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750 GBytes of Unwanted Photo Autosave Files - How to Prevent & Manage?


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18 minutes ago, Richard S said:

I was surprised to find another 1GBytes of unwanted files from yesterday's use. From memory, each autosave file was about 140MBytes. Each original TIFF files was probably about 80MBytes.

To detect what the .autosave files in fact contain you could try this:

• With the app closed move or copy one of these .autosave files from its system folder to a documents folder.
• Rename the copied/moved file including its suffix from .autosave to the suffix of your Affinity app (.afphoto, .afdesign, .afpub).
• Open the app and open this renamed file. If it wasn't saved by Affinity as incremental temp data only then it may open and appear as one of the previously used documents.

This might help to detect what's going on or what in particular resists from being auto-deleted.

macOS 10.14.6 | MacBookPro Retina 15" | Eizo 27" | Affinity V1

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I've been meaning to finish this for ages and here it is, a Powershell script to clear up after Affinity
It will remove autosaves, crash reports and their attachments for Photo & Publisher Version1. As written it will act on files older than 15days, this can be simply amended as shown in the comments - edit with a text editor.
There are two scripts, CleanupAffinityClutterSAFE.ps1 uses the  -WhatIf switch and lots of pauses so that files/ directories that would be deleted will be shown but not actually deleted. Run that first then when you're convinced it works run CleanupAffinityClutter.ps1 to delete them
It works very well in Яuislip but use at your own risk. I'm not going to use V2 so I'll leave it to someone else to produce a modern version. Oh yeah, also cleans up after G'MIC
Merry Christmas

CleanupAffinityClutterSAFE.ps1 CleanupAffinityClutter.ps1

Microsoft Windows 11 Home, Intel i7-1360P 2.20 GHz, 32 GB RAM, 1TB SSD, Intel Iris Xe
Affinity Photo - 24/05/20, Affinity Publisher - 06/12/20, KTM Superduke - 27/09/10

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1 hour ago, thomaso said:

To detect what the .autosave files in fact contain you could try this:

• With the app closed move or copy one of these .autosave files from its system folder to a documents folder.
• Rename the copied/moved file including its suffix from .autosave to the suffix of your Affinity app (.afphoto, .afdesign, .afpub).
• Open the app and open this renamed file. If it wasn't saved by Affinity as incremental temp data only then it may open and appear as one of the previously used documents.

This might help to detect what's going on or what in particular resists from being auto-deleted.

Thanks. If this continues, I'll try to look more closely, but am a bit distracted at present.

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47 minutes ago, David in Яuislip said:

I've been meaning to finish this for ages and here it is, a Powershell script to clear up after Affinity
It will remove autosaves, crash reports and their attachments for Photo & Publisher Version1. As written it will act on files older than 15days, this can be simply amended as shown in the comments - edit with a text editor.
There are two scripts, CleanupAffinityClutterSAFE.ps1 uses the  -WhatIf switch and lots of pauses so that files/ directories that would be deleted will be shown but not actually deleted. Run that first then when you're convinced it works run CleanupAffinityClutter.ps1 to delete them
It works very well in Яuislip but use at your own risk. I'm not going to use V2 so I'll leave it to someone else to produce a modern version. Oh yeah, also cleans up after G'MIC
Merry Christmas

CleanupAffinityClutterSAFE.ps1 2.62 kB · 1 download CleanupAffinityClutter.ps1 2.5 kB · 0 downloads

Many thanks for doing this.

However, this Affinity problem was a complete surprise to me, followed by the lucky discovery of the hidden 750GBytes of appdata files. How many other Affinity customers have been hit (unknowingly) by this problem and then assumed that their PCs or MACs were broken, or that Affinity programs were "rubbish"?

At the very least, Serif / Affinity needs to warn customers: eg. the help file for the next Affinity update should have information about these autosave files.

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I have been following this thread with interest as my PC has had affinity photo since 1.5 and has absolutely no problems with any amount of temp files. My autosave folder which I had never looked at until this discussion came up has a total of 11 files 645mb since 2019. My PC is AMD Phenom2 4 core with 12 GB Ram, Win 10 Pro and multiple internal 1TB drives so its nothing special and getting a bit old now. In general photo editing I rarely get crashes. I have not changed any of the defaults in the options either.

This sounds like an issue that may not be directly related to the program, rather the machine configuration/specification causing multiple crashes.

Geoff

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48 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

This sounds like an issue that may not be directly related to the program, rather the machine configuration/specification causing multiple crashes.

Thanks. Apart from Win 10 Pro instead of Win10 Home, it sounds as if your PC is a more powerful desktop. Do you normally process files from your PC's internal drives, rather than external USB hard drives? Do you often process large TIFF files?

I hope that a change to the configuration of the laptop can reduce the problem, but wonder what? Laptops are normally set to optimise saving of battery power.

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14 hours ago, Richard S said:

However, this Affinity problem was a complete surprise to me ...

Well, if you would have done before some Forum- or Google search about that topic ...

... you would have discovered a bunch of threads and discussions about the "autosave" feature theme of the Affinity apps, since it's nothing new for many forum users here.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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Yes it's a desktop so I don't have to care about battery power. Win10 Home probably defaults to conserve power on a laptop so that's one option to try. When I was working and had a laptop for work (3D MCad modelling) we changed the power settings from the default and also ran off docking stations.

My files are all on internal drives. I don't process large TIFF files regularly as my camera files are either raw or jpg. The TIFF files I worked on recently are from my scanner and can vary from 12 to 100 Mb .  However when I'm editing I'll often have multiple Afphoto files of anything from 20 to 40 mb file size each open simultaneously without any problems

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19 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Well, if you would have done before some Forum- or Google search about that topic ...

... you would have discovered a bunch of threads and discussions about the "autosave" feature theme of the Affinity apps, since it's nothing new for many forum users here.

Maybe, but trying to help diagnose the troubled laptop's full hard drive by telephone, I had no idea that the problem was caused by a glitch in Affinity or that Affinity could cause such a problem.

Once I had physical access to the laptop and had found & cleared the problem, I did search Google and these forums, but although I saw a few posts, none seemed relevant and many related to Beta versions.

How many ordinary (non-technical) users have unknowingly suffered this glitch then ditched Affinity or their troubled PCs?

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26 minutes ago, GeoffH said:

Win10 Home probably defaults to conserve power on a laptop so that's one option to try. When I was working and had a laptop for work (3D MCad modelling) we changed the power settings from the default and also ran off docking stations.

Thanks. Win10 Pro probably has better features for dealing with external and networked files.

I'm wondering whether Win10 Home still allows access to settings such as "write behind" which might delay the writing of large files to these external drives? (With each update, Microsoft seems to "simplify" (ie. dumb-down) the amount of user control.)

Alternatively, perhaps the scanner automatically set the TIFF files to "read only" and that is upsetting Affinity?

I'll have another look.

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30 minutes ago, Richard S said:

How many ordinary (non-technical) users have unknowingly suffered this glitch then ditched Affinity or their troubled PCs?

Don't know how many suffered from that. - Many people had even harder OpenCL/GPU based problems and app crashes with the v1 apps.

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

Don't know how many suffered from that. - Many people had even harder OpenCL/GPU based problems and app crashes with the v1 apps.

Yes, but Affinity provides a setting for fixing the GPU problem. There is also information in the Affinity Help file. There is no setting nor information about this problem with accumulating unwanted autosave files.

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19 minutes ago, Richard S said:

There is also "no" information in the Affinity Help file. There is no setting nor information about this problem with accumulating unwanted autosave files.

Serif sadly does miss a lot to explain in general & more detail about certain app functionality inside/among the Affinity help files and also their FAQ entries. - The term "autosave" will not appear there and so most ordinary (non-technical) users might therefor not know that it's associated with the "File recovery interval, Preferences --> Performance setting" at all. - That's BTW also the reason why I above suggested to always best search via Google through the forum contents (aka possible existing threads) then for the "autosave" files term. Since most themes & problems etc. have been already discussed x-times before in the past in the forum!

☛ Affinity Designer 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Photo 1.10.8 ◆ Affinity Publisher 1.10.8 ◆ OSX El Capitan
☛ Affinity V2.3 apps ◆ MacOS Sonoma 14.2 ◆ iPad OS 17.2

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2 hours ago, v_kyr said:

Serif sadly does miss a lot to explain in general & more detail about certain app functionality inside/among the Affinity help files and also their FAQ entries. - The term "autosave" will not appear there and so most ordinary (non-technical) users might therefor not know that it's associated with the "File recovery interval, Preferences --> Performance setting" at all. - That's BTW also the reason why I above suggested to always best search via Google through the forum contents (aka possible existing threads) then for the "autosave" files term. Since most themes & problems etc. have been already discussed x-times before in the past in the forum!

Thanks. But as always, it is easier to guess suitable search terms AFTER you have found the answer!

Thanks for pointing to the "File Recovery Interval" setting. In our use, where we are mostly tweaking existing photo images, that feature is probably not helpful, so I will probably increase the "Interval."

BTW. I have just processed a photo on my Windows 11 desktop PC from its internal hard drive, using Version 2.03. Affinity saved no "autosave" or "crash report" files.

BTW2. I've now cleared old "hidden" drivers for USB storage devices in the Windows Device Manager of both PCs. For some reason, these entries seem to accumulate in Windows when you use lots of USB devices, or the same devices via different USB ports. When these entries hit a limit, Windows seems to misbehave. One symptom is that the "Safely Remove" feature becomes unreliable.

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I have been working for only a short time with Affinity Photo and, FWIW, if I create a new file, edit it, and save it, a file is created in the "autosave" folder. After I quit Affinity Photo, the autosave folder is empty, no files there at all.

Just my personal experience. Windows 10 Pro. File recovery interval is set to 300 which is the default.

Affinity Photo and Design V1. Windows 10 Pro 64-bit. Dell Precision 7710 laptop. Intel Core i7. RAM 32GB. NVIDIA Quadro M4000M.

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3 hours ago, henryanthony said:

I have been working for only a short time with Affinity Photo and, FWIW, if I create a new file, edit it, and save it, a file is created in the "autosave" folder. After I quit Affinity Photo, the autosave folder is empty, no files there at all.

Just my personal experience. Windows 10 Pro. File recovery interval is set to 300 which is the default.

Thanks. That's good news... for Affinity.

We seldom "save" Affinity Photo files; just "export" the results of the tweaking.

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Sadly, I've had to switch this laptop back to AF Photo V1. So the problem with large unwanted "autosave" files has come back. Some of these files are over 200MBytes, so the laptop's hard drive is filling-up fast.

AF Photo V2 was hopeless on this laptop: Although its 1366 x 768 screen meets the Affinity tech spec, unfortunately a design bug in Affinity V2 means that its dialogues don't work if "Windows scaling" is set to 125% rather than 100%. (Some ancient Serif "Plus" programs had the same problem. I thought that Serif / Affinity had learnt the lesson.)

If I set Windows Scaling to 100%, text is too hard to read.

The first AF Photo V2 dialogue to fail is the vital Export dialogue. (Which in AF Photo V2 is a single long dialogue instead of the two dialogues in V1.) Unfortunately, the "Export" and "Cancel" buttons are fixed on the bottom margin, below the bottom of the screen. There is no way to scroll to them, and "tabbing" to these buttons does not work properly either.

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On 12/28/2022 at 8:04 PM, Richard S said:

Sadly, I've had to switch this laptop back to AF Photo V1. So the problem with large unwanted "autosave" files has come back. Some of these files are over 200MBytes, so the laptop's hard drive is filling-up fast.

AF Photo V2 was hopeless on this laptop: Although its 1366 x 768 screen meets the Affinity tech spec, unfortunately a design bug in Affinity V2 means that its dialogues don't work if "Windows scaling" is set to 125% rather than 100%. (Some ancient Serif "Plus" programs had the same problem. I thought that Serif / Affinity had learnt the lesson.)

If I set Windows Scaling to 100%, text is too hard to read.

The first AF Photo V2 dialogue to fail is the vital Export dialogue. (Which in AF Photo V2 is a single long dialogue instead of the two dialogues in V1.) Unfortunately, the "Export" and "Cancel" buttons are fixed on the bottom margin, below the bottom of the screen. There is no way to scroll to them, and "tabbing" to these buttons does not work properly either.

I had a full crash at the start of  using any V2 app when double clicking the color sample (be it the foreground or background one), until I read a crash log that made me think of Windows scaling. I had set it at 110%. Turns out that after quite some tests, discovered that it makes it crash at 110% and 102%. Probably at other random factors. But NOT in many others. Like, it works perfectly at 109% (which looks kind of identical than 110%) , 125, 111, 140, etc.

But not choosing the "standard" Windows scaling option, but the "custom or advanced" one, where you type (instead of choosing one from a deploying menu list) a number. It is a different problem and type of dialog, but could be related to the same root, problem or type of issue. I would try to set in "custom/advanced", in that Windows Settings Screen configuration, other factors, like 115% or 120%, etc, till you find a factor that works for you. You are not restricted only to 125% or 100%. If you find it working so like I did, it's a bunch of months of use that you would earn before the issue gets fixed. It worked amazingly well for me.

Edit: You might need to reboot your Windows for everything to take effect and work well.

Like in the screen below (apologies, it's in Spanish). (You reach there by clicking the Windows Start icon, then Settings, then System, then Screen).

windows-scaling.png.54c2fd7bb30af90f3cb9650623b05521.png

 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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10 hours ago, SrPx said:

I had a full crash at the start of  using any V2 app when double clicking the color sample (be it the foreground or background one), until I read a crash log that made me think of Windows scaling. I had set it at 110%. Turns out that after quite some tests, discovered that it makes it crash at 110% and 102%. Probably at other random factors. But NOT in many others. Like, it works perfectly at 109% (which looks kind of identical than 110%) , 125, 111, 140, etc.

But not choosing the "standard" Windows scaling option, but the "custom or advanced" one, where you type (instead of choosing one from a deploying menu list) a number. It is a different problem and type of dialog, but could be related to the same root, problem or type of issue. I would try to set in "custom/advanced", in that Windows Settings Screen configuration, other factors, like 115% or 120%, etc, till you find a factor that works for you. You are not restricted only to 125% or 100%. If you find it working so like I did, it's a bunch of months of use that you would earn before the issue gets fixed. It worked amazingly well for me.

Edit: You might need to reboot your Windows for everything to take effect and work well.

Thanks for this. An interesting discovery, and useful work-arounds. I hope Affinity locates and fixes the crash problem very soon.

I hope Affinity recognises that many people (need to) use Windows Scaling so as to work comfortably with their PCs, and that Affinity soon resolves these problems.

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I am curious, though...Were you able to configure your Windows at 115%, 120% or something like that, something that worked well with your Affinity apps? Or another factor? Leaving it at something comfortable, of course. 

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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4 hours ago, SrPx said:

I am curious, though...Were you able to configure your Windows at 115%, 120% or something like that, something that worked well with your Affinity apps? Or another factor? Leaving it at something comfortable, of course. 

Thanks. Great idea: Setting the Windows Scaling to 120% is a reasonable compromise... until Affinity resolves the issue. The "Export" & "Cancel" buttons are visible.

(Forum won't let me upload a screenshot.)

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Great!! 

PD: I believe once you are editing a post or making a new one, the cyan colored area below the text area, you drag a file there from a Windows folder, and it should work. Unless there's a problem which I am not aware of.

AD, AP and APub. V1.10.6 and V2.4 Windows 10 and Windows 11. 
Ryzen 9 3900X, 32 GB RAM,  RTX 3060 12GB, Wacom Intuos XL, Wacom L. Eizo ColorEdge CS 2420 monitor. Windows 10 Pro.
(Laptop) HP Omen 16-b1010ns 12700H, 32GB DDR5, nVidia RTX 3060 6GB + Huion Kamvas 22 pen display, Windows 11 Pro.

 

 

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9 minutes ago, SrPx said:

Great!! 

PD: I believe once you are editing a post or making a new one, the cyan colored area below the text area, you drag a file there from a Windows folder, and it should work. Unless there's a problem which I am not aware of.

Thanks. Today, it seems that nothing (and no-one) likes me. ;-) Better luck next year?

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