Designer Pop-up: Links Removed Notification

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Hey everyone,

today, when I open a document that I was working on yesterday perfectly fine, I get the following error message:

What does »link« mean in this context and how can I fix it? How can I see which links/objects have been removed?

Edit: I used no linked images/objects to begin with, only a couple of embedded screenshots and symbols.

Thanks!

[GarryP]

I think it means linked files documents – in other words, in this case, there were two linked files documents that it cannot now find/use (maybe they were moved).
You can check via the Resource Manager – menu “Window → Resource Manager…”.

Edit: Changed "documents" to "files" so as to say that it's not just Affinity documents, but other things too.

Edited January 27, 2023 by GarryP
Added clarification.

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Hey GarryP,

thanks for the hint, Resource Manager actually was the first place I checked. 😅
But I used no linked images/objects to begin with, only a couple of embedded screenshots, forgot to mention this.

So that can't be it. However, I have used a few symbols that are also linked in some way. But I can't imagine why they would suddenly be broken.

[GarryP]

Hmm…
You’ve got me wondering now; I wonder what it means by “links” and “objects” if it’s not linked files.
Would you be able to share the document in public so we can explore it?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

Would you be able to share the document in public so we can explore it?

Ideally, the same one that generated the error, not a version after it was saved later  

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Try this, please: Quick_Snap_Dialogue.afdesign

It’s the document I used yesterday for my Quick Grid Gutter Pop Up Mock Up (well, that’s a mouthful).

Sorry, it’s messy – I swear, that’s actually the reason why I wanted to open it today and clean it up. 😅

[GarryP]

Thanks for sharing the file.

I’m not seeing anything obvious at first blush (I’m still on 2.0.3).

I noticed that the pop-up said “...Designer removed links...” rather than “...Designer 2 removed links…” but that’s not something we can fix. (Same ‘missing 2’ in each application.)

Opening the file in Publisher (same removal of links pop-up) and looking at the Preflight only showed missing fonts, missing dictionary and overflowing text frames, which is to be expected.

Opening the file in Photo got me the same pop-up.

I was hoping that one of the applications wouldn’t give me the pop-up which might have told me something about what the “links” were.

As you said, there are only embedded images and they seem fine.
All of the Symbols look okay to me but I don’t use them very often so I might have missed something.
There doesn’t seem to be any hyperlinks in the document but I don’t know if there should be any.

It’s panning out to be just a normal document so far as I can see.
Maybe someone else can see something that I can’t.

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Thanks for checking!

1 minute ago, GarryP said:

There doesn’t seem to be any hyperlinks in the document but I don’t know if there should be any.

Nope, no hyperlinks, just graphical elements.

Perhaps it's worth noting that the document was originally a Publisher document and I then passed it over to Designer because what I wanted to do with it makes better use of the tools there. Maybe something went awry during the transfer?

Another thing I remember is making a symbol part of another symbol, but without circling it (in the sense of the snake biting its own tail, if you know what I mean), because I can imagine it generating an error, sort of like linking a document into itself. For the time I worked in it, there was no error message yesterday, and I don't think there would be.

[GarryP]

Unfortunately I don’t know how the document is supposed to look and work so there’s not much extra that I can do with it at the moment; maybe something will pop into my head when I’m doing something else.

Or, even better, someone else will know exactly what it is because they’ve seen it before and figured it out.

If a member of staff can pop in to the discussion to say when they expect that pop-up to occur then that might be useful.

[walt.farrell]

Opening it on iPad (Designer and Publisher) there were no warnings. But on Windows I got a warning about missing fonts and the broken links.

Resource Manager agrees the images are all embedded.

It's got to be something related to Symbols, I think, or other forms of linked layers (such as Photo supports).

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Thank you both for checking.

4 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

I got a warning about missing fonts

Ah yes, I used some Apple specific fonts I think. 👍

Maybe the Affinity staff will come across this thread and take a look.
Fortunately, this time it is not a super important document, but still a very vague and ambiguous notification.

[Jon P]

So this was added a short while ago (2.x), basically we sometimes get reports with files that crash on open. When we investigate them we find there's links to broken/corrupt objects (or objects that just don't exist), and that's the cause of the crash.

We are still trying to find recipes that can create these types of situations, but for now we identify these objects, and instead of crashing, clean them up when we load the document, and leave this message letting the user know that has happened.

Nothing should look different in the document, as the objects removed were broken anyway.

It's probably worth noting that links here doesn't as much refer to resource manager type links, it's more of an internal link

If you find during your work you are saving, re-opening and seeing this message a lot, then let us know and hopefully we can find the recipe that triggers the message the next time the document is loaded

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Hey @Jon P, thanks for chiming in!

Hm, this still sounds vague to me. Can you maybe give an example of what a »broken/corrupt« actually would look like (if it is visible at all) and outline what »clean up« means?
Somehow this makes me still feel like I may be losing some of my things for some reason. 😅

I will be in touch if I come across this notification more often in the future.

Thanks!

Edit: Oh and maybe the notification could also refer/differenciate between what actually happend, for example »X has been cleaned up because of Y.«?

[Mr. Doodlezz]

5 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Suggestion: change the error message to 'Affinity removed 2 broken or corrupt objects from your document'. I think we have mostly assume that a link is either a linked file or a hyperlink.

Yes, that would definitely be a bit better to understand for us users!

But »removed« again sounds as if something is actually deleted from my work and I have no way of influencing it, correcting it, or at least tracking it. I have to accept that something is lost, and I don't like that feeling at all.

If nothing get's physically (well, digitally) removed, maybe resolved or corrected would be a better term?

[Helmar]

Well, once "removed" that message shouldn't reappear - but it does. Now what? 😊

Cheers, Helmar 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Helmar said:

Well, once "removed" that message shouldn't reappear - but it does. Now what? 😊

Are you saying that you continue to get the message, even after you resave the document?

If you simply close the document that Affinity fixed, without saving it, then the next time you reopen it needs to be fixed again

[Jon P]

If, after opening the file and the message appearing, saving and re opening the causes the message to re appear, can you please provide the file here for us to investigate

[Mr. Doodlezz]

Hey everyone, hey @Helmar and @Jon P,

15 hours ago, Helmar said:

Well, once "removed" that message shouldn't reappear - but it does.

I have just tested this with my file. After I opened it, getting the pop-up window and saving the file as V2, the pop-up window does not appear a second time.

However, I am still not sure – but would definitely like to know – what actually caused the problem and how it was fixed by the app.

[Helmar]

2 hours ago, Jon P said:

If, after opening the file and the message appearing, saving and re opening the causes the message to re appear, can you please provide the file here for us to investigate

Looks like it's gone after saving and reopening, using 2.0.4.

[Jon P]

@Mr. Doodlezz Unfortunately, we don't know what caused the problem as such, if we did we would be wanting to fix the cause, not just repair the issue on file load. I've just double checked though, and you shouldn't ever be losing any visible objects in your documents, it's mostly an internal thing. Basically we are removing a link to an object that no longer seems to exist. Either we clean it up when we load the document or it would cause a crash which is what was previously being reported.

Again, if you or anyone else find they are seeing this message appear consistently let us know, as if we can understand what causes it to break in the first place we can fix the cause. It's still something we are investigating.

[MikeTO]

6 hours ago, Jon P said:

Again, if you or anyone else find they are seeing this message appear consistently let us know, as if we can understand what causes it to break in the first place we can fix the cause. It's still something we are investigating.

Hi Jon, another customer just shared a file that consistently shows the "links removed" message which might be a good test file. I duplicated it on my system.

 

[Jon P]

Hi @MikeTO,

Do you find you still get the warning after re-saving the recovered file? I recovered it in the same way you did and still got the warning, but once I alter the file and re-save it, it seems fine on subsequent loads

[Helmar]

9 minutes ago, Jon P said:

Hi @MikeTO,

Do you find you still get the warning after re-saving the recovered file? I recovered it in the same way you did and still got the warning, but once I alter the file and re-save it, it seems fine on subsequent loads

My experience concurs with yours. Alter, save, notice gone.

[Mr. Doodlezz]

2 hours ago, Jon P said:

Hi @MikeTO,

Do you find you still get the warning after re-saving the recovered file? I recovered it in the same way you did and still got the warning, but once I alter the file and re-save it, it seems fine on subsequent loads

I just tried MikeTO's workaround and still get the Links Removed Notification, even after resaving.
But the document itself can be opened and salvaged, which was not possible before.

[MikeTO]

5 hours ago, Jon P said:

Hi @MikeTO,

Do you find you still get the warning after re-saving the recovered file? I recovered it in the same way you did and still got the warning, but once I alter the file and re-save it, it seems fine on subsequent loads

Ah, I didn't go that extra step. Yes, I'm seeing the same results as you.

Thanks