trouble with pdf export presets

[Birgit Finland]

Hi Dan, 

something really strange continues to happen here. I made a recording for you using one of my files so you see what I do. As soon as I open the source manager and found the file and I click on it the program shuts down on my. This keeps happening repeatedly, not only with the file I used for the video but the test afpub file I shared with you.

I can see that the pdf-s I used on page1 are linked or the Fx file is embedded.

Please feel free to share this video too. So what is wrong here? 

 

[Dan C]

It's possible this is caused by the latest Windows updates, as we've seen multiple issues caused in Affinity since this was released by Microsoft.

Can you please open Windows Updates, then select Update History and provide a screenshot of this dialog here for me?

Many thanks once again

[Birgit Finland]

No problem. I have this problem since I got this laptop end of August 2022. This is when I started using afpub v 1.10....

Hope this helps.

[Dan C]

Thanks for providing this - can you please try removing the latest update (KB5018410) using the steps in the below FAQ and let me know if this changes the behaviour for you?

[Birgit Finland]

Hi Dan,

I uninstalled the security update (KB5018410) unfortunately both problems still exit.  I open the resources and try to click a link and the program shuts down and the pdf export still leaves out the FX. 

Below the latest screenshot of my install list. May latest Microsoft update has the KB5017262 which is listed in the link. So what next?
I mean I have this export problem since I started using v 1.10 should I go back to version 1.8.?

 

Thank you for your help and support. I glad to have this forum and help.

 

[Dan C]

4 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

May latest Microsoft update has the KB5017262 which is listed in the link. So what next?

Can you please try removing this update also? As mentioned this is one of the updates listed in the above FAQ and is causing crashing for multiple users currently

[Birgit Finland]

Hi Dan,

The KB 5018410 was a security update, right? Well, this is back installed and the KB5017262 is a update for Microsoft windows. I feel not comfortable touching this. I need to consult an IT expert first.
Is there no other solution to this? I mean every time windows is updating I need to prevent this from happening? This can not even be a short term solution. There has to be a different solution to all the problems and it seams I am the only one.....
 

[Dan C]

5 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

The KB 5018410 was a security update, right?

That's correct, and you are able to reinstall this update as you wish, as it hasn't changed the behaviour within Affinity for you.

However the KB5017262 is one of the known .NET updates that are causing crashing issues for other users, hence I recommend removing this update - this is not a security update.

5 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

Is there no other solution to this? I mean every time windows is updating I need to prevent this from happening? This can not even be a short term solution. There has to be a different solution to all the problems and it seams I am the only one.....

Currently this .NET update is causing crashing within multiple WPF applications, including Affinity - we've reported this to Microsoft and they have logged it as a bug to be fixed, therefore we're currently awaiting a new .NET Windows update to resolve this issue.

If you wish, I can confirm the cause of the crash before removing the Windows Update, with a copy of your Event Viewer log. To generate this please do the following:

1. Open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) and type the following - eventvwr
2. In the window that opens, select the Windows Logs drop-down list on the left and then Applications
3. With the Applications logs selected, navigate to the right side of the window and select Save All Events As... and save them as .evtx (the default option).
4. Attach this saved file to your reply here.  

Many thanks once again!

[Birgit Finland]

Good morning Dan,

so the source managing problem seam to be fixed now by removing the latest update and postponing the a new update by an month for now. Lets hope Microsoft fixes this soon.

The original problem still remains. I checked, pdfs are linked and all is set as you said.

The only way to fix this one would be that I give all my files a new picture frame... Not very productive work. How can we fix that issue?

Thank you so much for your continues help here.

aff-test-print7.pdf

[lacerto]

23 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

Is there no other solution to this? I mean every time windows is updating I need to prevent this from happening? This can not even be a short term solution. There has to be a different solution to all the problems and it seams I am the only one.....

Please check here if this thread could give you a workaround without needing to sacrifice any of your Windows functionality and security:

As for your other problem, you could perhaps try a trick of renaming the source link folder so that Publisher cannot see it, then let it do relinking at document start-up when you are presented a dialog box for relocating the linked (but "missing") files. It you relocate at this point (rather than use Resource Manager), this should refresh the linked files properly.

[Dan C]

4 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

so the source managing problem seam to be fixed now by removing the latest update and postponing the a new update by an month for now. Lets hope Microsoft fixes this soon.

That's great to hear, thanks for letting me know!

4 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

The original problem still remains. I checked, pdfs are linked and all is set as you said.

The only way to fix this one would be that I give all my files a new picture frame... Not very productive work. How can we fix that issue?

I'd certainly recommend trying the above recommended steps from lacerto, as I'm unable to replicate this issue when exporting your document it can be hard for me to recommend other steps at this time, my apologies.

[Birgit Finland]

Hi Dan,

I would appreciate to drop me a line if you hear that the Microsoft issue is solved.

 

To the pdf issue, certainly I would go for the steps lacerto thought to try, the only thing that prevents me from trying renaming this folder is, that I use this linked pdf folder with a lot of other afpub documents too, including the documents not opened in the v1.8..... on my older laptop. Like I pointed out earlier, this issue started a month ago when I started using the v1.10.  If I could I would like to go back to the 1.8. version but then I have documents that I can not open any more...

So I am left with lots of extra work at this point. Lest hope that the Microsoft issue get solved soon, as I agree with lacerto's opinion on this issue too. I am not comfortable doing the coding.

Thanks for all your help and support through out this issue. I learned a lot.....

 

[Dan C]

Of course, our developers are actively looking into this issue to see if we can improve the behaviour in Affinity whilst we wait for an update from Microsoft - as we certainly understand and apologise for the inconveniences caused in the meantime.

Unfortunately if you're unable to change the folder name/location then the best option may be replacing the PDF files in the document before exporting, though I do appreciate the additional work this would require, our apologies once again.

[Birgit Finland]

Hi Dan, sorry to bother you again with this subject. I thought it would work to replace the frames and relink the pdf from this folder, but it only works with the one test document. All other documents have the same problem even after replacing the frame and relinking the pdf's. 😰

So, I made a copy of the one affected folder, renamed it, relinked all picture frames which have a pdf from this folder in one of my documents. And I thought it would work but it still does not work. The proper export of the Fx fails. 

Is there any other way of creating the fx layer? Any other trick I can use?
Thank you very much again for your support and help.

[Birgit Finland]

One more:

On 10/20/2022 at 9:28 AM, lacerto said:

As for your other problem, you could perhaps try a trick of renaming the source link folder so that Publisher cannot see it, then let it do relinking at document start-up when you are presented a dialog box for relocating the linked (but "missing") files. It you relocate at this point (rather than use Resource Manager), this should refresh the linked files properly

I could not really replicate this action. As my dialog box only gives me these options. 'yes' goes through all source pdf individually and so does the Resource manager. So what do I wrong here?

Thank you.

[Dan C]

That's certainly strange, I'm very surprised this isn't working for other documents - therefore I'd like to request a full copy of an .afpackage file & folders, such that I can try replicating this here once more, but with a copy of your files.

Please use File > Save as Package for one of the documents that is failing to export after updating, saving this in a new folder. You should see an .afpackage file is created, alongside a Fonts and Images folder. Please upload all of these files & folders to the below link for me:

https://www.dropbox.com/request/TinCIln8GqAp8l7Qr2JA

Once uploaded, please let me know here. Thanks once again

[Birgit Finland]

Thank you. Just uploading. Interesting is that the package saved as a afphoto not afpub file for you. Did I do anything wrong?

[Dan C]

Thanks for providing that for me! 

22 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

Interesting is that the package saved as a afphoto not afpub file for you. Did I do anything wrong?

The file is correct on my end - I suspect what you're seeing is the .afpackage file format has been incorrectly associated with Affinity Photo, if you right-click on the .afpackage file and select Get Info, then in the dialog that appears, click the arrow next to Open With. Select Publisher within this list and ensure that Change All is used - the file should now default to the correct app

In regards to the file you've provided, I too am seeing unexpected behaviour here, so I'm going to investigate this further with our team and I'll be sure to reply here ASAP with further information - many thanks for your continued patience and understanding here.

[Birgit Finland]

No worries, glad it is not only me. I do hope you find the strange behavior. I am happy to help. I am glad you had the patience with. 

Looking forward to hearing back from you. 

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response - in opening your .afpackage file I can see that over 50 of your 'Images' (this includes the PDF documents) are Missing:

Which means that I don't have access to these files when importing/exporting your document. These should not be Missing if they are shown as Linked/Embedded within the app on your computer, so I'm not sure why these aren't being included - but likely this is also the reason for the files not being included when exporting.

Just to confirm, do any of your documents still show as 'Missing' in your Resource Manager? Are all of these PDF files stored in the same location? For example on an external hard drive, or in a network location?

Secondly, in 'cutting down' your file to be simply the 2 PDF files, within the picture frames, then exporting to your PDF settings, I am finally able to replicate the export issue, where the PDF/FX is not included. I have had to escalate this further with our dev/QA team, as I cannot understand how the 'cut down' version of the file should be any different to the complete version you provided.

Again, I'll be sure to respond here with any further information

[Birgit Finland]

18 hours ago, Dan C said:

Which means that I don't have access to these files when importing/exporting your document. These should not be Missing if they are shown as Linked/Embedded within the app on your computer, so I'm not sure why these aren't being included - but likely this is also the reason for the files not being included when exporting.

Just to confirm, do any of your documents still show as 'Missing' in your Resource Manager? Are all of these PDF files stored in the same location? For example on an external hard drive, or in a network location?

Thank you for getting back to me. To clarify these missing images. Some of these pdf images are old or not relevant for the original document. Nevertheless, they should be all in the same pdf folder. When using v1.8 I had a lot of trouble with the total file name path length and I had to rename = shorten the whole path length of most of the pdf images in this folder at one point. This is why you might find some images missing. 

However, when ever I update a document do print as pdf, I try to relink or delete extra or missing pdf images from this document, and delete extra pages. I noticed this helps with the overall file size a bit. 

When I started to use v.1.10 (August 2022) and this fx issue began, my first thoughts were to relink all the missing images and delete the old ones. But I noticed, that this had no influence on the fx issue at all in all my documents. 

I hope this helps. Have a nice weekend and looking forward to hearing back from you.

[Dan C]

Many thanks for your patience here and I hope you had a great weekend!

I believe I have discovered the cause when all your files are linked, the reason the export was functional for me originally and not for yourself, and finally (hopefully) a resolution for you to implement.

Why the file exported 'correctly' for me initially:

When I received the original document, I did not notice that one file was linked (and missing) and the other was embedded. As the PDF file was 'missing' when exporting, the Affinity apps automatically used a cached 'raster' version (essentially a large thumbnail) of the PDF file, rather than the actual document itself.
As you have an FX adjustment affecting this layer, the cached raster version of the PDF had this FX applied and then exported on my machine - giving the illusion that the file had exported correctly, however due to the missing linked PDF, this wasn't technically true.

Why the file fails to export correctly with both files linked/embedded (and not missing):

This is a bug in regards to picture frames, blend modes and FX options, which I've been able to replicate in a new document, using a different place PDF file that I created.
Therefore I'm logging this with our development team now, as I see no reason why the correct blends & FX should not be applied with the document setup we both have tried.

How to resolve this & export your file:

Firstly, please make sure all of your PDF files are either embedded or linked, and are fully 'updated' within Resource Manager - this ensures the app has access to the PDF files (ie not 'Missing') and has the latest version of said files to use. From my testing, having the PDF files linked or embedded did not change the export, so you can use your personal preference here.

Now, we need to change the layers that have the blend mode & FX applied, in order to avoid the aforementioned bug.

In the Layers Studio select the top Picture Frame, then the PDF file within this that has the Multiply blend mode applied, and return this to Normal. Select the Picture Frame that is containing this PDF and change the blend mode to Multiply.

Select the Picture Frame below this layer, and remove the FX that we have applied, then select the PDF file within this Picture Frame and apply the FX Colour Overlay to this layer.

You should now have the following setup in your Layers Studio, with all PDF files present:

When exporting your document with this setup, all files linked or embedded & using your PDF export settings, the PDF file contains the Colour Overlay FX as expected.

Can you please confirm the same is true for you?

[Birgit Finland]

Hi Dan,

thank you so much for your help and solving this for me. I was able to export correctly two different documents. 😃 

I have a big note with the exact steps (as they are differently of what we previous did)
I guess every time I use one of my many documents, I need a 'clean up' operation with the images (good to do anyways).

Question: Do I really also need to relink all pdf images which are in the unused master page ? 

[Dan C]

That's amazing to hear, many thanks for letting me know!

21 hours ago, Birgit Finland said:

Question: Do I really also need to relink all pdf images which are in the unused master page ? 

If the files aren't being included with the export, then there should be no need to relink these files