Affinity designer stuck in loading a document

[Vaclav Slovacek]

I cannot open file as Affinity Designer is stuck in Loading phase (in screenshot). I have worked on the file without problems. Then based on suggestion here I have enable Save with History to trace another issue happening in Designer: 

 

I have tried the following:

• Restore older version of the file from Time Machine.
• Restart Designer
• Restart macOS
• Tried opening in Publisher - also stuck
• Delete Designer and re-download it from AppStore
• Send the file over to my wife's MacBook (she COULD open it), she Saved As... the file and she sent it back to me and I still cannot open it

I have macOS Big Sur, my wife has Monterey if that may be causing issues.

I cannot share the document. If you give me upload link I will provide it.

To be honest reliability seems to be a significant issue with Affinity. I really want to love the products as it is a great alternative to Adobe feature-wise. However I have burned a lot of time recovering from these issues.

[Vaclav Slovacek]

One more thing I have tried:

• Create a new file in Designer on my wife's MacBook
• Copy all layers from the original file
• Saved the new document
• Sent over to my MacBook
• Stuck on loading again

[Vaclav Slovacek]

Another try: I have reverted back to a Time Machine version from 25th Sep and still cannot open the file. I have opened it several times since then.

So it seems the problem is not caused by the file itself but by Affinity Designer/Publisher on my system. Any ideas what is can be? How to fresh install them or something?

[Vaclav Slovacek]

OK. Resolved. Apparently one of the linked files exploded in size from 2MB to 350MB whan saved with history causing load to be stuck.

[unitof]

I'm experiencing this error as well for a (downloaded locally) file in iCloud Drive, but without any link I'm aware of, and certainly not a large one. Affinity Designer just sits for (presumably) ever at Loading 1 document.

I got it on 2.2.1 (I believe), and thought updating to 2.3.0 might fix it, but so far same behavior. I did have to force quit, as quitting any other way raises an "At least one file is currently being opened. Please wait for files to load before quitting the application." dialog.

Tried duplicating the file to my home directory, outside of iCloud Drive, but same issue when opening it. About to try a reboot and, when home, opening the same file on iPad to see if any different.

[MikeTO]

17 minutes ago, unitof said:

I'm experiencing this error as well for a (downloaded locally) file in iCloud Drive, but without any link I'm aware of, and certainly not a large one. Affinity Designer just sits for (presumably) ever at Loading 1 document.

I got it on 2.2.1 (I believe), and thought updating to 2.3.0 might fix it, but so far same behavior. I did have to force quit, as quitting any other way raises an "At least one file is currently being opened. Please wait for files to load before quitting the application." dialog.

Tried duplicating the file to my home directory, outside of iCloud Drive, but same issue when opening it. About to try a reboot and, when home, opening the same file on iPad to see if any different.

Hi, there is an FAQ for this issue.

Can you confirm which version of macOS you are using? If it's Sonoma, when did you upgrade to it?

Check the file in Finder and if it doesn't show as downloaded to your device, try downloading it from Finder before opening it in Affinity.

Good luck!

[unitof]

I did download the file, and it did show as downloaded locally in Finder/iCloud Drive.

And I am on Sonoma 14.1.1 (23B81). Originally upgrade to Sonoma about a month ago, after the 14.1 stable release.

However, did did just finally open, after "opening" for around half an hour!

Possible iCloud Drive was doing some odd syncing in the background, it was showing an "uploading" indicator (for an entirely separate other file).