Apps not opening at all because they're trying to connect to a now defunct server

[swanbda]

Good day,

Recently my company switched servers, and now every Affinity app I have freezes on opening. Designer states an issue connecting to the old server (because it no longer exists), but never opens up, just keeps having that popup show every 20 seconds or so until I Force Quit the app. Photo freezes as well and never opens.

I've tried holding Control while opening, to try and reset the recent documents. That has not worked as the app then just freezes on that panel and continues to show the popup stating an issue connecting to the old server.

I've also deleted both Designer and Photo and re-installed from the app store. No luck there either.

I'm assuming there's some script or cache somewhere that is still telling it to connect to the old server for something. I've searched through my libraries and haven't quite figured out where the problematic script is.

If the app can't connect to an external server, there's no reason that it then just shouldn't open at all.

Seriously looking for help as I use Affinity suite as my main design platform for a marketing agency. Need help asap. 

Thanks in advance!

[loukash]

53 minutes ago, swanbda said:

Recently my company switched servers

That sounds like it's more of a case for your company's IT staff…

56 minutes ago, swanbda said:

I'm assuming there's some script or cache somewhere

Affinity apps use several locations on disk to store settings and chaches. If some of them were previously moved to a server (and then relinked e.g. via Symbolic Links on MacOS), that would theoretically explain what happens. 

In general, an Affinity app installation should always fully reside on the local disk, not on any servers whatsoever. Also, it has been explicitly recommended by staff to open only locally stored documents, not those on a server and saving directly to a server.

[swanbda]

The issue is that even when a server isn't available, that shouldn't cause Affinity to crash or not open at all. The app installation and scripts etc all are stored locally. The only explanation why the app needs to connect to an external server is to open recent documents.

If the app can't reach the server to access a recent document, in my opinion that shouldn't mean that the app doesn't open at all and freezes.

I appreciate that this is an issue caused by my company switching servers, but that doesn't help my predicament of the apps crashing on launch. They are 100% unusable right now.

 

[swanbda]

(as posted in another thread)

SUCCESS! 

Resetting globally in system preferences, then restarting the computer, and then opening the apps with no wifi or LAN worked. It STILL did try to connect to the server, but after about 30 clicks of 'OK', the apps finally opened. Have quit them and reopened a few times now and they seem to be back working normally.

Thanks for that suggestion. A combination of that, and I guess me outlasting the app still trying to connect to the server finally worked.

[mdriftmeyer]

An app attempts to connect to a server mount point should time out with a notification which mount point fails and then default to user desktop path in Finder. 
 

Affinity should contact Apple Dev for clarification on this and what methods need to be called to produce such behavior within the apps so this doesn’t hang the application. They should test the length of timeout optimal from user feedback. UNIX command line timeouts on NeXTSTEP we had preset to 900 ms before pipe closed.

 Personally, I wished they never split OS X in two and then gutted the server side services.

You should launch the app executable from Terminal.app to record the output and find out if it is specific to the application or an issue with macOS/OS X.

[powsimian]

On 12/30/2022 at 4:16 PM, loukash said:

Also, it has been explicitly recommended by staff to open only locally stored documents, not those on a server and saving directly to a server.

This is not a solution for working at scale.

This is a real problem, when the Affinity apps on your computer won't open any files stored on the server without freezing.

But in the real world, my Affinity Designer application is totally useless right now because it thinks every file it opens is on the server. It's really frustrating.

 

EDIT: My solution was pretty easy. I used the "Master Reset" by holding down the control key while Affinity Designer 2 was launching.

[powsimian]

On 12/30/2022 at 6:13 PM, swanbda said:

 

(as posted in another thread)

SUCCESS! 

Resetting globally in system preferences, then restarting the computer, and then opening the apps with no wifi or LAN worked. It STILL did try to connect to the server, but after about 30 clicks of 'OK', the apps finally opened. Have quit them and reopened a few times now and they seem to be back working normally.

Thanks for that suggestion. A combination of that, and I guess me outlasting the app still trying to connect to the server finally worked.

 

The global reset thing doesn't seem as important as the patience to click through the 30 recent files, each of which seems to call upon the now defunct server. The "Master Reset" worked for me once but it didn't work again the next time this happened, where the server IP address changed. 

The challenge is accepting that these pop-ups saying "disconnected from server" keep coming about once a minute for half an hour, where it is hard to believe you're actually making progress. I would have never thought to endure that many slow-acting pop-ups saying the same thing, but it eventually did work.

This is the other thread Swan-Dawg was talking about: 

 

[Pete123]

I'm having the same problem... and tried all of the suggestions, but none seems to work.

I don't work on documents that reside on the network. All my documents are local.
I am connected to a network drive though when in the office, but obviously when I'm at a client, I don't have access to the office network anymore.

Resetting recent documents, either in macos, or in the ctrl-reset dialog, does nothing for me, Affinity apps just hang and spit out the mentioned dialog every minute or so. I also tried clicking ok for 3 hours today, but in the end I gave up. I even tried to run Onyx and restarted the mac several times.

I have recent documents set to 0 in macos, and inside affinity "Reopen documents on startup" is unchecked...

I'm at a complete loss here, there is no reason why affinity applications need to access my network drive.

 

Please Affinity, chime in here and help us out. I'd even welcome a brute force way of editing plist files or something unorthodox... ANY help is welcome.

 

 

Edit : I just noticed that the ctrl-reset trick only seems to actually do something when the network drive is available. If not, the recent files list stays populated.

It is also strange that there are 2 seperate recent files lists. One in the File menu, "Open recent" which seems to be handled by macos... and another seperate list inside the open / new document dialog. The latter needs to be reset with the ctrl-reset dialog, but as said, this only empties the list when the network drive is actually available... back to square one.

So when working at a clients place I need to remind myself to bring the nas... even though I only work on local documents...

[Callum]

Hi All,

This is a known issue that is currently logged with our developers to be fixed. I apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you in the mean time.

Thanks
C

[DanielR]

I'm suffering from the same thing, edited some images on a server at a client's office and now I can't open AP. Tried the CTRL to reset option, dialogue box came up, I checked all the things and clicked clear - proceed to see: There was a problem connecting to the server “NAS_Marketing”. over and over as I click OK every minute for an hour. I've given up for now and pulled out my previous Mac to edit on. I can't be back in my client's office for a week, hope I can get AP working on my M1 Mac again sooner than later. 😢

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, DanielR said:

I'm suffering from the same thing, edited some images on a server at a client's office and now I can't open AP. Tried the CTRL to reset option, dialogue box came up, I checked all the things and clicked clear - proceed to see: There was a problem connecting to the server “NAS_Marketing”. over and over as I click OK every minute for an hour. I've given up for now and pulled out my previous Mac to edit on. I can't be back in my client's office for a week, hope I can get AP working on my M1 Mac again sooner than later. 😢

Deleting the mru.dat file has helped some others in this situation, I think. there are instructions in this post for finding it for Designer 2. If you're4 having a problem with a different one of the apps the path change to make should be obvious. You might try that to see if it gets you working again:

 

[cjsebes]

Well, this is annoying as crap.

Doing the "reset" while holding down the Control key on launch still hit me with unusable software, albeit on the "Reset All of My Settings" screen. I had to force quit.

However, @walt.farrell's link that describes deleting the mru.dat file got Affinity Designer 2 working again. Thank you for that suggestion.

Back to editing!

[markitect]

On 1/25/2023 at 10:24 AM, Callum said:

Hi All,

This is a known issue that is currently logged with our developers to be fixed. I apologise for any inconvenience this has caused you in the mean time.

Thanks
C

Hi Callum

Do we have any idea on timescales when this will be fixed?

It's a fundamental problem not being able to use the software I've paid for.

Version 1 doesn't do this. It's a problem on all three v2 apps.

Thanks Mark

[Callum]

We don't have an ETA on this issue I'm afraid but I can confirm our dev team are still actively looking into the problem it hopefully shouldn't be too long.

[markitect]

On 2/17/2023 at 4:21 PM, Callum said:

We don't have an ETA on this issue I'm afraid but I can confirm our dev team are still actively looking into the problem it hopefully shouldn't be too long.

Thanks Callum

Fingers crossed, its soon!

[fraisecafe]

Curious if there's an update about this.

I've just spent half an hour trying to troubleshoot this and, finally, after clicking "OK" about a dozen times I was finally able to get Publisher 2 to open again, just so I can update it to the latest version, and try to do some work.

This is quite infuriating given that there's no reason why this should practically require access to a server just to open/upgrade software.

[walt.farrell]

56 minutes ago, fraisecafe said:

Curious if there's an update about this.

It hasn't been fixed yet, or there would probably be a post indicating that and what release you need for the fix.

Deleting the mru.dat file is probably your simplest workaround, as mentioned above.

[Pkuperus]

I've had this problem for a few months now and its driving me crazy, please fix this devs!! I work on a server at work and when i get home i can't even open affinity photo or it crashes. I've tried everything from reinstalling affinity by itself and restarting my mac after that. Nothing works. Does anybody have some tips? I'm not really a geek but i know bits of it so don't make it too complicated

 

[Pkuperus]

I have this problem with affinity photo. I think it tries to recover files from the server. But when i reset everything it crashes as well. Can you please help me?

 

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, Pkuperus said:

I've had this problem for a few months now and its driving me crazy, please fix this devs!! I work on a server at work and when i get home i can't even open affinity photo or it crashes. I've tried everything from reinstalling affinity by itself and restarting my mac after that. Nothing works. Does anybody have some tips? I'm not really a geek but i know bits of it so don't make it too complicated

 

Please see my post above about deleting the mru.dat file.

[Pkuperus]

Thank you for helping, where can i find the mru.dat file?

 

[walt.farrell]

36 minutes ago, Pkuperus said:

Thank you for helping, where can i find the mru.dat file?

 

It's explained in the post I linked to earlier. For easy reference: 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/176693-affinity-designer-2-quit-unexpectedly/&do=findComment&comment=1034961

 

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "App attempts to reconnect to disconnected SMB share on launch" (REF: AFB-7024) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.1.0.1728".
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.

[Rob Luxford]

Hope the release is soon.

Remote wifi shooting is impossible cos once laptop is connected to the camera, the server is no longer available and Affinity Photo 2 doesn’t start. 

Great. 

 

[cjsebes]

@Serif Info Bot

Alas, no joy in my world. I've just upgraded to Affinity Photo 2.1.1 in hopes of seeing that the "can't connect to server" issue has been fixed  I'm on a 2012 MacBook Pro running Catalina. I'm still getting the message. Again, I've had to delete the mru.dat file to get things to work.

Edited July 31, 2023 by cjsebes