227

 

*note: Photo and Publisher are also the latest versions with the same problem

*note: Affinity programs are installed in their default location on the computer (C:\Program Files\Affinity\)

*note: all work is done on internal NVMe SSDs, SATA SSDs, and HDDs

 

PROBLEM:

Cannot save any kind of .afdesign document. Export is working fine.

 

STEPS:

1. Open new document inside Affinity Designer

2. Go to File>Save/Save As and pick a directory to save the file

3. Error message pops out saying: "Failed to save document: <Untitled>. Save failed because access to the file was lost"

(4.) Rename the file to something like "test" and the same message appears

5. There is an empty file created in the chosen location

 

TEST SOLUTIONS:

1. Tried to downgrade the program version to 1.09 and still have the same problem

2. Turned off File>Save History with Document

3. Turned off Hardware Acceleration

4. Tried to edit a document and then save it, still not working

5. Tried to save on 4 different locations (2 SSDs and 1 HDD with 2 partitions)

6. Tried different programs (like Blender, Word, etc.) and they all work fine

7. Disabled Windows Defender (there is no other antivirus or similar programs on the PC)

8. Checked for protected folders (there aren't any)

 

DETAILS:

When trying to save a document it says: "Failed to save document: <Untitled>". After giving the document some random name, error messages still say: "Failed to save document: <Untitled>".

When trying to send the file to another Affinity application (like Photo) via File>Edit in Photo... another error pops up: "Failed to launch Photo. Could not hand over the file to another application".

 

I think that is all. I hope this information will be helpful. If there is more information or tests I could do, please let me know.

[Pauls]

what has changed on your system in the last few days ?

[Nef]

Honestly, cannot think of anything except Windows reinstallation (fresh install via reset PC function).

At first, I thought it is Windows 11 compatibility issue but then I saw (on Google search and here on forums) that users had similar problems on different Windows versions and program versions. So I guessed that something was still wrong inside the Designer (Photo and Publisher).

 

[Pauls]

I wonder if you could install and run this utility and filter against designer.exe it may show where teh file problem is.

Also double check your Privacy settings for the file system

[Nef]

I have checked Privacy Settings and everything looks fine.

I have tried running above mentioned utility with the designer.exe filtering applied. Unfortunately, I don't know what I'm looking for. If you could give me more information about it I would gladly check it again.

In the meantime, I checked Event Viewer (thanks for reminding me that there are some logging applications out there, totally forgot to check it before). I believe I have found an error entry that corresponds with time and action while saving documents from the Designer.

Event Type: Error
Event ID: 135
Source: NTFS
General: The transaction resource manager on volume C:/ was unable to create free space in its log due to a non-retryable error. The data contains the error code. 

Event Type: Warning
Event ID: 136
Source: NTFS
General: The default transaction resource manager on volume C:/ encountered an error while starting and its metadata was reset. The data contains the error code.

After some online searching, I came across a Microsoft support page (link to post) and followed outlined steps.

After the system reboot, all programs worked fine. But then a funny thing happened. I closed the Designer thinking everything is fixed somehow. Before replying to your post I went to test it again just to be sure. The same error appeared in the Designer and in the Event Viewer. After another system reboot, I tested all programs again. Now all of them are working fine for some reason.

Thank you very much for your time! Anyhow, I will continue to monitor events and give some updates if everything continues to work fine or if I encounter problems again.

If you have ideas about what could be a root problem here I would be really grateful. This seems to be really tricky.

Edited January 6, 2022 by Nef
Mistyped

[Pauls]

I would try doing a full disk check to make sure your Hard disc is functioning correctly.

For the utility you can simply save the file and send it me If you encounter any further problems

[Raggedmane]

Here is another strange event on my project.
 

[Nef]

On 1/7/2022 at 10:21 AM, Pauls said:

I would try doing a full disk check to make sure your Hard disc is functioning correctly.

For the utility you can simply save the file and send it me If you encounter any further problems

Checked every disk using the disk check utility in Windows and everything seems to be fine. No errors or bad sectors.
Ok, thanks! Next time it happens I will try to log it, save the report and post it here so you could check it out.

 

15 hours ago, Raggedmane said:

Here is another strange event on my project.

I guess that would be on the macOS? Maybe try to check the macOS subforum to see if others have the same problem.
I have read on a few posts here on forums that people were getting the same message on versions prior to the 1.10 release.

[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