Affinity Publisher, anyone having problems with iMac, Catalina 10.15.7 and latest macOS security update?

[kanihoncho]

I have a 2012 iMac and the latest security update (Catalina 10.15.7) is playing havoc with Publisher. It is slow, freezes with and without showing a freeze in "Force quit". Changing tools sometimes temporarily restores working status. Place, and drag and drop into the document sometimes freeze. Sometimes saving cause a slowdown or freeze . . . any thoughts?

[R C-R]

Probably of zero help for you but I run the same macOS version & do not have any of your issues with it. 

[thetasig]

I recently came back to use AFPUB (1.10.5) in earnest and was struggling with Catalina 10.15.7 (last version of Catalina, I believe) on a MacBook Pro 2019 (16"). I would open the saved project from an external NAS (where all my projects are stored for security and safety), wait a bit for it to load and "settle down" and then do the smallest things, e.g., selecting a Picture Frame (with photo) and CTRL-C copying it. It would take maybe 8 seconds for the spinning "busy" icon to stop. Then I would paste it to a new page. Wait... wait...check Mac Activity Monitor (3.75 GB used by AFPUB of 64 GB available on the machine) and eventually, nothing would happen or it might just crash outright if I tried to do something right after opening the project. If I waited long enough, it might eventually reach the stage where the "Force Quit" menu item would turn red. I did this for a couple of days, ("beating my head on the brick wall") then thought: "hey, I have the same AFPUB version running on my MAC PRO (2010) that is running High Sierra at 10.13.6. I should give that a try"  Voila, no more waiting, more-or-less instant responses to actions, no freezes, no crashes, no more problems. In short, a delightful experience. At this point, I have no incentive to go back to Catalina (and would be loath to upgrade to the latest "Mac-Death" OS version). Just a note that everything else on Catalina seems to work quickly, reliably, without problems or crashing (including the other Affinity Applications).

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, thetasig said:

I would open the saved project from an external NAS...

Regardless of the macOS version you want to use, the staff have cautioned users many, many times that this is not a good idea because it can & often does lead to unrecoverable file corruption. What they recommend instead is to copy the file from the NAS to the local drive, edit that copy, & then copy it back to the NAS, overwriting the original if desired.

Yes, it is a PITA, but not as bad as losing a file to corruption.

[thetasig]

Thank you, this is the first I have heard/read of this suggestion. Sounds like a possibility - except that some documents are extremely large (especially when the Document Resource contains many, many photographs that are linked to the document. In one case, I have (currently) 6.28 GB of storage used for a single document. All of my Affinity documents stored on the NAS come to over 1 TB. This would be a strain on my Mac Laptop storage (currently max of 4 TB). Additionally, these are shared documents between a couple of users. Storing them locally may be a good suggestion for software compatibility / stability with the Operating System, but become a bit impractical when sharing in a virtual "office" environment (as you say PITA). Suggesting that you see what might be possible for the future of Affinity products. Just as a note, I have never had any corruption using the QNAP NAS with the Apple File Protocol (AFP), and my Mac systems. Another reason I use the NAS is that it is a mirror RAID environment that protects my data investment. Thank you for the tip.