Index gets the wrong page number when using Books, and other bugs with Books

[nicanorrr]

Hello, in the book I'm working on the page numbers in an index are wrong. I'm using a book and I think that is the source of the bug.

I've recreated the bug and am attaching the afpub and afbook files here of the recreation.

The screenshot below is of the first page. The first text frame has the TOC while the lower box has the Index. I've put and flagged Topic2 on page 3 (on the first afpub chapter) and page 6 (on the 2nd afpub chapter). As you can see in the index, Topic2 is said to be found on page7, 6 instead of 3,6.

I've also encountered many other issues with books but is hard for me to recreate and describe further:

• crashing
• suddenly an open afpub cannot be manipulated in any way (when i type nothing happens, none of the elements can be moved resized, etc) and i have to force-close publisher
• loading document never stops till I have to force-close
• Sometimes when I change a paragraph style in the chapter with the TOC and Index, the style changes get applied to the TOC and Index too. It has happened multiple times but is hard for me to recreate or explain the circumstance of when it happens.

They all seem related to books. I also noticed that books seem to crash less when all the chapters are open or when no book is open.

I'm really excited to see the Books feature working without bugs in the future. Thank you for all the hard work and happy new year

af debugging.zip

[MikeTO]

I've confirmed a few issues with 2.0.3.

1. Identical index marks used in multiple chapters don't work. Unique index marks are numbered correctly but if an index mark is used in two chapters, the index will insert the second chapter's page number for both references. i.e., insert an index mark named "test" on the first page of two single-page chapters. You'd expect an index of test 1,2 but you'll get test 2,2.
2. The starting page number for chapter 1 is lost when adding it to a Book. Create a document and using the Section Manager start numbering on page 5. Create a book and add the document as a chapter. The starting page number will be renumbered to start on page 1. Books > Page Number Options overrides the file's existing starting page number when it should instead inherit it. This seems pretty minor bug...
3. The Section Manager's starting page number field is ignored. The Section Manager is still there inviting you to change the starting number for a chapter. If the Book is open when you use it, the Section Manager will accept the value but not use it and it will disappear soon, overridden by Books > Page Number Options. If the Book isn't open when you use it, the value will be accepted but will be lost when you re-open the Book. You can't just disable the Section Manager starting page number field because the user could open the chapter outside of the Book. It would be better for Books > Page Number Options to always inherit from the starting page number for the first section in a document. Perhaps this won't be an issue in the real world but the interplay of these two features is confusing.
4. Minor UI: Changing the starting page number in Books > Page Number Options needs should auto select Start Number from Page. Either typing into the start number field should auto select Start Number from Page, or the field should be disabled when Continue is selected. If you type into the field and click OK then the value will be ignored.
   
5. Books are easily corrupted. Creating the two chapter files with index marks for #1 and adding them to a book will result in a corrupted book. I couldn't save or close the book to send you a test book, Publisher pretended to save it but a file wasn't generated. I also hung Publisher updating page numbers. I force quit a dozen times, all with two single-page chapter tests.

[GuyMiklos]

4 hours ago, MikeTO said:

5. Books are easily corrupted.

I lost many hours of creative work due to the corruption of one of my files that I tried to include as a portion of a Book. I wish I had been warned or thought to make a backup before attempting this new feature in 2.0.  The intended functionalities of Book are exactly what I need and very well conceived indeed, just riddled with problems at the moment. The shared template for text styles in particular is a marvelously useful function of Book. I hope this will be remedied in an update. 

[Dan C]

Hi @nicanorrr,

Thanks for your report and our sincerest apologies for the delayed response here. We are exceptionally busy following the release of V2 and we thank you for your continued patience and understanding here.

On 12/31/2022 at 5:23 AM, nicanorrr said:

As you can see in the index, Topic2 is said to be found on page7, 6 instead of 3,6.

I can confirm I've replicated this issue here with your files and I'm logging this with our developers now. (AFB-7182)

On 12/31/2022 at 5:23 AM, nicanorrr said:

suddenly an open afpub cannot be manipulated in any way (when i type nothing happens, none of the elements can be moved resized, etc) and i have to force-close publisher

In my testing, I had this issue occur once, which seemed to occur following an 'undo' command after updating your TOC - though I haven't been able to replicate this again yet. Out of interest, do you notice this occurs for you following an attempted undo, or when using other tools/features?

On 12/31/2022 at 5:23 AM, nicanorrr said:

loading document never stops till I have to force-close

This will likely be file specific, if you have any files that show this issue can you please attach them here for me?

On 12/31/2022 at 5:23 AM, nicanorrr said:

Sometimes when I change a paragraph style in the chapter with the TOC and Index, the style changes get applied to the TOC and Index too. It has happened multiple times but is hard for me to recreate or explain the circumstance of when it happens.

I haven't been able to replicate this in my testing, but if you find a reproducible workflow for this, please do let us know!

____________________________________

Thanks for the further reports here @MikeTO, I can confirm the following:

On 12/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, MikeTO said:

Identical index marks used in multiple chapters don't work.

Replicated & logged, I'm pretty sure this is the same cause of the issue reported by OP (AFB-7182/AFB-7183)

On 12/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, MikeTO said:

The starting page number for chapter 1 is lost when adding it to a Book

Replicated & logged (AFB-7184)

On 12/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, MikeTO said:

The Section Manager's starting page number field is ignored

Replicated & logged (AFB-7185)

On 12/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, MikeTO said:

Minor UI: Changing the starting page number in Books > Page Number Options needs should auto select Start Number from Page

Replicated & logged (AFB-7186)

On 12/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, MikeTO said:

Books are easily corrupted

There are a few issues already logged with our development team regarding this, especially regarding files becoming out of sync, or opening in a 'read-only' state incorrectly & I will be updating these reports with the information here now. (AFB-6837/AFB-7008)

On 12/31/2022 at 6:02 PM, MikeTO said:

Creating the two chapter files with index marks for #1 and adding them to a book will result in a corrupted book. I couldn't save or close the book to send you a test book, Publisher pretended to save it but a file wasn't generated

I've tried replicating this, though thus far I've been unsuccessful - I appreciate you can't provide a sample document, but are you able to recall the exact steps being taken?

________________________________________________

On 12/31/2022 at 11:02 PM, GuyMiklos said:

I lost many hours of creative work due to the corruption of one of my files that I tried to include as a portion of a Book. I wish I had been warned or thought to make a backup before attempting this new feature in 2.0.  The intended functionalities of Book are exactly what I need and very well conceived indeed, just riddled with problems at the moment. The shared template for text styles in particular is a marvelously useful function of Book. I hope this will be remedied in an update. 

Thanks for your feedback here and we're certainly sorry to hear work has been lost due to this - as above our developers are working on resolving these issues ASAP

[MikeTO]

On 12/31/2022 at 1:02 PM, MikeTO said:

Books are easily corrupted. Creating the two chapter files with index marks for #1 and adding them to a book will result in a corrupted book. I couldn't save or close the book to send you a test book, Publisher pretended to save it but a file wasn't generated. I also hung Publisher updating page numbers. I force quit a dozen times, all with two single-page chapter tests.

3 hours ago, Dan C said:

I've tried replicating this, though thus far I've been unsuccessful - I appreciate you can't provide a sample document, but are you able to recall the exact steps being taken?

I was able to duplicate it so I'm going to private message you the test files with the steps.

Thanks for sorting through this complicated thread!

Cheers

[Oli Putland]

Hi there.

When compiling a book in the latest version, the system struggles to process things properly.

It often doesn’t let you save a book after adding chapters, and even prevents you fully closing the software as it keeps asking you if you want to save, even if it can't manage it. And even if you say 'No' it still won't close.

It often crashes when trying to create a book, generally.

Sometimes it thinks that permission to use the ‘Documents’ folder needs re-enabling after a crash too.

 

I have a full problem report txt file if someone at Serif wishes to see it. I won't post it publicly on here.

[Oli Putland]

Hi again. I've fiddled about and isolated one of the issues- When Exporting, It seems the crashing part always happens when 'Include Hyperlinks' is selected.

The saving of the book can still pose a problem though.

[Dan C]

Hi @Oli Putland,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

2 hours ago, Oli Putland said:

It often doesn’t let you save a book after adding chapters, and even prevents you fully closing the software as it keeps asking you if you want to save, even if it can't manage it. And even if you say 'No' it still won't close.

It often crashes when trying to create a book, generally.

I can confirm these issues are logged as a bug with our development team and should hopefully be addressed in the next update.

2 hours ago, Oli Putland said:

I've fiddled about and isolated one of the issues- When Exporting, It seems the crashing part always happens when 'Include Hyperlinks' is selected.

This sounds like a different issue, potentially specific to your document. Can you please create a new post in the following section of the Forums, with as much information as possible regarding your file and our team will be sure to assist ASAP

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/forum/81-publisher-2-bugs-found-on-macos/

[nicanorrr]

15 hours ago, Oli Putland said:

Hi again. I've fiddled about and isolated one of the issues- When Exporting, It seems the crashing part always happens when 'Include Hyperlinks' is selected.

The saving of the book can still pose a problem though.

I can confirm that this is happening to me too. I tried to export as a high quality digital file and the export process would never end until I'd force quit Publisher. But when I exported on the (for print) setting it was able to export.

I still have multiple crashes with the book feature in the 2.0.4 but it's still hard to pinpoint the situation of the crashes. I will try to take note.

 

As for the indexes, my indexes are still wrongfully computed in 2.0.4. I can confirm that it is only for the indexes that exist on 2 separate chapters. In my case, I have indices on 2 chapters and the page numbers of indices on the first chapter are wrong while the page numbers on the latter chapter are correct.

 

Thank you Really looking forward to a fixed book feature

[Dan C]

No problem at all, thanks for the further information provided!

We hope to have these fixes available shortly and thank you for your continued patience and understanding in the meantime

[Oli Putland]

Hi again. Another Book related bug. Now I don't seem to be able to run a preflight on the book at all with out it crashing. My Table of Contents simply doesn't populate with anything at all. No idea what has changed to make this happen.

[Oli Putland]

Update again regarding Books.

The Table of Contents WAS able to be redone, but I had to open the file manually then do a preflight check on the single chapter.

One very annoying quirk- not sure how this keeps happening- all my Master Pages duplicate so I now have 3 duplicate versions of the same Master Pages on each chapter.

Is this a bug, or something to do with when I hit 'Synchronisation'?

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know and I'm sorry to hear this - I believe the multiple changes/fixes to Books & Chapters in our next update should alleviate many of these issues for you, so I'd recommend keeping an eye on the forums for when we announce this next version is available to beta test.

On 2/10/2023 at 6:29 PM, Oli Putland said:

One very annoying quirk- not sure how this keeps happening- all my Master Pages duplicate so I now have 3 duplicate versions of the same Master Pages on each chapter.

Is this a bug, or something to do with when I hit 'Synchronisation'?

I can confirm this is due to the Synchronisation button, which is further covered here:

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Advanced/syncingChapters.html?title=Synchronising chapters

Quote

"If a master page of the same name exists in both chapters, the Style Source Chapter's version is copied to the target chapter without affecting the target chapter's version or any applications of it to pages. Both versions' names are unaltered, so consider renaming either or both to help distinguish them."

I hope this clears things up

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Opening a Book Chapter and closing without making changes stops book from being able to save, or close" (REF: AFB-7193) has now been fixed by the developers.
This fix is included in build 2.1.0.1706 (or later) which is already available as a customer beta and will be included in the next 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 make a new thread referencing this one.