Export Slices dialog beachballs AD2 [Fixed?]

[JGD]

Hi guys. I've been trying to export an icon file into several .PNG slices, and the Export Slices dialog consistently makes AD2 irrecoverably hang.

This is an old bug that also affected, IIRC, AD1, but it seems to have gotten worse; before it was intermittent, but now it seems to have borked this functionality altogether (I can try with other similar files, however). If you want, I can also send you the file for you to test on.

I've also recorded a small video of it in action; you can't see the beachball cursor, because of some weird limitation in QuickTime, but believe me, it's there and it appears just a few seconds after the dialog opens (also, even if I quickly try to change to a different destination folder, those clicks aren't ever registered). 

 

 

[JGD]

By the way, I did manage to get out of the loop, by manually exporting an individual slice (through a click on the rightmost square-and-arrow widget/button, not the “Export Slices” one).

[norbinw]

Yeah, welcome to the crash club. Good luck waiting for a fix, it's been around since 2021. It took them 2 months to fix the save to external SSD issue :)))))))))

Whenever I export, I have to force close about 5-6x /day. I always leave them a nice "FU" message in crash report, as they deserve nothing else! Since FKN 2021 !!!!!!! I wanted to believe in them, further support them by purchasing V2, believing they will fix this. Boy was I wrong, lazy a$s devs!

[Lee D]

@JGD Thanks for your report, I've included it with an existing issue that relates to the Export Persona.

[lalcimo]

On 12/21/2022 at 11:22 PM, JGD said:

Hi guys. I've been trying to export an icon file into several .PNG slices, and the Export Slices dialog consistently makes AD2 irrecoverably hang.

This is an old bug that also affected, IIRC, AD1, but it seems to have gotten worse; before it was intermittent, but now it seems to have borked this functionality altogether (I can try with other similar files, however). If you want, I can also send you the file for you to test on.

I've also recorded a small video of it in action; you can't see the beachball cursor, because of some weird limitation in QuickTime, but believe me, it's there and it appears just a few seconds after the dialog opens (also, even if I quickly try to change to a different destination folder, those clicks aren't ever registered). 

 

 

What Mac are you using?

I'm using Macbook Pro M1 2020. I have 8GB RAM and 512GB storage. Running on Ventura 13.2
I have this problem whenever I export slices in Export Persona. I have this issue even in V1. I thought my 8GB RAM doesn't just cut it specially I have large nested working files.

- To combat this problem, when I'm about to export, I save my file first. And then restart Affinity and reopen my file. Most of the time it doesn't beachball this way.

- But if it did, I force quit AD and then reopen it. AD will restore your file and will automatically open it for you, but DO NOT export from here. Close it again and restart AD. Then just proceed to exporting your file.

 

Sometimes I forgot to do this process and succumb to the beachball 😑. Sometimes it doesn't when I'm working on a small file.

I hope they fix this issue soon.

 

[norbinw]

Are you serious? Instead of losing 2 minutes saving, closing, opening etc. I just accept the hang, force close Designer, and export after that.. You get 1-2 exports before it hangs again.

Let's see 2.1 update, but my money is on "it won't be fixed"

[Heinrichdsf]

On 12/21/2022 at 4:25 PM, JGD said:

By the way, I did manage to get out of the loop, by manually exporting an individual slice (through a click on the rightmost square-and-arrow widget/button, not the “Export Slices” one).

It seems now, in V2, that I am able to use the export persona successfully each time when using the little export icon next to my layer. However the actual export button at the bottom just beach balls still.

[Rriver]

It consistently happens on two of my Mac, M1 Pro MacBook Pro (Ventura 13.1) and M1 Max Mac Studio (Ventura 13.2.1). I have Google Drive, Dropbox, and Adobe Creative Cloud running on both devices.

As described in the previous posts, individual export of slices work fine but the button at the bottom does not work. It shows the beach ball.

Really hoping this will be fixed!! I tried to save before exporting, but sometimes I lose hours of my work because of this...

[JGD]

On 2/3/2023 at 2:53 AM, lalcimo said:

What Mac are you using?

I'm using Macbook Pro M1 2020. I have 8GB RAM and 512GB storage. Running on Ventura 13.2
I have this problem whenever I export slices in Export Persona. I have this issue even in V1. I thought my 8GB RAM doesn't just cut it specially I have large nested working files.

- To combat this problem, when I'm about to export, I save my file first. And then restart Affinity and reopen my file. Most of the time it doesn't beachball this way.

- But if it did, I force quit AD and then reopen it. AD will restore your file and will automatically open it for you, but DO NOT export from here. Close it again and restart AD. Then just proceed to exporting your file.

 

Sometimes I forgot to do this process and succumb to the beachball 😑. Sometimes it doesn't when I'm working on a small file.

I hope they fix this issue soon.

 

I'm using a Mac Studio with an M1 Max processor (the base model) and 64 GB of RAM, and now running on Ventura 13.2.1. I haven't tested this on my old 13'' 2012 MacBook Pro (also running the latest version of macOS, thanks to OpenCore Legacy Patcher), but will be sure to check it out if I have the time.

I've just managed to reproduce this crash with yet another icon template, but am now in the process of installing an update that just came out, so let's see if it fixes this bug. Considering how this bug was reported in December and a few updates, which seemingly didn't fix the bug, were out in the meantime, I'm not holding my breath, though…

Edit: at first it seemed as if the bug was fixed, but upon trying to change the destination folder, boom, got the dreaded beachball again.

Guys, seriously? This is a really troublesome bug, as batch exporting slices is a very important part of UI design workflows… Do you really need more than two months to fix this?

Edit #2: the workaround posted by @Heinrichdsf and @Rriver now does seem to get the “Export Slices” button “unstuck” after successfully exporting at least one layer, but this is all too “voodoo-like” for my taste. Not every user will be savvy enough to try that sort of thing on their own or check the forums, and just assume the app is completely broken.

Edit #3: after enrolling in the new Beta program, downloading the first v.2.1.0 beta .dmg and updating it through Sparkle to v.2.1.0.1709, the bug seems to be fixed. Further testing with other icon template files will be needed until I can confidently say I cannot reproduce it anymore but, so far, it's looking promising (as I indeed couldn't reproduce it, at least with one of the last few files that triggered it). Guess I may have spoken, well, not exactly too soon, but right as the dev team was getting around to fixing this. Good job!

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Export Persona hang in Open and Save Panel Process when Exporting Slices" (REF: AFD-5921) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.1.0.1781".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.

[norbinw]

Is it just me, or sometimes hitting export does nothing...? It's the 3rd time already, randomly, when hitting export closes the dialog box normally, but nothing gets exported.. Exporting again, after that, works.