Huge problem with Publisher Version 2 -> I've just bought affinity suite V2 (all the apps), I've tried to open a file created with Affinity Publisher V1, and almost immediately Publisher V2 freezes

[Andrea00]

Today I was really exited about Affinity Version 2, so I have bought the new full suite (3 software for Mac and 3 software for iPad Pro).

 

Using affinity publisher version 2, I tried to open the file I created with affinity publisher version 1 and... an horrible surprise: I opened the file, scrolled same pages, and after 10-20 seconds the app freezes completely.

I tried to force the app to quit, I tried a few more times to reopen the file, but affinity publisher version 2 always freezes..

I tried to restart my Mac, I tried to go to affinity publisher > preferences and strongly increase the memory the app can use on my Mac (closing every other app in background), but unfortunately publisher V2 keeps freezing after few seconds.

So, I tried to reopen the document and, without scrolling any pages (in order to avoid that the app immediately freeze), I immediately tried to run a preflight check of the document.. the app freezes almost immediately without completing the preflight check.

Please, can I send my file to affinity staff, in order to help me?

In the meanwhile I can use affinity publisher version 1, but this is a temporary solution (since publisher 1 won't receive further updates in the future, and I don't like the idea of working with a software that will be outdated in te future), so it's crucial for me to understand the situation:

- if it's a stability bug, there is no problem: I can wait for stability improvements (in the meantime I can keep using publisher v1)

- if it's an hardware problem (see below the Mac I'm using) or a MacOS problem (see below the Mac I'm using), there is no problem: if with a newer and more powerful Mac the file works perfectly with affinity publisher version 2 (so that the problem is my Mac), I can wait for MacOS updates and in the following year I'm planning to buy a new Mac;

- but.. it's crucial to me to understand if affinity publisher v2 no longer supports files like mine (file created with publisher V1, that works with publisher V1, but not with publisher V2), so that I should look for another type of software (I won't ask for a refund of the purchase, since I'll keep using affinity suite for other lighter purposes, but I really need to know if this is only a bug or I'm asking too much to this software)

I hope somebody can help me (if I need to buy some sort of technical support, I don't mind, I just want to understand the situation and I hope to solve the problem, since I really LOVED affinity publisher V1).

Thank you very much

Andrea

 

Hardware:

- mackbook pro 13 inch, 2017

- intel core i7,

- Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB

- RAM 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

- 1TB

 

OS:

- Mac OS Ventura 13.0

 

Software:

- Affinity Publisher 2.0.0 (I've bought the new software today)

 

What happens when affinity publisher v2 freezes:

 - see the attached screenshot

 

System monitor when affinity publisher v2 freezes:

- CPU skyrockets and then system monitor tells me that affinity publisher version 2 is unresponsive: see the second attached screenshot

 

Another attempt with Publisher for iPad

I tried to open that file with affinity publisher for iPad, since my iPad is newer and more powerful than my Mac (I have an iPad Pro 12.9", 2021, M1, 2TB, iPadOS16). When I tried to open the file with affinity publisher for iPad I see a really strange massage: a popup tells me that affinity Publisher for iPad cannot open the file since it "includes functions of a newer version of affinity publisher"... but that file was created with affinity publisher version 1!). See the third attached screenshot.

 

[MikeTO]

This is just a guess, but try disabling Metal. Uncheck Hardware Acceleration > Enable Metal, close Preferences and restart, and then change Display from Metal to OpenGL.

And I'd reset your memory back to the default which for me defaults to my total actual RAM and not virtual RAM. If that didn't solve your problem I wouldn't leave it there.

[Andrea00]

Thank you very much for your kind answer.

Tomorrow in the early morning I’ll test both Metal and OpenGL resetting memory settings back to default.

I find really strange that publisher version 1 works but not publisher v2, with the same file, same Mac and same publisher preferences (I’ll test tomorrow morning the exact same graphic settings and ram in publisher v1 and publisher v2).

the file is:

- around 40 pages, but some pages have a pretty big canvas

- under 15 mb

- lots of text (in A4 format it would be around 400 pages)

- no linked external resources; no embed external resources; there were a few external objects (for example some screenshots of web pages), but they have been all rasterized;

- no images; various objects created in affinity publisher (arrows, mind maps, icons, shapes, etc, all created directly in publisher [or designer within publisher studio] and saved in my assets; by the way I managed to successfully import all my assets from publisher v1 to publisher v2)

- lots of hyperlinks and anchors (all text anchor and hyperlinks, no objects used with hyperlinks and anchors)

I really hope that I can share my file with affinity staff, in order to investigate the problem and understand if the problem is my Mac (maybe because it’s pre m1? I don’t really know if this could mean something) or not.. I hope it’s not a problem of backward compatibility between publisher 1 and publisher 2 (I guess it would be really strange). I really hope it will be only a bug that can be fixed with stability releases..

thank you very much for your kind answer

Andrea

[Andrea00]

⚠️⚠️⚠️ Dramatic developments ⚠️⚠️⚠️

 

Today a I found out another terrible development..

I tried to reopen my file with affinity publisher version 1 and publisher V1 now tells me that it cannot open the file because it's a file of a newer version of affinity publisher.

Now I am completely stuck and scared:

- until yesterday morning I could work on my file with affinity publisher version 1

- then I installed affinity publisher version 2 and found out I cannot work on my file with affinity publisher version 2 because the app keeps freezing after scrolling some pages

- so today I tried to reopen my file with affinity publisher version 1, but affinity publisher version 1 tells me that I cannot open the file because it's a newer version of affinity publisher

 

Sadly, up to now, I'm completely stack: I cannot work on my file with affinity publisher V2, I cannot work on my file with affinity publisher V1.. Please, don't tell me that I've lost more than one year of work (in the document statistics I can see that I created this file on November 2021 and I edited and saved it more than 3.000 times) only because I bought the newer version of your software...

Please, Affinity staff, help me, because I don't know what to do, I cannot work on my file and I'm really scared!!

What happens now?

 

Other considerations:

- I have a Mac with iCloud: I tried to see if I can restore an older version of the file (maybe a few days ago, before opening the file with affinity publisher version 2). But apple doesn't supports versions of that kind of files. I'll try to write to apple support, for what I saw this morning I think that through iCloud I can only restore a file accidentally deleted, but I cannot restore an older version of a .apub file that has always been there for the last year in my iCloud in the same position. So unfortunately I think apple cannot help me.

- Please, affinity, don't tell me that it is not possible come back to affinity publisher V1: please, tell me that it is possibile to open the file with affinity publisher V2 and (without doing anything, so that the app doesn't freeze) save it in a version compatible with affinity publisher V1 (in the same way it is possibile with word or excel or other basic software that allow you to make your file compatible with older versions of the software), so that I can restore my file and work on it with affinity publisher V1. Without the possibility to come back to affinity publisher V1, I'm completely stuck..

- I tried to use both Metal and Open Gl, but nothing changes: affinity publisher V2 keeps freezing.

 

 

[Andrea00]

Thank you very much for your answer. I tried to disable everything (every studio tab, special characters, everything), but as soon as I try to scroll the file, it freezes almost immediately.

I've just spoke to apple support: they told me that through iCloud it's only possibile to restore files that I have accidentally deleted, but it's not possibile to restore an older version of an .apub file (it would be possibile with other type of files, like pages, numbers etc, but not with an affinity publisher file).

Fortunately Apple support was very kind and supportive.

They asked me specifically what is the software, since if it was a third party software they couldn't do anything.

But they saw that affinity suite is a professional suite, is an Apple Store software and furthermore we saw that on apple website there are some images of the last apple products (I think both the new 2022 iPad Pro and Mac book pro) showing the affinity suite.

So they told me to let them know what happens, since if the problem won't be solved, they can interface with the developer, being a software that is sold on the Apple Store and has some sort of direct spotlight on apple website with their last products (and has been showed in some of apple events of the last years).

But.. I don't want to cause any sort of problem between serif and apple (since I really loved affinity suite version 1). I just want to solve my problem, write to apple support that affinity support brilliantly solved my problem, and get back to work forgetting this terrible situation.

Please, affinity staff, how can I speak to you? I really need help and I feel scared of losing one year of work.. Please

Andrea 

[Andrea00]

Thank you very much for your answer.

Yes, I've made a copy of the file. Now I have two copies:

- the first one is the original file, that has always been there, in the same position, in my Mac and apple iCloud, since the creation of the file in November 2021

- now I have a second copy of the file in another location [dropbox]

Unfortunately, both copies are currently unusable:

- I cannot open them with affinity publisher version 1

- when I open them with affinity publisher version 2 the app immediately freezes when I try to scroll some pages (even if I disable every studio and I zoom in order to minimise the content on the screen, even if I switch from Metal to Open GL)

Thank you

Andrea

[Andrea00]

It seems that I couldn't reach affinity support up to now.. Have I posted this topic in the wrong section of the forum? Should I open a post in Affinity Publisher Bug section? Should I write them an email or contact them in other ways?

I understand that affinity is probably facing many requests, due to the release of the new app. But I wonder how many people are completely cut off from their work as me (up to know I didn't find other threads of people as unlucky as me).

This situation is really stressing me out. Some sort of bug is more then acceptable with a new release, but up to know I can't do anything and I'm completely stuck, cut off from my work:

- I can't use publisher V2

- I can't open my file with publisher V1 anymore

- I also tried to open the file with publisher V2 and (without doing anything in order to avoid that the app freezes immediately) I tried to export it (maybe it would be possibile to export my affinity publisher file to some extension that another software, for example indesign, could read, so that I could temporarily buy a monthly subscription of another software, waiting for a solution from affinity), but as soon as I select "export", publisher V2 freezes.

I feel lost right now..

[MikeTO]

Hi Andrea, while you're waiting for Serif to reply let's see what we can do to help.

I and many others are using Publisher 2 on Ventura without issues so it does work fine so this has to be something with your particular configuration or with your specific document.

First, and this is too late, you should always make a copy when saving a document from a new program. Serif's FAQs pointed out that v2 documents can't be opened in v1. In fact, I've been burned by so many apps over the years that I back up my documents each time I make major changes and at least weekly. I have a folder of date-stamped backups that I then backup to iCloud and to an external hard drive. These are good pratices which I recommend for the future. But they won't help you today.

Second, try opening the document in Publisher 2 and then immediately choosing File > Save As and saving it under a new name. Close the document and open this new version - Save As saves a clean version of the file without the stuff that can accumulate during multiple saves - it's always a good practice to do this when you're having problems. I don't think it will help today because you have likely only saved it once from v2 and that would have been a full save, too.

Third, open the document in Publisher 2 and save it outside of iCloud, perhaps to Macintosh HD/users/<your user name>/. Sometimes Affinity has problems with iCloud so it's worth ruling that out. Now try it and see if it works.

Fourth, if the document has linked resources (pictures), open Window > Resource Manager and embed all of them and save to a test filename. The file will be much larger but this will eliminate a potential source of problem.

If none of these ideas work Serif might ask you to send them the document through a private dropbox link to investigate. If you're able to share the document publicly feel free to upload it directly here and one of us other users can try to open it. If we can open it you will know you won't have lost anything.

Good luck!

[Andrea00]

Dear @MikeTO and @anto

thank you very much for your answers (it's something special that there is a community made up of people that help each other).

Il try to summarise what happened and all the attempts I’ve made (following your last suggestions), in order to summarise the full picture (I apologise for my English since I’m italian) and make it simple for everybody reads this topic.

 

My hardware and software

- mackbook pro 13 inch, 2017

- intel core i7,

- Intel Iris Plus Graphics 650 1536 MB

- RAM 16 GB 2133 MHz LPDDR3

- 1TB

- Mac OS Ventura 13.0.1 (this afternoon I tried to install the last Mac update, since tomorrow morning I had Mac OS Ventura 13.0).

- affinity publisher for Mac 2.0.0 (I’ve bought yesterday the full suite of publisher, designer and photo for Mac and iPad)

 

What happened

- yesterday I bought the new full affinity suite (publisher, designer and photo for Mac and for iPad)

- I’ve been working for the last year on an affinity publisher file created with affinity publisher version 1

- I opened that file with affinity publisher V2

- I scrolled a few pages and the app froze

- yesterday I reported the problem in this post

- today in the morning I installed again affinity publisher version 1 (in order to keep using publisher 1 in the meantime) and I found out I couldn’t open my file anymore (the app tells me that I can’t open the file, since it’s a file of a newer version of affinity)

- today I’ve made various attempts (see below), but I’m completely cut off from my work: I can’t open the file with affinity publisher version 1, and when I open the file with affinity publisher version 2 after a few seconds it freezes completely and my CPU skyrockets

Here you can see a screen record of what happens: I can open the file, I can do something in the first pages (which are simple and mostly blank, since I was working on other parts of the file), but as soon as I scroll to other pages, everything freezes (it occurs with most pages of the document, if I try to jump to a specific page or if I scroll the document): https://www.dropbox.com/s/ut7tww5soj4qd29/Esempio%20screen%20record.mov?dl=0

(In that video, in system monitor the CPU usage is absorbed by the video recording, but without video recording I can see that the CPU skyrockets when I use only affinity publisher 2 and the app freezes)

 

File

It’s an affinity publisher file created around one year ago:

- it’s a project regarding the whole italian law of succession, huge mind maps and schematisations in topics; so the document is not meant for printing but for digital consultation, lessons, dashboards, web pages. For this reason every page has a different dimension and some pages have a pretty big canvas. Every page is independent (there aren’t text boxes linked in different pages). The only links between different pages are lots of hyperlinks in order to jump from a mind map to another

- there are only about 40 pages (but some of them are pretty big)

- there is a lot of text (if you copy all the text in a A4 document, font dimension 10, I think it could be maybe 400-500 pages); but, since every page is independent (every page is a huge topic), the text in not spread in multiple linked text boxes through different pages (and I saw that publisher version 1 never had problems, since it didn’t had to manage paragraphs and texts too long in many linked text boxes);

- the file is 14,2 MB

- there are lots of simple assets that I’ve created directly in affinity publisher version 1 and saved as assets; I have imported all these assets in affinity publisher V2 and they work fine (here you can see an example of some of them: https://www.dropbox.com/s/p3bit2u25i0z9d9/assets.png?dl=0); other assets are arrows, brackets, shapes (those assets frequently used in mind maps)

- In document resources I see a few resources, but they are really small and all embedded (since I never used linked resources). Here you can see a screenshot of the document resources (if I open the document and I don’t scroll, so that affinity doesn’t freeze, I can see document resources and everything seems ok): https://www.dropbox.com/s/qp3bapliv6rsbjd/Risorse%20documento.mov?dl=0

- lots of hyperlinks and anchors (maybe 300-400), all about text (I don’t use images or objects in hyperlinks and anchors)

If somebody wants to try with a different hardware (Mac or windows), please let me know how can I privately send you the file (I really appreciate every help and if somebody wants to make an attempt, I’m really grateful for such kindness)

 

Backup

Unfortunately I don’t have another backup: I was relying on iCloud+, that let you restore all the files eliminated in the last 30 days and I have never had a problem with iCloud.

Unfortunately today I spoke to apple support and they told me that if it was a file that I had deleted in the last 30 days they could restore the file, but apple doesn’t support versions of an .apub file (so I cannot restore past versions of the file). iCloud supports past versions only for pages, numbers, etc.

Apple support was kind and supportive: they asked me what software we are talking about. They told me to let them know what happens: if the problem won't be solved, they can interface with the developer, being a software that is sold on the Apple Store and has some sort of direct spotlight on apple website with their last products (but I don't want to cause any sort of problem between serif and apple; I just want to solve my problem, write to apple support that affinity support brilliantly solved my problem, and get back to work forgetting this terrible situation)

This is a huge lesson for me: I’ll buy a backup service that gives me versions, and I'll never trust new version of a software (even if we are talking about a professional e reliable company). In the past I used apple time machine on apple air express (that supports version) and I thought that iCloud was similar, but cloud based (I was wrong).

 

Disable all studios

As somebody suggested above, I’ve tried to disable all studios, but nothing changes

 

Save as a package

I tried to open the document (without doing anything, in order to avoid that the document freezes) > file > save as package > when I open the package nothing changes (affinity publisher 2 freezes)

 

Save as a new file

As kindly suggested by MikeTo I tried to save the document as a new file (in affinity publisher I saved the document with a new name in a folder outside iCloud, then in an iCloud folder, then in a dropbox folder), but nothing changes: when I open the three new documents, affinity publisher 2 freezes.

 

Export in a different format

I tried to export the document in another format (I thought that maybe I could export in a format compatibile with other apps, for example indesign, and buy a monthly subscription of another app, waiting to understand what happens with affinity).

Unfortunately when I click "file > export" affinity publisher V2 freezes.

 

Preflight check

I tried to run a preflight check > affinity publisher version 2 freezes before completing the check

 

Graphic settings

As MikeTO suggested above, I tried both Metal and Open Gl, but nothing changes: affinity publisher version 2 freezes as soon as I try to scroll the pages or jump to a different page or use an hyperlink. So I reset to default settings and nothing changes.

 

Uninstall and reinstall Publisher V2

I tried to uninstall and reinstall Publisher V2: nothing changes.

 

Resources

I tried to inspect document resources: I have only few and light external resource and all of them are embedded (I’ve never used linked resources). As you can see in this video they seem all ok: https://www.dropbox.com/s/qp3bapliv6rsbjd/Risorse%20documento.mov?dl=0

 

Windows / Mac

I don’t have a windows pc, so I can’t try with windows. I have parallels desktop installed on my Mac: I can try to install publisher on my virtual machine, but my 2017 Mac is not powerful enough to run smoothly windows through parallels, so I don’t expect anything good. If somebody that has a windows pc wants to test my file, please let me know how I can privately send you my file.

I have Mac OS Ventura. As somebody suggested above, Ventura may have problems with affinity publisher: I don’t know if apple let us downgrade to the previous OS since Ventura is an official release, not a beta. If somebody has any suggestion or has a more powerful Mac or a Mac with the previous OS and wants to test my file, please let me know how I can privately send you my file.

 

iPad Pro M1

Since my iPad is more powerful than my Mac (I have a 2021 iPad Pro 12,9”, 2TB, M1, while my 2017 Mac has an intel i7), I tried to open my file with affinity publisher for iPad.

When I try to open the file, affinity publisher for iPad tells me that can’t open the file because the file “includes functions of a newer version of Affinity”, as you can see in the following screenshot: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hkg2cmqrvxfa46i/ipad%20pro%20affinity%20publisher.jpeg?dl=0

 

Conclusion

Up to now I’m completely stuck and I feel lost:

• i cannot work with affinity publisher version 2
• I cannot work with affinity publisher version 1
• yesterday everything was ok and perfect, after buying the new affinity suit now I (horribly) fear that I could have lost one year of work..

I really hope that affinity support can help me..

 

Thank you

 

Andrea

[Andrea00]

Thank you very much, I'll send you a copy of the file right now in PM.

Thank you very much for your kind help

Andrea

[Andrea00]

Update -> affinity support is investigating my problem. In the meantime, thank you very much to everybody tried to help me here..

 

[Andrea00]

UPDATE: PROBLEM SOLVED

In the last month I've been speaking with affinity publisher support in private.

They investigated my problem and worked on it.

Today I've downloaded the last release of Affinity Publisher V2 for Mac (2.0.3) and I'm so happy that I managed to open my file and scroll the pages without any crash or problem.

Long story short, it seems that Affinity Publisher Support brilliantly solved my problem with the last release.

In the next days and weeks I'll resume my work, so I will deeply test if everything works well or I'll experience other crashes / freeze, but.. now I'm happy that this problem seems to be solved.

Thank you very much to everybody tried to help me!

Andrea