Memory leak? Constant crashes

[DKMusic]

Here's a screenshot. Why is AP taking so much RAM?? This project is 300 pages, placed PDFs, nothing complicated. The program is unstable and crashes frequently. 

I have hardware acceleration disabled. When I did this, AP is still using 100% of the RAM I've allocated to it: 27 GB. Surely that can't be right. 

 

[v_kyr]

48 minutes ago, DKMusic said:

Here's a screenshot. Why is AP taking so much RAM?? This project is 300 pages, placed PDFs, nothing complicated. The program is unstable and crashes frequently. 

I have hardware acceleration disabled. When I did this, AP is still using 100% of the RAM I've allocated to it: 27 GB. Surely that can't be right. 

Well depends, 300 pages of PDFs where the later do contain what, just text or also a bunch of huge images too?

 

[walt.farrell]

53 minutes ago, DKMusic said:

This project is 300 pages, placed PDFs, nothing complicated.

How big are the PDF files (MB)?

Are they Linked or Embedded in your APub document?

(Note: AP is officially Affinity Photo in these forums, as you can see if you use a browser that lets you hover the cursor over the AP abbreviation. APu and APub are accepted abbreviations for Publisher.)

[DKMusic]

Thanks Walt. They are linked PDFs, music notation, not images. The PDFs themselves are pretty small. The final exported PDF of the entire document tends to be around 10 MB.

[walt.farrell]

How many pages are in each PDF? What is "pretty small"?

Images would obviously be smaller, and even as Linked documents there will be more internal overhead using complex documents rather than images. It is possible that the complete PDF is kept in memory for each of those Linked files, to allow easier handling if you decide to switch to a different page, or change from Pagebox to Trimbox, etc.

However, there's been at least one report (I think) of Linked files causing very large .afpub document sizes. I'm not sure that's ever been figured out.

[DKMusic]

Most PDFs are one page, sometimes two.

[DKMusic]

Here's an example: 

A Mighty Fortress Is Our God_BH91_ns.pdf

[DKMusic]

To a point, yes. When I open a document, it gradually creeps upwards for the next several minutes. I find it’s best to wait to perform any computationally significant functions until it’s done increasing. Today was the first time it crashed without me doing anything. 

I disabled hardware acceleration (but why though…) and lowered max RAM usage to 27 GB. When I did that, it stopped increasing when it hit 27 GB, then I was able to use the program without crashes (so far). 

Still, 27 GB seems ridiculous, and I’d like to find a solution if possible. Thank you. 

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, DKMusic said:

They are linked PDFs, music notation, not images.

Do you have all the fonts they use installed on your system?

[v_kyr]

2 hours ago, DKMusic said:

To a point, yes. When I open a document, it gradually creeps upwards for the next several minutes. I find it’s best to wait to perform any computationally significant functions until it’s done increasing. Today was the first time it crashed without me doing anything. 

I disabled hardware acceleration (but why though…) and lowered max RAM usage to 27 GB. When I did that, it stopped increasing when it hit 27 GB, then I was able to use the program without crashes (so far). ...

Hmm, if all linked PDFs are sized like that sample and assuming you linked some 300 of those in, then the linked in data size should only be ~11-12 MB. So a growing up of RAM memory usage to 27 GB (and possibly beyond that without a max RAM limitation) looks indeed like memory leaking here.

[DKMusic]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

Do you have all the fonts they use installed on your system?

Yes, the files were created on the same machine I’m using APub on. 

[DKMusic]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Hmm, if all linked PDFs are sized like that sample and assuming you linked some 300 of those in, then the linked in data size should only be ~11-12 MB. So a growing up of RAM memory usage to 27 GB (and possibly beyond that without a max RAM limitation) looks indeed like memory leaking here.

Thanks. If it is indeed a memory leak, what is to be done?

[v_kyr]

7 hours ago, DKMusic said:

If it is indeed a memory leak, what is to be done?

1. You can report your problem in the forums "Publisher Bugs found on Windows" section, describing the problem there and maybe add some reproducable example etc. So the developers can look after it and hopefully fix it in case of some APub memory occupation/releasing bugs.
2. You can try out in parallel the latest APub Win Beta 1.10.5.1282 (RC) version, in order to see if it behaves the same way, or if some things might be fixed for that version.
3. You can instead of linking the PDFs tryout embedding them and then compare behavior and the overall memory size consumption.

Other than that there isn't much you can do from your side here, as far as the problem has no other cause.

 

[DKMusic]

I was really hoping I'd get a response from someone at Affinity regarding this issue, which continues to plague my work, even on 1.10.5.

My current workaround is to wait approximately 3.5 minutes after opening, after which point the RAM stops increasing and the CPU drops from 40% to zero (I'm running a Ryzen 5900x... this is a pretty simple document.. so that CPU usage doesn't seem correct either). Sometimes it works to wait, sometimes it crashes anyways.

And I doubt the problem is my computer, because I never experience this behavior in any other software, but this happens in APub on both my machines  

These constant crashes make it feel like Publisher is a great idea that isn't yet up to the task. That might not be a fair assessment, but that’s how it feels. As a user on deadline, I can't navigate these problems unresolved.

I was thrilled to move away from InDesign, and I vastly prefer APub. InDesign has its problems too, but I've never encountered this sort of issue that stops my workflow dead in its tracks. Come on, folks, I don't want to go back!

I will try posting on the bug forum as well. Can anyone from the development or tech support team weigh in, please? Thanks.

[Nathan Shirley]

On 2/24/2022 at 3:47 AM, v_kyr said:

...You can instead of linking the PDFs tryout embedding them...

 

That is the only workaround I've found to this problem. Publisher simply can't handle a large number of linked PDFs, but it can if they're embedded.

[DKMusic]

The crashes continue, even with embedding (which I shouldn't have to do). And not a single response from the team in the five weeks since I first posted my request.

This isn't a hobby for me, it's a job. I can't afford to continue losing time and work.

I vastly prefer APub to InDesign in every way for what I do... except for constant crashing that renders the program unusable. And I'm disappointed that none of my support requests in this regard have been answered. Professional software needs professional support. 

Unfortunately I have no choice but to return to InDesign. I hope this issue can be resolved in future versions.

[MikeTO]

On 3/31/2022 at 11:18 PM, DKMusic said:

The crashes continue, even with embedding (which I shouldn't have to do). And not a single response from the team in the five weeks since I first posted my request.

This isn't a hobby for me, it's a job. I can't afford to continue losing time and work.

I vastly prefer APub to InDesign in every way for what I do... except for constant crashing that renders the program unusable. And I'm disappointed that none of my support requests in this regard have been answered. Professional software needs professional support. 

Unfortunately I have no choice but to return to InDesign. I hope this issue can be resolved in future versions.

People keep reporting problems with embedded PDF files. I highly recommend you try using TIFF instead of PDF to workaround this issue. Figure out what size is optimal and export at that size and you will achieve the identical quality. The only downside is if you change your mind about what size the images should be in the document after exporting all they images as TIFF then they'll longer be the optimal size.

For example, if the music PDF was 2" x 3" and you're printing at 300dpi, then make the TIFF images 600x900.