Bulk fix of preflight issues

[Moff]

I created a package in Affinity Publisher (1.10.4.1198), but when I opened the package document I was hit with hundreds of preflight warnings telling me that images had been modified. I can push the fix button on each image and the issue goes away, but this is a 200 page kids' book with multiple illustrations on each page. Is there a way to fix all the issues at once? Or can I package it in a way that does not cause this issue?

Thanks.

[Old Bruce]

18 minutes ago, Moff said:

Is there a way to fix all the issues at once?

Use the Resource Manager

[Moff]

Thanks Old Bruce. That worked for most of the images. There were still 100 or so that didn't update, so I thought I'd go through and hit the fix button for each. However, after hitting 5 or 10 fixes, the document would crash. I can reopen it and start again, but invariably the recovered version takes me back to where I began. Any ideas why this might be happening? Quite a few of the images are locked and I need to click 'Edit detached' to alter them. Could this be causing the issues?

Thanks again.

[Pšenda]

2 hours ago, Moff said:

However, after hitting 5 or 10 fixes, the document would crash.

I just solved the problem with the constant crash of ADesigner. Making the necessary adjustments, attempting to save, crashing, and reopening, making the necessary adjustments, attempting to save, crashing,..... This solved me by using the SaveAs command instead of the Save command after making the adjustments. SaveAs optimizes and cleans up your work data, so it probably helped work around some internal errors.

[Moff]

Thanks for the suggestion, Pšenda. I did 'Save as' to a different file name and even gave my PC a restart, but now Affinity Publisher crashes every time I press one of the preflight 'fix' buttons. Any ideas?

[Dan C]

Hi @Moff,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please confirm for me, what do these external resources consist of? (ie are they mostly images, PDF files etc)

Where are these resources stored? (ie locally, on an external hard drive or cloud location etc)

If possible, could you provide a copy of this .afpub file? Even without the resources linked I'd be interested to see if I can crash the app with your document.

Many thanks in advance

[Moff]

Thanks Dan C.

The images are mostly jpeg and png files, all stored in Onedrive but also on my PC.

I have attached a copy of my .afpub file. Please let me know if you need anything else.

Cheers.

You're Joking 1 - UPDATED FINAL2.afpub

[Old Bruce]

39 minutes ago, Moff said:

The images are mostly jpeg and png files, all stored in Onedrive but also on my PC.

I am not familiar with Windows and the Onedrive storage. But having said that I have to ask if the files are actually on your PC. 

Myself, I would make a folder on a hard drive either in the tower or laptop or physically attached by a cable to my machine and move the images from the 

C:\Users\moffa\OneDrive\....

to pretty much anywhere up out of there.

C:\Users\moffa\AnyOtherDIrectory\...

D:\AnyOtherDIrectory\...

[Moff]

Thanks Old Bruce. I check the images and they are all stored locally as well as in the cloud. I also figured out that the images that are crashing the document (upon pressing fix) are the ones that are in the background layer and are therefore locked for editing. I tried clicking 'Edit Detached' on the relevant page and then pressing fix, but it still crashed. Any ideas?

[Pšenda]

3 hours ago, Moff said:

and they are all stored locally

Do all these files really have the "always save to device" setting? Can you view their icons in File Explorer?

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing this for me!

I can't see anything inherently incorrect/corrupted with the file, but we have had previous reports of issues with linked files and OneDrive.

I have resaved your file locally here, which will have 'lost' all of your file links. Please reopen the attached document and relink your files.

Does this correctly update the files to the latest version?

Does this stop the app from crashing when relinking/updating these please?  

You're Joking 1 - UPDATED FINAL2_f.afpub

[Moff]

Thanks again, Dan C. I tried saving that document in a couple of places and both times when I opened it there was no need to relink the files... perhaps because I'm using the same PC. The preflight just says 'Link resource has been modified'. If I try to 'fix' the issue and the resource is not locked, there is no problem. If the resource is locked, Affinity Publisher crashes.

Should I just ignore the preflight warnings? Will there be issues with the exported files if I do?

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response here, we've been trying to replicate this crashing here, but thus far we've been unable.

On 1/20/2022 at 6:34 PM, Moff said:

If I try to 'fix' the issue and the resource is not locked, there is no problem. If the resource is locked, Affinity Publisher crashes.

I believe this may be causing the issue on your end - you have Master Pages applied to your document, but these Master Page objects contain linked resources, which aren't a part of the actual 'master' master page and when trying to 'fix' these resources from a cloud synced location, this causes the app to crash. 

I've meticulously gone through your document and attempted to move any unwanted content from your master page layers. Could you please try 'fixing' the images within the resource manager now, and let me know if this no longer crashes for you?

Many thanks once again!

You're Joking 1 - UPDATED FINAL_f.afpub

[Moff]

Wow Dan C... you did it! I fixed all of the resource issues and it didn't crash once. I did then have to go through and move some of the master elements up a few layers, but now it's sorted.

Going forwards, I presume I should move any master elements that I want in front of images up out of the master pages, rather than putting the images into the masters?

Thanks so much for your effort with this. It's much appreciated.

Tom

[Dan C]

That's wonderful news, many thanks for letting me know!

18 hours ago, Moff said:

Going forwards, I presume I should move any master elements that I want in front of images up out of the master pages, rather than putting the images into the masters?

I believe this would be the best method for this workflow - however the app should not be crashing with your current document, so I'm also logging this as a bug with our developers now and hopefully improvements in the future should allow you to use either method without issue.

No problem at all, more than happy to help

[cmau]

I have a similar problem: App crashes when fixing preflight issues.

I have bought Affinity Publisher only recently and am just working on my first bigger project, a photo album of some 110 pages and an estimated 700 photos in there. Now almost done, I edited some pictures and, of course, I get the preflight message that images (about 100) have been edited. No matter what I do, the app always crashes when I do click on "Fix" in the preflight window or "Update" in the Resource Manager, no matter if one at a time or multiple. This is very frustrating.

Some facts:

Using Windows 10, Affinity Publisher 1.10, files are stored locally in a OneDrive folder (but physically at the hard drive), OneDrive is done syncing. I have some master pages that only contain frames for images.

Before I edited the 100 images, I tried it with one and (I am pretty sure) it worked. Now it doesn't anymore.

[Dan C]

Hi @cmau,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

We're sorry to hear you're experiencing crashing here, can you please try moving a few of these images and your .afpub to a folder that is not a OneDrive synced folder/location, and then try 'Updating' these specific images within the Resource Manager - does this stop the crashing from occurring please?

Many thanks in advance!

[cmau]

Thanks @Dan C!

What I did now was moving first just the .afpub file to a folder outside OneDrive. I opened the preflight panel and clicked on "Fix" for about 20 pictures, which now worked fine. I opened the Resource Manager (to be able to do it bulk wise), marked another about 20 pictures, clicked on "Update". The overlay opened with the progress bar, but after about one second (75% progress), the app crashed again. I opened the file again and now, not even "Fix" in the preflight panel worked (app crashed again after first click). I copied that same file again, to another subfolder. Now, clicking "Fix" on every single file worked and I did that, not trying again the Resource Manager because I need to finish that book.

This is not very satisfactory, I must say. Having such errors makes me suspicious of the overall stability. In 2022, such a program should be able to work with cloud folders where files are locally stored, as you probably agree. Could it be that the issue is resolved with version 2? I bought my license in September this year, so I would kindly ask you to give me a free upgrade to v2 (or at least a huge discount).

Thanks for considering.

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know, I'm glad to hear you've been able to workaround these issues but I do agree that the app should not be crashing when performing a 'Fix'.

Can you follow the steps below and provide a copy of the latest 2-3 crash reports from your system for me please? This should help our team to further investigate the issue you're reporting:

19 hours ago, cmau said:

Could it be that the issue is resolved with version 2?

Without knowing the exact cause of the crashes, I wouldn't be able to confirm this specifically, however I can certainly recommend trying the free 30 day trial as there have been many fixes and improvements to V2 which certainly may help resolve these crashes in your document -

https://store.serif.com/get/universal-licence-2/trial/

Please note that once you've saved a V1 document in V2, it can no longer be opened within V1, so please use a COPY of your document in V2, if you wish to continue editing this in V1 at any time.

19 hours ago, cmau said:

bought my license in September this year, so I would kindly ask you to give me a free upgrade to v2 (or at least a huge discount).

If you purchased V1 from the Affinity Store shortly before we released V2 you should have received an email regarding this, if not - please contact our team at affinity@serif.com to discuss this further

[cmau]

21 hours ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for letting me know, I'm glad to hear you've been able to workaround these issues but I do agree that the app should not be crashing when performing a 'Fix'.

Can you follow the steps below and provide a copy of the latest 2-3 crash reports from your system for me please? This should help our team to further investigate the issue you're reporting:

Here they are!

8bfb6be7-072e-4027-85b9-0e6eba14c204.dmp 0e4dfa2d-a2cf-49ce-802f-222e7f7945eb.dmp 0ea063ea-fa0c-42c7-b04b-216457bc02ae.dmp 310da71f-de9d-45a1-b7f8-f36429f73352.dmp d21c5a18-c716-4bcf-bc45-76bab08ab3d6.dmp d357bc99-4d13-4dc4-8df9-a6892a97e3f2.dmp

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing those for me! From the looks of your reports provided it appears as though these crashes were occurring due to a known .NET issue following a recent Windows update.

We've recently (a few days ago) released version 1.10.6, which fixes this .NET crash - can you please download the update from the below link for me, and once installed try 'Fixing' the preflight in your file once more for me?

https://store.serif.com/update/windows/publisher/1/

Does this stop the app from crashing please?