Affinity products stop opening on my mac

[Village]

When I double-click on any of the apps, the icon bounces up trying to open for a while then it stops. I tried to download publisher as example and reinstalled it.  That didn't help. I kept clicking on control to try to reset but nothing happens. All the apps do the same thing. Can someone help me. I am on Mac version 10.15.7

[walt.farrell]

It sounds like you may already have the app running. What do you see in the menu bar at the top of the screen? If it starts with the name of the app you're trying to run (e.g., Affinity Publisher) then the app is running, but you just don't have any files open. You can use File > Open (or Cmd+O), or File > New (or Cmd+N) or drag/drop from Finder.

[thomaso]

Hi @Village,
Welcome to the Affinity Forums!

If Walt's hint didn't solve your issue: Is this the first time you try to launch an Affinity app – or did they work before?

When the dock icon stopped jumping, does it show the typical marker below (e.g. a small gray dot) which indicates the app is launched?

If yes, are you using several desktops ("spaces") in macOS?
If not, what do you get if you click on the doc icon with the Command key is pressed?

[v_kyr]

You can always check in the MacOS Activity Monitor if any of the Affinity apps processes is already/still running or not!

[Village]

Thank you all very much for your kind assistant. @thomasoThe answer is no. The little grey dot does not show at the bottom. However, I can right-click and force close the app, which means it's running somewhere.  @walt.farrell  No, I don't see the app's name at the top left of my mac with options to new or open. @v_kyr No, the activity monitor does not show the affinity apps.

Edited September 26, 2022 by Village

[thomaso]

4 minutes ago, Village said:

However, I can right-click and force close the app, which means it's running somewhere.

Right-click on its Dock icon? – And what result do you get if you Command-Click ? (It will guide you to the place where the app was installed: What parent folder / path?)

[Village]

@thomasoYes. Command-Click takes me to the application folder where I have all the apps. Right-click on the icon on the dock, I can Force Quit. That's for Designer, Photo, and Publisher.

Edited September 26, 2022 by Village

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, Village said:

No, I don't see the app's name at the top left of my mac with options to new or open.

1 hour ago, Village said:

No, the activity monitor does not show the affinity apps.

11 minutes ago, Village said:

Right-click on the icon on the dock, I can Force Quit.

Odd combination of observations. The app is running but you don't see an indicator in the main Menu bar, in the Activity Monitor nor in the Dock. – Hard to believe.

Did you filter the Activity Monitor view to make "Affinity" more obvious among the huge number of running processes? Use the search and the filter options in the main menu.

Again: are you using macOS "spaces"?

[Village]

@thomasoI am not familiar with spaces. However, when I click on Mission Control, I see all the apps that are running on the desktop but not Affinity. Yes, I filtered the Activity Monitor and search as well, not in there.

[thomaso]

3 hours ago, Village said:

The answer is no. The little grey dot does not show at the bottom. However, I can right-click and force close the app, which means it's running somewhere.

I assume this "No" is related to the second sentence. – How about an answer to my first question:

19 hours ago, thomaso said:

Is this the first time you try to launch an Affinity app – or did they work before?

?

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Village said:

However, when I click on Mission Control, I see all the apps that are running on the desktop but not Affinity. Yes, I filtered the Activity Monitor and search as well, not in there.

Then they aren't running and the more important part is here, what the Activity Monitor (AM) shows as running processes here. So if AM doesn't show up or finds any Affinity related process, then the Affinity apps aren't running!

[Village]

26 minutes ago, thomaso said:

I assume this "No" is related to the second sentence. – How about an answer to my first question:

?

Yes. I have been using them for a few years without any issue. 

[Village]

5 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Then they aren't running and the more important part is here, what the Activity Monitor (AM) shows as running processes here. So if AM doesn't show up or finds any Affinity related process, then the Affinity apps aren't running!

That makes sense. Except when I right-click on the icon on the duck, I have the option to force quit.

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, Village said:

That makes sense. Except when I right-click on the icon on the duck, I have the option to force quit.

Then the app has immediately blocked during startup or is in an strange undertermined/intermediate state!

You can look for possible crash reports or logs, though at that early startup state I'm unsure if such are written by the Affinity apps themself. But maybe MacOS reports some to the apps related problems! - You have to look after this and search/see ...

Quote

macOS

Open the Console app from Applications > Utilities. In the left hand panel click Crash Reports - you will see a list of Crash Reports. Find the relevant crash report - it should display the app's name in the Process Name column. Right click and select Reveal in Finder. Please send us the .crash file.

 

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, Village said:

The little grey dot does not show at the bottom.

If you open System Preferences & click on the Dock icon, you should see an option "Show indicators for open applications." If that is not ticked, you won't see the dots for running apps. Also, if enabled (I think!) the dot won't appear until the app is fully launched, so this may help determine if is stuck or somehow running.

Aside from that, if you have already tried "Force Quit..." from the Apple menu & your Affinity apps are not showing with red text in the window that opens as not responding, I have no idea what could be causing this strange behavior.

[thomaso]

If you may force-quit Affinity some related process must be running. – What does AM show if you set it to CPU, sorted by size and in the view menu select "active processes only" and then launch Affinity? Can you record a screen video with your finder app folder window placed next to the AM window + launch Affinity?

What result do you get if you launch Affinity after booting your mac in Safe Boot Mode?

[Village]

On 9/26/2022 at 6:32 PM, thomaso said:

If you may force-quit Affinity some related process must be running. – What does AM show if you set it to CPU, sorted by size and in the view menu select "active processes only" and then launch Affinity? Can you record a screen video with your finder app folder window placed next to the AM window + launch Affinity?

What result do you get if you launch Affinity after booting your mac in Safe Boot Mode?

Sure. Here it is.

Screen Recording 2022-09-26 at 9.11.36 PM.mov

[thomaso]

What result do you get if you launch Affinity after booting your mac in Safe Boot Mode?

[Old Bruce]

Just want to say I have never seen anything like this. Why is there an unnamed application running?

[JimmyJack]

Two things you might want to try:

1) Try opening the Program(s) from the Applications folder itself (not the dock).

2) Instead of using right click to force quit from the dock icon, use Opt+CMD+ESC. This will at least show a list of all running apps available for force quit. Does it show up there?

[thomaso]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Just want to say I have never seen anything like this. Why is there an unnamed application running?

To avoid such stuff I asked before for the result in Safe Boot Mode. Also running a tool like "iCleanMemory" doesn't sound useful in such a situation. Even if closed as app it might have running a background process continuously (hidden and not listed in cmd-opt-esc).

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

Just want to say I have never seen anything like this. Why is there an unnamed application running?

I don't know if it has anything to do with it but it looks like from the video from @Village that Activity Monitor is set to show GPU processes, not CPU processes:

[Village]

Thank you so much to everybody for your kind assistance. Wow! This is indeed a solid community of caring people. I am grateful.

I was able to use a little app cleaner tool to remove affinity, reinstall and reboot. Everything is working just fine now.

Rene

[thomaso]

Fine! – This solution makes me curious what actually corrupted your Affinity apps. I suspect that it was not caused by each individual application, but perhaps by some other "little tool"? ... It is a pity that the video was removed, - why?

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

It is a pity that the video was removed, - why?

Perhaps it simply never uploaded properly?