Publisher V2 is unstable, crashes sometimes

[mark us]

Publisher V2 is unstable, crashes sometimes, will there be a fix soon?

[Jose Alvarez]

I have the same problem in Windows 10, 8 Gb RAM, working with empty tables, setting up them it crashes randomly. I can't say very much, no problems in V1.

[dlampel]

I have never had any Affinity programs crash as much or as often as v2 Publisher has from the first day out.

Don't misunderstand: I am a big fan and remain a faithful customer. I wholeheartedly praise Affinity for its pricing structure and for releasing so many updates/fixes/improvements. But come on! I have been doing the simplest things--no big magazine layouts, just basic text newsletters with the occasional graphic. But no matter how careful I am, it keeps crashing. Windows 11 fully updated, 16 GB RAM, plenty of disc space, Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-10400 CPU @ 2.90GHz   2.90 GHz.

If there is any commonality to the crashes (i.e., freeze, then disappears from the screen and memory) for me it is related to copying text from one Pub doc to another, along with its supposed ability to read v1 files. For example, the last time it crashed, I prepared beforehand by 

1. Opening my old v1 publication, then resaved it under a new name using v2.
2. Closed that new v2 file, then reopened it.
3. Opened my new v2 publication file (created from scratch using v2).
4. Returned to the first file (now a v2 file) and clicked on a text frame to copy it to the clipboard.
5. Crash.

Regarding older, v1 templates, usually if I convert them to v2 before trying to create a new v2 file using them, it works. But opening a v1 template to create a new v2 document? Guaranteed crash.

I will say again what I said in another post: I love ya, Affinity, but v2 was not yet ready for prime time.

[RichardMH]

Have you tried with hardware acceleration turned off? Edit->Preferences->Performance.

 

[dlampel]

3 hours ago, RichardMH said:

Have you tried with hardware acceleration turned off? Edit->Preferences->Performance.

 

Yes, I turned that off shortly after installation.

By the way, pasting text from other sources, such as word processor files or e-mail do not have the same problem. The weak link seems to be v2 reading content or files first created in v1. 

[Happy Gilmore]

The iPad apps all crash a lot. Particularly designer. ITs really frustrating and making it unusable.

[dlampel]

In a section of this forum where there are lots of (mostly valid) complaints, I would like to express a big Thank-you! to Affinity for so quickly issuing the 2.03 update--especially, for me, Publisher. At first I was chagrined at not finding my issues on the list of fixes, but once I got to work using 2.03 it was obvious that many had indeed been addressed and fixed. Thank you, Affinity (Serif) for your diligent work. It is much appreciated.

[Fenyman]

After working a few days in V2, I can report the same problems. I have the newest version and after running Publisher for 5+ minutes it gets really really slow with many freezes when doing simple operations like changing color, or changing table strokes. Since I have a tight deadline, this is just unusable and frustrating.

And yes, hardware acceleration off/on and restarted, for both the same issues - slow performance, freezes, crashes.

My system:  Windows 10, 96GB RAM, 1950 Threadripper, RTX 2080. Newest drivers are installed.

[Gaal Dornik]

Agreed. Tried APub 2.0.3 recently for my work instead of InDesign. Here is my thoughts...

Pros

- Easy to use = Fast workflow

Cons

- Pretty unstable & slow with 350+ pages with linked hi res (300+ dpi) images

Crashed particularly when i selected images or RGB Curves on them. One thing to note here - i was using RGB Curves on CMYK images,

idk is it made a difference... Sometimes i've seen 22GB+ of RAM usage in the Windows Task Manager when it hanged.

- Prefs are resetting after each crash - why they don't get saved in a file?

 

In general i'd like to see more stability and smooth performance on projects with a lot of pages.

 

Specs: Windows 10 22H2, i7 8700K/32GB RAM, RTX 2070 Latest to date Studio Driver, NVMe Drive, Default APub prefs - just added auto update for modified images.

[Seneca]

3 hours ago, Gaal Dornik said:

Tried APub 2.0.3 recently for my work instead of InDesign.

I hope you are aware that 2.0.4 is out. It would be instructive to check how Publisher 2.0.4 performs for you.

[MikeTO]

5 hours ago, Gaal Dornik said:

- Prefs are resetting after each crash - why they don't get saved in a file?

Like many apps, Affinity saves the current window set up when you quit. Things like toolbar and panel position and visibility aren't saved until you quit unless you specifically save a studio preset.

When Affinity crashes, there isn't a chance to save that setup. But if you set things up, quit, and then restarted Affinity, it should re-open that way if you later crash the app.

As Seneca said, give 2.0.4 a go, there are a lot of fixes. There are still ways to crash it but it's a big improvement.