Affinity Publisher Crashing when Choosing Fonts

[Josh626394]

Hi everyone,

Apologies if this has been answered elsewhere, but I couldn't find an answer for the life of me.

When I go to change which font family I want to use by typing the name - e.g. I try to type "Open Sans" - affinity publisher crashes to desktop. 

I've tried changing the 1.0 file under %Appdata% and I have tried re-installing Affinity Publisher.

I can wheel through the fonts fine, but it's when I try to type a font, everything crashes.

Any help towards a solution would be most appreciated!

[walt.farrell]

There are many recent threads about this here in the forums.

There's also a "Known Issue" FAQ with instructions for removing the Windows Update that causes this problem:

 

[madad07]

So I have to uninstall a windows update? What a pain in the butt. I want to windows updates - I assume Affinity will release a fix to the software rather than expect us to start messing about with windows updates!!

[oroverde]

Same Issue here (plus some more probably in common)

And there is no way to uninstall the given update, since this is a machine just installed from the latest Windows 10 iso.

The past updates are integrated into the last build and cannot be uninstalled.

So i fully agree to madad07 and hope Serif will release a fix as soon as possible.

 

 

[walt.farrell]

58 minutes ago, madad07 said:

So I have to uninstall a windows update? What a pain in the butt. I want to windows updates - I assume Affinity will release a fix to the software rather than expect us to start messing about with windows updates!!

Microsoft broke the applications (Affinity and others) that use the Windows WPF functions, and Microsoft should correct their error, in my opinion. Applications should not need to provide workarounds for OS errors.

 

[openconcept]

On Windows 11 the problematic update may also be listed as KB5017271. I had the same crashing problem which disappeared after I uninstalled and hid this update.

[madad07]

This has been a while now - and I'm still without the ability to work. how long will Affinity Team take to sort this out? I've always had great service and products from Affinity - but this seems to be an outage that is taking way too long to fix!!!

[madad07]

On 10/7/2022 at 12:09 PM, walt.farrell said:

Microsoft broke the applications (Affinity and others) that use the Windows WPF functions, and Microsoft should correct their error, in my opinion. Applications should not need to provide workarounds for OS errors.

 

Maybe - in an ideal world. But what will Microsoft actually DO? i suspect they won't be in much of a hurry unless some BIG software companies are hurting. Let's watch this space.

[Sonny Sonny]

Uninstall the windows update works well. But I still hope Affinity could provide a patch instead.

[jeanluclariviere]

I uninstalled the patch and worked with Affinity Publisher for a day. Microsoft Windows simply re-installed it again. There's no way to blacklist the update either, short of disabling windows updates all together. Affinity really should provide a patch, I think it's unlikely MS will change anything if they haven't by now.

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, jeanluclariviere said:

I uninstalled the patch and worked with Affinity Publisher for a day. Microsoft Windows simply re-installed it again. There's no way to blacklist the update either, short of disabling windows updates all together. Affinity really should provide a patch, I think it's unlikely MS will change anything if they haven't by now.

The FAQ provides guidance on Hiding the update so it doesn't install again.

[Neal Sutton]

I have the same problem when I try to type in a font in the font window.  I can use the scroll down facilty ok.  It is a pain in the butt for affinity to keep crashing like this.  Uninstalling Windows updates id not an option as Windows simply puts them back again.  Please Affinity give us a patch.  Cheers

 

[carl123]

18 minutes ago, Neal Sutton said:

Uninstalling Windows updates id not an option as Windows simply puts them back again.

The FAQ shows you how to prevent installed updates being reinstalled

Yes, later (new) updates can reintroduce the same problem again so you either need to look out for them and uninstall them or pause all updates for a week or more until Microsoft or Serif, fix or patch the problem.

Currently there is no other solution/workaround 

[madad07]

Come on Affinity - pull your finger out! This is a total joke. Sort this out. Windows updates are NOT GOING AWAY ANY TIME SOON.

If the product can't work properly on windows - it's not worth diddly. 

[walt.farrell]

37 minutes ago, madad07 said:

Sort this out. Windows updates are NOT GOING AWAY ANY TIME SOON.

Unfortunately, it's quite common for Microsoft to release updates that break applications. Then Microsoft releases new updates to fix the broken ones. 

[debraspicher]

52 minutes ago, madad07 said:

Come on Affinity - pull your finger out! This is a total joke. Sort this out. Windows updates are NOT GOING AWAY ANY TIME SOON.

If the product can't work properly on windows - it's not worth diddly. 

As a Windows user, I'd just like to say if you don't like software/driver issues caused by "bad" updates, then switch to Mac. This has been a stable feature of Windows since 8/8.1/etc whenever cumulatives were introduced... Macintosh doesn't have anything close to the level of hardware fragmentation of Windows and so doesn't run into these types of software issues as often. Windows updates will almost always break something for this reason. It's more surprising when it doesn't.

[Sonny Sonny]

The loop in a nutshell:

MS release new NET. framework update => Affinity crashes => User uninstall the update and disable that update version => MS release another new update => Affinity crashes => User uninstall the update and disable that new update version => ...

MS releases 3-4 updates every month. I don't wanna keep doing this loop.

[carl123]

3 minutes ago, Sonny Nguyen said:

I don't wanna keep doing this loop.

Then pause your updates

You know Serif are working with Microsoft to fix the issue

You just have to work around the problem until a fix is available

[Sonny Sonny]

9 minutes ago, carl123 said:

Then pause your updates

You know Serif are working with Microsoft to fix the issue

You just have to work around the problem until a fix is available

Great to hear that, thanks to Serif! Yes, I used to pause all the new MS Net. framework updates for now. I just hope this could end soon.

[Twolane]

Quote

This is a total joke.

Please do let us know how you make out with forcing the late, great Microsoft empire to bow to your whims. Thanks. You've heard of doing something into the wind? That will be you "forcing" MS to fabricate a fix.

[c7eopatra]

Sad this is still a issue

[walt.farrell]

42 minutes ago, c7eopatra said:

Sad this is still a issue

Have you upgraded to 1.10.6, which contained a workaround for the issue?

[c7eopatra]

yes, i think so. couldnt find a newer version on the website and couldnt find the listed windows update packages either. and still publisher crashes every time i try to change the font. literally unusable.

 

/edit

i am on windows 10

Edited February 10, 2023 by c7eopatra

[Leigh]

On 2/10/2023 at 9:51 PM, c7eopatra said:

yes, i think so. couldnt find a newer version on the website and couldnt find the listed windows update packages either. and still publisher crashes every time i try to change the font. literally unusable.

 

/edit

i am on windows 10

Would it be possible to send me a copy of your Event Viewer logs? 

1. Open Event Viewer by clicking the Start button
2. Click Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools, and then double-click Event Viewer
3. Click to expand Windows Logs in the left pane, and then select Application
4. Click the Action menu and select Save All Events As
5. Name the file eventviewer.evtx and click the Save button
6. Click the OK button if you see a Display Information dialog

[c7eopatra]

I couldnt attach the file when writing you via a private message, so would it be possible to remove the file once you downloaded it?
to be more detailed in what happened:

i did select a text i already had written and was trying to change the font and after around 5-10 fonts later publisher crashed. that happened a few times before i stopped trying to change it. what did work in the end was changing it to a font close by so i didnt had to stay in the dropdown more than a second.