Causes of File Corruption?

[Affinity Rat]

I have ben having troubles with file management, and it would appear that file corruption may partly or entirely to blame. What are the causes of Affinity Photo file corruption, excluding a hardware failure.

[NotMyFault]

Removable storage devices: User removes usb disk while file is open in Affinity apps.

Network storage: temporary network issues lead to file becoming unavailable for read or write during save operation. 
 

Cloud sync: files get accessed by sync process, blocking Affinity apps to access the file for read or write data.

If you work with linked objects (e.g. in Publisher) this increases the risk as using linked files is kind of normal / unavoidable there.

 

To avoid all this issues you need a multi generation approach:

• store files in a dedicated folder (not the app sandbox on iPad) on an internal storage location (not removable, not network connected)
• create frequent copies on a second location (after every major edit, at least daily), e.g. usb disk, NAS. Keep multiple versions, do not overwrite same file
• create a 3rd copy on backup or cloud location (to protect against fatal device issues, and theft)
• do not store „all artboards ever made“ in one single file.
• Keep files well organized (layer stacking, groups) and simple
• avoid performance traps like extremely high document sizes, using live blurs with extremely large radius e.g. >= 500

 Unfortunately Affinity apps used in default config do not foster or enforce such workflows, or warn if your habits could lead to catastrophic failures (e.g. always overwriting one big file, with lots of linked files, at the same external drive)

[Paul Mudditt]

Adding to the above, if you have an early iPad with only 2GB RAM, I have had file corruption by simply task switching,  to the point I got used to not task switching without returning to the home screen first. This is something that was out of Serif's hands and the way iPadOS handles RAM when apps are placed in the background.