Stuck on 'Document Loading...'

[Ronald N. Tan]

I am not sure, if my example is an isolated case or something to look into...I am finding lately that the recent Publisher 1.10.5.1342 would be stuck/frozen at "Document Loading...." Clicking anywhere on the screen would force Windows 11 Home to close AP and upon restart, the document would load OK or if not, I would have to force close and finally it would open successfully.

To me, these happen—albeit somewhat unpredictable—when loading documents saved as templates. I like to do collages of gridded image displays. These template files are only in the KBs in size.

Something wonky is happening. My PC is a Dell XPS 8940 shipped in February 2022.

[Dan C]

Hi @Ronald N. Tan,

I can confirm I've 'split' your post from the original thread you posted in, as that thread was specific to macOS and I can see you're using Windows 11 - so I'd like to address this separately.

Can you please confirm for me, is this happening with one specific document, or multiple of your documents/templates?

Where are these documents stored? (ie local storage, cloud storage, external HDD etc)

If you open Publisher and navigate to Edit > Preferences > Performance, can you please provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

Many thanks in advance

[Ronald N. Tan]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

Hi @Ronald N. Tan,

I can confirm I've 'split' your post from the original thread you posted in, as that thread was specific to macOS and I can see you're using Windows 11 - so I'd like to address this separately.

Can you please confirm for me, is this happening with one specific document, or multiple of your documents/templates?

Where are these documents stored? (ie local storage, cloud storage, external HDD etc)

If you open Publisher and navigate to Edit > Preferences > Performance, can you please provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

Many thanks in advance

The only way I use Publisher is making graphical and text posts for carousel for Instagram. This oddity happens when I open a single document, e.g. templates to make collages, if that make sense. I included a screenshot of my Templates I made. They are saved in a folder and this folder is referenced/seen in AP. The "X" you see are sized pictures frame placeholders for me to place my images was File and Place commands and the images are always in embedded and never linked.

These templates are stored on my internal HDD. Z:\Collage Templates. "Z" is the name and drive letter designation of my internal HDD.

[Dan C]

Many thanks for confirming that for me, and for the screenshots provided!

Can you please try the following:

Update GPU drivers -

I can see the app is using both your Nvidia & Intel GPU, so we're going to need to make sure both are fully updated, you can find these drivers at the below links:

Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx?

Intel: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download-center/home.html

Once updated, please restart your PC and then try loading your templates once again.

Disable Hardware Acceleration -

If the above does not help, please reopen Edit > Preferences > Performance and untick Hardware Acceleration at the bottom of the dialog.

Restart the app as prompted and try loading your template once again.

Load Template manually from your default C:\ drive - 

Finally, I'd like to confirm if the location of these templates, or the File > New dialog itself is causing these issues.

Please navigate to the location on your Z:\ drive where these templates are stored and select the template that opens the slowest, or most often gets stuck loading.

Copy this file, then navigate to a folder on your C:\ drive (for example the Desktop, or Documents folder) and paste the .aftemplate file here.

Now, open Publisher and use File > Open, selecting the .aftemplate file that we just copied to your C:\ drive. Does this open correctly, or is the same behaviour observed?

I hope this helps

[Ronald N. Tan]

8 hours ago, Dan C said:

Many thanks for confirming that for me, and for the screenshots provided!

Can you please try the following:

Update GPU drivers -

I can see the app is using both your Nvidia & Intel GPU, so we're going to need to make sure both are fully updated, you can find these drivers at the below links:

Nvidia: https://www.nvidia.com/download/index.aspx?

Intel: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/download-center/home.html

Once updated, please restart your PC and then try loading your templates once again.

Disable Hardware Acceleration -

If the above does not help, please reopen Edit > Preferences > Performance and untick Hardware Acceleration at the bottom of the dialog.

Restart the app as prompted and try loading your template once again.

Load Template manually from your default C:\ drive - 

Finally, I'd like to confirm if the location of these templates, or the File > New dialog itself is causing these issues.

Please navigate to the location on your Z:\ drive where these templates are stored and select the template that opens the slowest, or most often gets stuck loading.

Copy this file, then navigate to a folder on your C:\ drive (for example the Desktop, or Documents folder) and paste the .aftemplate file here.

Now, open Publisher and use File > Open, selecting the .aftemplate file that we just copied to your C:\ drive. Does this open correctly, or is the same behaviour observed?

I hope this helps

I updated to the latest available drivers as per your suggestion. This is the oddity part. There was a .aftemplate file that I created and used. I made changes and fixed font sizes here and there. It was working. I made a few more changes and I was about to final export to upload to my Instagram and the freeze occurs.

I was trying to screen record, but it happens random and I can't predict or have conditions narrow down to repeat with more consistency.

As I mentioned in my OP, when the long time of "Loading document...." happens, clicking anywhere results in a force clousure and debug information and etc are sent to Microsoft message appears.

After that, I reload AP and I could access and open that file like a snap.

Where does AP store the dump file? Will sending you that dump file help you and Serif see any information or clues what might be causing this oddity?

[Dan C]

Thanks for the further information - we can certainly look at the crash reports in further detail however can you please confirm you have also tried the other 2 of my suggestions? What were the results from this?

To find your crash reports, please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\CrashReports\reports

In the window that opens, please select the 3 most recently created .DMP files, then upload these to your reply here.

Many thanks in advance!

[Ronald N. Tan]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for the further information - we can certainly look at the crash reports in further detail however can you please confirm you have also tried the other 2 of my suggestions? What were the results from this?

To find your crash reports, please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\CrashReports\reports

In the window that opens, please select the 3 most recently created .DMP files, then upload these to your reply here.

Many thanks in advance!

Hi Dan,

For today 8th April, I have disabled openCL in AP and have moved all my templates folder to a test folder directly on my C-drive, which is a Samsung PM991a NVMe 512 GB. I will purposefully see if I can stress my usual working condition to see, if I can make the crash more predictable and will try to capture the dump files for Serif to determine, if further testing is needed.

[Ronald N. Tan]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for the further information - we can certainly look at the crash reports in further detail however can you please confirm you have also tried the other 2 of my suggestions? What were the results from this?

To find your crash reports, please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\CrashReports\reports

In the window that opens, please select the 3 most recently created .DMP files, then upload these to your reply here.

Many thanks in advance!

Also, these files are from that oddity that occurred on the 7th. There are 14 files like this in the %AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\CrashReports\reports. Attached are the recently three crash dumps.

911a0103-a89e-423d-95d6-cfc7411f47c1.dmp 9f19541d-d216-4d5a-b670-a03edee7665f.dmp 34ae1179-5d8a-41ae-bae3-59026ce973ff.dmp

[Ronald N. Tan]

Just in case...here are all 14 AP dump files that are related to this oddity I am reporting in this thread. Almost always, the "crash" is more or less induced by the user to force close the AP app, when it hangs/stuck/freezes on "Opening 1 document" when working with AP Template files and documents that are made from AP Template files.

I included the AP Template files I made for my sole purpose of using AP for making slides and collages for uploading to Instagram and social media purposes.

There are three main folders: Collage, IG Post, and IG Story. If you need to inspect to see anything for further investigating, check my Collages folder for various AP Templates I made for collaging purposes. I don't think I did anything wrong. It only only margins with specific values and empty image place holders at various positions throughout the document.

Tomorrow the 9th, I'll update with anything or new crash dumps from having OpenCL off and moving the templates files directly onto C-drive.

911a0103-a89e-423d-95d6-cfc7411f47c1.dmp 9f19541d-d216-4d5a-b670-a03edee7665f.dmp 34ae1179-5d8a-41ae-bae3-59026ce973ff.dmp 411408ef-45fd-4e5c-9a1f-7a40faf512da.dmp 45e57abd-1f95-4fbe-83bd-619292e32b31.dmp 180ed72a-d58a-40d5-ba85-49678175c99c.dmp 7391f454-38f6-4ed9-9438-5707a9152bc8.dmp 2e17b894-6fd2-4154-ba51-c7b1fbb498b8.dmp 41923ecd-2d5b-416c-a65a-cad2741981fb.dmp cad1e9c0-5b9f-4ccb-b1c1-af5414f8ac1e.dmp ed149463-4f17-4805-a198-11507fcb912c.dmp 0b000af4-c21f-487b-ba67-4337f2d2ef19.dmp 0e76e815-ebb6-41c3-9fe2-6ed98e0bd2af.dmp dab6105e-ef18-4088-bb41-e8347dfd63f9.dmp Publisher Templates (Test).zip

[Ronald N. Tan]

On 4/8/2022 at 5:00 AM, Dan C said:

Thanks for the further information - we can certainly look at the crash reports in further detail however can you please confirm you have also tried the other 2 of my suggestions? What were the results from this?

To find your crash reports, please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%AppData%\Affinity\Publisher\1.0\CrashReports\reports

In the window that opens, please select the 3 most recently created .DMP files, then upload these to your reply here.

Many thanks in advance!

I was not able to induce or have the "Document loading" crash yesterday. I can't tell if, disabling OpenCL did worked or because my AP template files are on the C-drive (as opposed to my Z-drive which is an internal HDD drive).

Did anything gathered or helped clued as to what was causing the "Loading document" freeze?

I have re-enabled OpenCL and moved my template files back onto the Z-drive.

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, Ronald N. Tan said:

I have re-enabled OpenCL and moved my template files back onto the Z-drive.

Has the crashing problem returned since you did that?

[Ronald N. Tan]

17 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Has the crashing problem returned since you did that?

No crashes thus far. At the moment, I am fixing up my margins and all that alignments. This requires me to open each AP Template file, fix my margins, and export (save) as AP Template to override the old template file.

Then, any documents that uses that template has to be fixed.

As you can see and from my initial reporting, this oddity can't be predicted. It happens sporadically. I was hoping the dump files from prior crashes might offer some kind of clues.

[v_kyr]

Here are some of your above dump files converted into more readable txt representations.

0b000af4-c21f-487b-ba67-4337f2d2ef19.txt

0e76e815-ebb6-41c3-9fe2-6ed98e0bd2af.txt

9f19541d-d216-4d5a-b670-a03edee7665f.txt

911a0103-a89e-423d-95d6-cfc7411f47c1.txt

dab6105e-ef18-4088-bb41-e8347dfd63f9.txt

The crashes do occur mostly in "libraster.dll" or "KERNELBASE.dll" with always similar causes like ...

• Crash reason:  EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION_EXEC
  Crash address: 0x0
  Process uptime: 1030 seconds
  libraster.dll
• Crash reason:  0xe0434352 / 0x00000081
  Crash address: 0x7ffd81b5478c
  Process uptime: 886 seconds
  KERNELBASE.dll
• Crash reason:  0xc0020001 / 0x00000081
  Crash address: 0x7ffe8706466c
  Process uptime: 74 seconds
  KERNELBASE.dll
• Crash reason:  EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION_EXEC
  Crash address: 0x1a88565ce60
  Process uptime: 32 seconds
  libraster.dll
• ... etc.

[Ronald N. Tan]

4 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Here are some of your above dump files converted into more readable txt representations.

0b000af4-c21f-487b-ba67-4337f2d2ef19.txt 168.82 kB · 0 downloads

0e76e815-ebb6-41c3-9fe2-6ed98e0bd2af.txt 26.63 kB · 0 downloads

9f19541d-d216-4d5a-b670-a03edee7665f.txt 29.12 kB · 0 downloads

911a0103-a89e-423d-95d6-cfc7411f47c1.txt 26.42 kB · 0 downloads

dab6105e-ef18-4088-bb41-e8347dfd63f9.txt 23.92 kB · 0 downloads

The crashes do occur mostly in "libraster.dll" or "KERNELBASE.dll" with always similar causes like ...

• Crash reason:  EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION_EXEC
  Crash address: 0x0
  Process uptime: 1030 seconds
  libraster.dll
• Crash reason:  0xe0434352 / 0x00000081
  Crash address: 0x7ffd81b5478c
  Process uptime: 886 seconds
  KERNELBASE.dll
• Crash reason:  0xc0020001 / 0x00000081
  Crash address: 0x7ffe8706466c
  Process uptime: 74 seconds
  KERNELBASE.dll
• Crash reason:  EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION_EXEC
  Crash address: 0x1a88565ce60
  Process uptime: 32 seconds
  libraster.dll
• ... etc.

I have no idea what those are. I am hoping Serif might find those files and have some kind of leads. Since my last post reply, I was working on entering glyphs of Persian (Farsi) words manually. I haven't had any document loading oddities.

Fingers crossed that the oddity doesn't present itself anytime soon.

[Dan C]

Many thanks for the log files provided and for the further updates - my apologies for the delayed response here.

I've debugged these internally, and I can confirm the same results as v_kyr, the majority of the crash logs refer to libraster.dll, which would usually indicate an issue with the pixel content within a file, or Affinitys access to your GPU drivers. These occur most frequently with OpenCL Hardware Acceleration enabled.

The KERNELBASE.dll is more of a generic crash, which may have been access violations to the physical file itself on your Z:/ drive, or perhaps an incorrect memory call.

FWIW I have tested your template files provided and I've yet to see the same behaviour reported, even with the files stored on a secondary internal hard drive, with Hardware Acceleration enabled.

I'd personally recommend leaving Hardware Acceleration disabled, with the templates on your secondary drive and continue with your usual workflow for a week or so, then let us know if/how often these crashes still occur