Large brushes hang

[Stolzy]

Bit of a strange one this.

If I try and use any tool with a brush (brush, selection brush tool, blur/sharpen, dodge/burn etc) with a brush size more than about 400 px, the brush hangs.  The white circle stops moving until the brush size is reduced to less than about 400px.

I'd hoped upgrading to V2 would solve it, but alas no.

 

Anyone have a clue?

[Stolzy]

Anyone?

[Stolzy]

Anybody have an idea?

 

[NathanC]

Hey @Stolzy Apologies on the delayed reply,

Is this a problem you're still experiencing as of the latest update (2.0.4)?

If it is, could you advise if you're on Mac or Windows and if you're using a drawing tablet or mouse? Does disabling Hardware Acceleration (Preferences > Performance) and restarting the app have any impact?

It would also be good if you could provide a screen recording which demonstrates the problem after resizing your brush width.

[Stolzy]

Sorry for late reply, but I'd more or less given up on this.

Yes, still the same with 2.0.4

Mac,drawing tablet or mouse just the same.

Disabling hardware acceleration makes no difference.

 

I'll try and make a screen recording

[Stolzy]

By coincidence I've just noticed that it works fine from another Mac OS X user.

[Stolzy]

Anyone?

[NathanC]

Hi @Stolzy,

Apologies I had missed your reply, I've included some follow up queries/requests below:

- Which OS version are you using?

- Do you have a screen recording which demonstrates the problem with the lag on larger brush sizes?

- Could you provide a screenshot of your app Performance Preferences window?

- Which affinity app(s) are you using and are you using a pixel brush? If it is a pixel brush, are you testing this with the default round brush or a custom brush?

- Are you running the latest app version (2.1.1)?

Screen recording guide: 

 

Many thanks!

 

[Stolzy]

On 7/14/2023 at 12:04 PM, NathanC said:

Hi @Stolzy,

Apologies I had missed your reply, I've included some follow up queries/requests below:

- Which OS version are you using?

- Do you have a screen recording which demonstrates the problem with the lag on larger brush sizes?

- Could you provide a screenshot of your app Performance Preferences window?

- Which affinity app(s) are you using and are you using a pixel brush? If it is a pixel brush, are you testing this with the default round brush or a custom brush?

- Are you running the latest app version (2.1.1)?

Screen recording guide: 

 

Many thanks!

 

 

[Stolzy]

On 7/14/2023 at 12:04 PM, NathanC said:

Hi @Stolzy,

Apologies I had missed your reply, I've included some follow up queries/requests below:

- Which OS version are you using?

10.15.7

- Do you have a screen recording which demonstrates the problem with the lag on larger brush sizes?

The recording will just show a non-moving large brush.

- Could you provide a screenshot of your app Performance Preferences window?

Attached

- Which affinity app(s) are you using and are you using a pixel brush? If it is a pixel brush, are you testing this with the default round brush or a custom brush?

Any brush, clone brush, selection brush, healing brush etc.  As soon as it goes over about 400px it stops moving with mouse movements.

- Are you running the latest app version (2.1.1)?

Yes, problem has been the same for the last three versions.

It's clearly a problem with the user files.  If i create another user account on the same computer then it works fine.  A solution would be (I suspect) to remove all AP files from the user account and reinstall, but I don't know how to do this.

 

 

 

[Stolzy]

Anyone there?

[NathanC]

Hi @Stolzy,

Apologies on the late reply and thanks for the screenshot, I did see earlier that you mentioned that it doesn't happen on a different MacOS user, this could indicate to their being a problem with a 3rd party app/high hardware usage or an issue with your local user settings, So I would also suggest limiting the number of other apps you have opened at the time at which you're using the brush, and also trying a full factory reset of your local settings by following the below (Note: this will reset all custom brushes, user settings, assets etc. so these will need to be re-imported and configured after):

1. Close all Affinity apps
2. Hold down CTRL and launch Photo 2 whilst still holding CTRL
3. A 'Clear user data' menu will appear, check all boxes excluding 'De-activate affinity 2 apps' at the bottom
4. Press 'Clear' and the app will now launch, try using the brush again.

If it still continues, we would really benefit if you could provide us with the other information mentioned in my previous post, particularly the screen recording demonstrating the problem (This is very easy to do with Quicktime player on Mac).

On 7/14/2023 at 12:04 PM, NathanC said:

- Which OS version are you using?

- Do you have a screen recording which demonstrates the problem with the lag on larger brush sizes?

- Which affinity app(s) are you using and are you using a pixel brush? If it is a pixel brush, are you testing this with the default round brush or a custom brush?

- Are you running the latest app version (2.1.1)?

Many thanks

[Stolzy]

Just the same I'm afraid

 

- Which OS version are you using?

10.15.7

- Do you have a screen recording which demonstrates the problem with the lag on larger brush sizes?

Attached

- Which affinity app(s) are you using and are you using a pixel brush? If it is a pixel brush, are you testing this with the default round brush or a custom brush?

Any brush

- Are you running the latest app version (2.1.1)?

 

 

[NathanC]

Thanks for the attached details and recording, To be candid it's not entirely clear from your recording that there is present brush lag as you didn't set a healing brush source (Alt/OPT), so nothing would visually happen on the canvas anyway. Further to this, the Healing brush is an incredibly hardware resource intensive process, particularly at large brush sizes (~400PX) it can lag whilst using this tool during the rendering, I also observe this on my Mac on larger brush sizes.

For comparison, if you use just the standard brush tool, select a basic round brush and then set the size to 400px and record it, could you confirm if you experience this lag, and if so send us a recording?

Many thanks!

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, NathanC said:

To be candid it's not entirely clear from your recording that there is present brush lag as you didn't set a healing brush source (Alt/OPT), so nothing would visually happen on the canvas anyway.

It is hard to tell from the low contrast between selected & unselected layers but it also looks like no layer is selected in the Layers panel when using the brush.

[Stolzy]

Exactly the same with any brush.  The computer is a recent high-spec MacPro - I don't think system resources are the problem

[R C-R]

32 minutes ago, Stolzy said:

Exactly the same with any brush.

What (if any) kind of layer have you selected when you start using the Paint or other brush tools?

[Stolzy]

Pixel layer usually, but the same effect occurs with any type of layer.

To reiterate, this is something to do with the account.  If I switch the mac to a new account it doesn't happen.  If anyone knows how to delete all the AP account info, I suspect the problem would be solved.

[NathanC]

14 minutes ago, Stolzy said:

To reiterate, this is something to do with the account.  If I switch the mac to a new account it doesn't happen.  If anyone knows how to delete all the AP account info, I suspect the problem would be solved.

We've previously run through doing a CTRL-runup which is essentially a full factory reset of Photo to it's default configuration, but it may be worth just wiping off the Affinity directories and re-installing for a completely clean slate:

- In /Library/Preferences/  rename the 'com.seriflabs.affinityphoto2.plist' file to add 'OLD' on the end

- In /Library/Group Containers/  rename the '6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs' folder to add 'OLD' on the end

- Delete the Affinity Photo app from applications, empty the bin and then re-install Photo and launch again.

At this point the app will be a completely fresh install on your Mac user, but failing that it may be more difficult to pinpoint since it's an issue specific to a mac user environment such as a 3rd party app unknown to us causing problems.

[Stolzy]

On 9/20/2023 at 10:46 AM, NathanC said:

We've previously run through doing a CTRL-runup which is essentially a full factory reset of Photo to it's default configuration, but it may be worth just wiping off the Affinity directories and re-installing for a completely clean slate:

- In /Library/Preferences/  rename the 'com.seriflabs.affinityphoto2.plist' file to add 'OLD' on the end

- In /Library/Group Containers/  rename the '6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs' folder to add 'OLD' on the end

- Delete the Affinity Photo app from applications, empty the bin and then re-install Photo and launch again.

At this point the app will be a completely fresh install on your Mac user, but failing that it may be more difficult to pinpoint since it's an issue specific to a mac user environment such as a 3rd party app unknown to us causing problems.

There are no /Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto2.plist file nor  /Library/Group Containers/6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs folder

I presume this should have been ~/Library/Preferences/com.seriflabs.affinityphoto2.plist and  ~/Library/Group Containers/6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs respectively.  I have deleted this file and folder and ctrl-started Affinity photo and it makes no difference.