Export function doesn’t work on selected layers

[Benfischer]

I have a photo with three layers. There is no way to tell which layers will be exported using the option under the hamburger menu, , regardless of which are currently visible. Sometimes it’s the background. Sometimes it’s the background plus one of the added layers. Sometimes it’s only the added layers.   If I have one of the added layers turned off (not visible) it will not be exported, but turning another layer on (visible) won’t cause it to be exported. And the layer that works is different from one time to the next. 

Edited February 4, 2023 by Benfischer
Correct number of layers

[NotMyFault]

Export normally works wrt layers. Do you export as bitmap or vector?
Do you export

• whole document,
• selected area, or
• selection only?

Can you provide screenshots of the actual export settings used for every try?
 

[Benfischer]

I’ve been using whole document. Attached is a screen shot of the image with the layers visible, the export settings and the resulting png file. Note the street is exported but not the abominable snowman.  

[Benfischer]

Attached are the same images with Bernie selected.  Yesterday I couldn’t export Bernie but could export the snowman. 

[Paul Mudditt]

Which iPadOS are you using, you have updated to iPadOS16 haven’t you?. iPadOS15 had a bug in virtual memory management that did something similar to this. Have you tried a Forced Restart of your iPad yet?

What does the preview option show?

You mention above you show the layers panel yet it is not shown in any of your screenshots, can you include the layers panel ?

[Benfischer]

Am on m 1iPad Air with 8gb ram and iPadOS 16.3. Preview shows the same thing as what’s exported. 

attached is the layers menu with the resulting png file

thx

[Paul Mudditt]

Ok, thanks for that, everything should work but it isn’t, have you tried closing all open apps and doing a Forced  Restart yet?

Have you tried using the iPad in landscape mode I only use it that way because of attached keyboard.

If you have done a FR then I’m afraid next step is to save ll your work outside the app in an iCloud folder, then delete the app and re-install it.

[Benfischer]

A forced reset doesn't work. As you can see my photo editing needs are rather basic, lol. I guess I can just take screenshots if I have a edit I want to share with friends until and if it gets fixed.

I opened the file on my macbook (also 8GB M1) and the export works as it should so I guess it's not a file corruption issue.

thanks

[Paul Mudditt]

25 minutes ago, Benfischer said:

A forced reset doesn't work. As you can see my photo editing needs are rather basic, lol. I guess I can just take screenshots if I have a edit I want to share with friends until and if it gets fixed.

I opened the file on my macbook (also 8GB M1) and the export works as it should so I guess it's not a file corruption issue.

thanks

Which iPad do you have, I wonder whether it is to do with the size of the image which is quite large and a memory problem, some iPads have limited RAM. Have you tried reducing the size of your document to say 2000px as opposed to over 5000px.

[Benfischer]

19 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Which iPad do you have, I wonder whether it is to do with the size of the image which is quite large and a memory problem, some iPads have limited RAM. Have you tried reducing the size of your document to say 2000px as opposed to over 5000px.

How big is too big?  This is a photo I took on this same m1 iPad. I created a new doc with the presets for my iPad screen and added the three images and tried exporting with the same results.  No snowman, just Bernie.   By contrast, the included samples, which are much larger and more detailed, export fine. 

I guess it’s possible there’s something about the snow man file itself that AP on the iPad doesn’t like.  It works on the desktop but I guess it’s possible  so I took a screen shot and tried exporting with THAT in the image and it worked  I haven’t fiddled with it to remove the background, so I can’t say it’s a fix.  But it sucks if I’m going to have to do every time I was to post a quick joke on instagram  

thanks

[NotMyFault]

Just try a “merge visible” before exporting. The top layer should be selected.

[Paul Mudditt]

Ah ok so you did not rasterise your snowman image so it is still a high resolution image but with a mask instead of a cutout. AF works differently from PS if you do not rasterise to match the pixel resolution of your main document. 

Try rasterising your snowman image layer.

[Benfischer]

32 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Ah ok so you did not rasterise your snowman image so it is still a high resolution image but with a mask instead of a cutout. AF works differently from PS if you do not rasterise to match the pixel resolution of your main document. 

Try rasterising your snowman image layer.

That still doesn’t work

[Paul Mudditt]

1 hour ago, Benfischer said:

That still doesn’t work

And @NotMyFault idea of merge visible, surely that worked?

[Benfischer]

2 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

And @NotMyFault idea of merge visible, surely that worked?

That did work.

I really appreciate the help.  I really do.  And I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful.  I know that you don’t write the code. But this has to be a bug. I expect Affinity Photo to be a WYSIWYG app. If a layer won’t export because of a memory or file format issue, the app should at least tell me that.  But I don’t think it’s reasonable to mess about with my layers just to export.  What’s the point of layers you can’t export?  And why does it work on one platform and not another? 
 
As it is, this a minor inconvenience for me. As I said, I can just do a screen capture to accomplish my goal. If I was trying to make money with AP it might be different. I just mainly wanted to alert Serif about this edge case so they can look into it. 
 

thanks again

[Paul Mudditt]

28 minutes ago, Benfischer said:

That did work.

I really appreciate the help.  I really do.  And I don’t want to sound like I’m ungrateful.  I know that you don’t write the code. But this has to be a bug. I expect Affinity Photo to be a WYSIWYG app. If a layer won’t export because of a memory or file format issue, the app should at least tell me that.  But I don’t think it’s reasonable to mess about with my layers just to export.  What’s the point of layers you can’t export?  And why does it work on one platform and not another? 
 
As it is, this a minor inconvenience for me. As I said, I can just do a screen capture to accomplish my goal. If I was trying to make money with AP it might be different. I just mainly wanted to alert Serif about this edge case so they can look into it. 
 

thanks again

That is good to hear.

We are all just users like yourself. Please can you upload your .afphoto file for the developers to have a look at, you can attach such files to your post.  Your problem is not one we have seen before and we have seen many. It may be that there is a problem on your iPad that needs fixing, but if we can replicate your problem then you won’t need to do the iPad fixes such as app re-install or a backup restore cyclet for your iPad.

[Benfischer]

Hmm!  I thought I uploaded that on the first post but now I see that it’s not there. Trying again. 
 

thanks

winter feb 2023.afphoto

[NotMyFault]

I can reproduce the issue on my iPad 2022. The top layer is not rendered in export / preview, despite visible in canvas. (I activated it).

Smells like a bug.

Edited February 4, 2023 by NotMyFault
Added screenrecording

[NotMyFault]

What might influence is the „oversized“ mask applied to the pixel layer.

i made several posts that such mask layers (larger than the parent pixel layer) can cause issues, and it is very difficult to remove those unwanted part (without rasterize & trim which may remove parts who are outside canvas but still wanted).

[NotMyFault]

Actually it seems the image layer / yeti what causes all the trouble.

after rasterizing this layer, everything works as usual. (Unnest mesh warp before and re-nest afterwards)

There have been other reports a long time ago with swapped layers on iPad. 

Edited February 4, 2023 by NotMyFault
PS I swapped the layers manually to get it over the pixel layer with mask.

[Paul Mudditt]

Wow i do think the dev’s need to look at why this image will not export even without the mask applied.

abomination.afphoto

[NotMyFault]

12 minutes ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Wow i do think the dev’s need to look at why this image will not export even without the mask applied.

And keep it as feature : layers which don’t get exported.

 

[Lee D]

I've passed this over to the developers to look into to see what is causing that layer not to preview/export out on iPad.

[Benfischer]

1 hour ago, Lee D said:

I've passed this over to the developers to look into to see what is causing that layer not to preview/export out on iPad.

Thanks!

[Benfischer]

On 2/7/2023 at 9:06 AM, Benfischer said:

Thanks!

 

On 2/7/2023 at 7:17 AM, Lee D said:

I've passed this over to the developers to look into to see what is causing that layer not to preview/export out on iPad.

I  just checked on the 2.1 Beta (1706) and this bug appears to be fixed.

thanks