I can't import the assets in affinity photo

[winfried tesmer]

I can't import the assets from downloads. (for example daub papers.afassets) in affinity photo: Error importing. 

File cannot be imported. what can I do ?

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums, @winfried tesmer.

For assets, you might have a .afassets file, or you might have PNG or JPG images. If you have a .afassets file then you can import it into the Assets panel by clicking on the panel preferences icon (3 bars on the right of the studio panel, sometimes called a "hamburger" menu) and you'll find an option to import the file.

However, specifically for Daub Papers: They come from the Affinity Store, so you can simply use the Account function within the application. Make sure you're signed-in, and look in the right side where you'll see a list of the Affinity Store items you own. You can tell the application to download and install them automatically. 

[affinbob]

Doesn't seem to work on my Mac either.  Most of my Add Ons are also not installing after downloading. 

Trying to Import from the Assets hamburger menu always fails with 'Import Failed Unable to import file.' Error dialog.  Even tried re-downloading from the Affinity site but no change.

Possible permissions problem?  Frustrating to be sure. 

Edit:  Just tried to create a New Category in Assets panel and nothing happens.

 

Edited November 13, 2022 by affinbob

[walt.farrell]

36 minutes ago, affinbob said:

Trying to Import from the Assets hamburger menu always fails with 'Import Failed Unable to import file.' Error dialog.  Even tried re-downloading from the Affinity site but no change.

Some screenshots might help show what you're seeing, and help determine what's going on. Or a screen recording showing it happening.

[affinbob]

First video the Add Ons fail to install after (appearing to download).  Seems to be more with images than brushes.  But some images do download and install properly.  I had a similar problem on my iPad but it eventually began properly downloading and installing.

Second clip is trying to import assets and creating a new asset category. 

Neither of these problems exist on my V1 software.  All Add Ons are showing either Green or Arrow for external files.

Thanks for any insight you may have.  I've deleted and reinstalled from both the App Store and the Affinity Site downloads with no change.

[affinbob]

As it turns out, it is something on my end that is causing the problems.  I logged into an alternate 'test' account, launched V2 and was able to successfully download all the Add-Ons.  The Assets panel also showed the Default category and I was able to add new ones without issue.

So, I'll have to do some deep diving to try and uncover exactly why my main account is not allowing V2 to install some of these files.

[walt.farrell]

Thanks for the follow-up, @affinbob, and good luck with the diagnosis process. I've no idea what to suggest.

[affinbob]

Thanks, @walt.farrell.  By checking the Diagnostic Logs I found an entry for Photo V2 that corresponded with my latest attempt to install the Add Ons:

Event:            disk writes
Action taken:     none
Writes:           2147.49 MB of file backed memory dirtied over 152 seconds (14.08 MB per second average), exceeding limit of 24.86 KB per second over 86400 seconds
Writes limit:     2147.48 MB
Limit duration:   86400s
Writes caused:    2147.49 MB
Writes duration:  152s
Duration:         152.47s
Duration Sampled: 81.19s
Steps:            204 ( (10.49 MB/step))

Not a whole lot of information available on this but it seems that Apple places a restriction on apps for the amount of data that can be written to disk within a 24 hour window.  From Apple's Developer docs: The system throws an exception and generates a report when the disk writes from your app exceed a certain threshold in a 24-hour period.  Some estimates put it at around 1GB/day and I do have a lot of Add Ons, so this is quite possible what the cause is.

I went back to my iPad and the Add Ons that were not installing in Designer 2 and Publisher 2 a day earlier, downloaded and installed without any issue.  So, I'm going to wait until later today or even tomorrow and try again on my Mac.  I'll post my results to have them available should anyone else run into this issue.

Thanks for your help.

 

My sources for this:

https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/686854

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/reducing-disk-writes

[walt.farrell]

Interesting. Thanks for that work.  That's not one I had heard of before.

[winfried tesmer]

7 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Thanks for the follow-up, @affinbob, and good luck with the diagnosis process. I've no idea what to suggest.

thanks for your answer . 

i installed everything on another mac of mine before, and i know how that works, but here with the new 2 version i don't get any assets loaded on it and i always get the error message could not be imported. error...

[winfried tesmer]

16 hours ago, affinbob said:

As it turns out, it is something on my end that is causing the problems.  I logged into an alternate 'test' account, launched V2 and was able to successfully download all the Add-Ons.  The Assets panel also showed the Default category and I was able to add new ones without issue.

So, I'll have to do some deep diving to try and uncover exactly why my main account is not allowing V2 to install some of these files.

thank you , if you find out the answer for this problem , please can you write me?  thanks ! Winfried. 

Edited November 13, 2022 by winfried tesmer
delate my emailadess

[walt.farrell]

24 minutes ago, winfried tesmer said:

thank you , if you find out the answer for this problem , please can you write me?  thanks ! Winfried. **removed**

It is not a good idea to include your email address here, Winfried. These forums are public, and spammers can find your address and use it to send you spam email. It would be better to ask for a private message, and possibly set up your private message options to send you an email.

If you click the "..." icon on the top right of your post you may have an Edit option that will allow you to edit your post and remove that, if you want to.

[winfried tesmer]

Oh thank you !!!!  I hope I just managed to delete the message.

[walt.farrell]

7 minutes ago, winfried tesmer said:

Oh thank you !!!!  I hope I just managed to delete the message.

No, your email address is still there. You would need to click Save after making the change. Perhaps you missed that?

[winfried tesmer]

The problem with the error message of importing assets persists, I had reloaded and installed the new versions of Affinity Gerde on the larger mac. I bought many extra brushes including assets to make my illustration better. I probably loaded too many, because everything worked at the beginning, then all assets suddenly disappeared and no more could be loaded.

I tried deleting the new versions of Affinity, but when I reinstalled all the brushes etc that I had loaded were back. And the problem with en assets came up again. In the forums I can't find how to delete affinity completely (!9 then reinstall naked

[affinbob]

Not sure you and I are chasing the same error.  I went ahead and disabled the option to automatically download Add Ons when they are available.  I'm going to wait the 24 hour period then try to manually download and install each problem asset, starting with the smallest files.  Not sure if I'm on the right path to solving this but waiting an extra day certainly fixed the same issue on my iPad.

I'll post when I have a change in success or failure either way.

[winfried tesmer]

That seems to be the same problem, thanks a lot, I'll wait 24 hours then.... And try again.

If that doesn't work, you know how I could completely delete affinty, which leaves no more entries anywhere. I would then recreate it and "naked" I hope to get installed. And then try again . Greetings

[affinbob]

FWIW, I have already tried deleting and reinstalling with no difference.  I dragged the app to the Trash, then deleted the entire 'Affinity Photo 2' folder  located in the /Users/<your account name here>/Library/Application Support/ folder.  Reinstalling fresh did nothing to solve my problem though.  I'll post again tomorrow after waiting the 24 hour period to see if anything changes.  Not overly confident it will but not a whole lot of options at this point.

 

[winfried tesmer]

Many thanks for all the information, I'll wait at least 24 hours now, I think that's a possibility. Greetings from Berlin!

[affinbob]

You're most welcome.  

Greetings from the US.... I have a very dear friend who lives in Köln....such a beautiful country. 

[winfried tesmer]

It's 10pm here... Crazy with the time difference between countries. I was in SF in June. L.A. NY and Vegas… very interesting to me. A bit crowded in the cities, but a lot of great people, despite the somewhat strange politics in the USA ... I'll work a little more now and then I'm curious how the problem with Affinity 2 can be solved. I think these are great programs that seem quite flexible, not as conventional and well-established as Photoshop. I will write again in the forum when the problem has been solved. A tip: the previous version of Affinity, the last update also makes it easy to load brushes and assets, etc., so you can bridge the gap until the problem of both version 2 has been resolved. Greetings

[RyS]

I don't know what platform you are using but I have Windows 11 and when uninstalling and reinstalling an Affinity program many items from the first install remain. Using Revo uninstaller gives the option to check and delete any remaining files. With Affinity programs there are vast lists of remaining files.

[winfried tesmer]

thanks , that is what I thought. 

 

[affinbob]

@RyS

I am on a Mac and you are likely correct even with Mac systems.  I was not implying that I scrubbed the entire drive to wipe the app.  I am sure there are other log files, caches, installation debris, etc still around in the system.  Either way, I outlined the method I used with the knowledge I have regarding location of files, etc.  Obviously, other's milage will vary based on the effort put forth, but regardless, I'm not convinced that reinstalling the app is going to solve the problem I'm facing.  As mentioned earlier, running the app on a different test account worked fine and that does lead me to think there may be something wrong that is deeper than I am currently chasing.... time will tell.

Edited November 13, 2022 by affinbob

[winfried tesmer]

yes....we can wait

I wrote to affinity directly when I had other problems, and they always responded quickly and efficiently

 

and when the rush goes down a bit with the 2nd version I'll ask her again. But I think the problem will be as you described it and just wait and work with the older version, which works fine