Launching Affinity Photo Issues

[Tonysaff]

I've just purchased Photo after the 10 day trial. Download was successful. MacBook Pro (Retina 15 inch, early 2013) 10.13.6 High Sierra.

Product works, but once I quit, and relaunch, it's like it's re-installing it. I get the "Verifying Affinity Photo message, I got on installation, it then asks me to enable access to the external web page, and the Affinity Photo instal disk re-appears on the desktop. This cannot be ejected whilst AP is in use.

Any suggestions?

Thanks

[walt.farrell]

Did you actually install the application, or did you simply open the DMG file and run the application from there? 

You need to open the DMG then drag the application to the [edit] Applications folder to install it. Then run from the Applications folder.

[Tonysaff]

Great. That did the trick. I was double-clicking the icon on startup.

Thanks

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

You need to open the DMG then drag the application to the (I think) App folder to install it.

10 minutes ago, Tonysaff said:

Great. That did the trick. I was double-clicking the icon on startup.

I don't remember how Affinity installers are visually designed but since this issue appears to happen various times I wonder if there is no such image for Affinity which is common in macOS if installer dmg files get opened by the user that obviously indicate the workflow. – Or are user simply ignoring the instruction hints?

- -

[v_kyr]

Quote

Installation guide

Information on installing Affinity software on macOS and Windows

macOS installation instructions (OS X 10.9 or later)

From your generated Affinity order invoice:

• Select your Product key and Copy to clipboard.
• Select the download button to download app.

From Finder:

• Navigate to your Downloads folder.
• Locate the downloaded .dmg file, e.g. affinity-photo-1.6.9.dmg, and double-click it.

Install:

• On the dialog, drag the app icon to the Applications icon.
• Launch your Affinity app from your Applications folder.
• Select I have a product key.
• Paste your Email / Organisation* and Product Key copied from your order invoice.

• https://store.serif.com/en-gb/help/installation-guide/

[Tonysaff]

42 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I don't remember how Affinity installers are visually designed but since this issue appears to happen various times I wonder if there is no such image for Affinity which is common in macOS if installer dmg files get opened by the user that obviously indicate the workflow. – Or are user simply ignoring the instruction hints?

- -

The image is a little different on my mac, but similar in structure to the 3rd one here. It's the Photo icon with an arrow pointing at the application folder, with no written instruction to drag it into the application folder. I used to drag stuff a lot in the good old days, but have got used to just clicking and letting software do its own thing. When you double click the icon, it seems to be installing, and the software opens. Just there is no sign of it in the application folder! Now i know why.

[thomaso]

9 minutes ago, Tonysaff said:

I used to drag stuff a lot in the good old days, but have got used to just clicking and letting software do its own thing

Does this mean in your experience other installers do create a copy automatically in case an ignorant or hasty user opens double-clicks the app inside the temporarily booted .dmg volume?

Edited September 18, 2022 by thomaso

[v_kyr]

30 minutes ago, Tonysaff said:

When you double click the icon, it seems to be installing, and the software opens. Just there is no sign of it in the application folder! Now i know why.

There's a difference between DMG and PKG installers under MacOS, the later do start up their guided installer part via a double click.

[Tonysaff]

1 hour ago, thomaso said:

Does this mean in your experience other installers do create a copy automatically in case an ignorant or hasty user opens double-clicks the app inside the temporarily booted .dmg volume?

It's more a case of other installers dropping software into the application folder upon installation, rather than a user dragging and dropping. It's all good either way. Just wasn't obvious that was what I had to do.

[thomaso]

3 minutes ago, Tonysaff said:

It's all good either way. Just wasn't obvious that was what I had to do

I am not blaming you, I am just curious how that happens. In my experience this drag & drop procedure exists in macOS installations since decades – while it appears that this specific issue (users run the app from the installer volume + wonder when it disappears once they quit it) comes up in the forum in my impression more frequent in the recent months. – Or, maybe the number of younger / less experienced mac users increased?

[Old Bruce]

I have some software installers that is are .DMG files, this which creates and the "Disk" and inside it is an Installer application* instead of the Drag this to there (Photo to the Applications folder Alias) which Affinity uses. The installer writes the various needed directories at that time. I think that with Affinity it is different in that starting up Photo first it will look for various needed directories and if they are not found then it will write them. Subsequent starts will find the directories and all will be good.

 

* Some are .PKG files others are hand made applications. In either case I have to start the installer and that is what puts the directories in the proper paths and puts/builds the application in the Applications directory.  Some even have Uninstaller applications to remove old installs.

[v_kyr]

19 minutes ago, Old Bruce said:

Some even have Uninstaller applications to remove old installs.

For PKG based installer files see for example ...

• UninstallPKG

... though we can also do with pkgutil just from the command line.