Freezes when starting

[Anna M]

Hi, 

 I have problems with Affinity 2 products not starting and/or freezing on me. Win 10, Lenovo ThinkPad. I mostly use Designer, but once this happens, it usually affects Photo&Publisher as well. I had these problems for MONTHS.

- I normally have the most recent updates for Windows 10, for my graphics drivers, Affinity products, etc. This persisted past multiple updates. 

- Right now, they are current as well. I don't know how to prove it. But from the experience of the past months (and multiple updates), updating Windows, Lenovo drivers, Affinity products, hardly solves anything. 

- When Designer (Photo/Publisher) freezes on open, there is nothing I can do short of closing everything, rebooting, uninstalling, rebooting, reinstalling, rebooting, praying that some of it will work... 

- Please understand that I use my computer for work, have SSH terminals open, etc, so rebooting is not always an option. 

- As a result, Designer is unusable for me most of the time.

Honestly, this is my last shot at finding the problem before I ask for my money back (upgraded to V2 hoping it'll help...) and go look elsewhere... 

Designer.DMP

What I do know: 

- comp specs: 

• Processor: 11th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-1165G7 @ 2.80GHz   2.80 GHz
• RAM: 32.0 GB (31.7 GB usable) 
• System type: 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
• Pen and touch: Pen and touch support with 10 touch points
• Graphics card: internal, Intel Iris Xe Graphics 

- there is usually nothing in the %USERPROFILE%\.affinity\Designer\2.0\CrashReports\reports , and right now, there is nothing as well 

- for this particular case (today's error), I went to Task Manager as Designer was trying to run and created a dump file, see attached 

- this (today's dump) is a case of Designer freezing on open. The splash screen disappears, UI starts to appear, and that's the end of it: 

- no, I really cannot reboot right now, it'll compromise my work calculations. Alas, I got so grown to using Designer for illustrating my work... can't use it anymore. 

- here're the settings: 

- when I press Ctrl+click to run, it does not open the dialog offering to reset anything. (This can be because I'm running it from the Start Menu.) 

- I do use DisplayFusion. I had learned to close it before running Designer, just in case... if it had ever helped, at least once, I won't be writing this bug report in such a desperate tone... admittedly, sometimes I try and don't close it, and Designer runs. I don't know why. 

- I don't know what else to do or what information to provide. Please help. This can't go on. It freezes pretty much every second time I try and open it. And it freezes after at most 24hrs if I just leave it open (so, say, having an illustration to return to is no longer an option). 

- I had learned to rely on Designer for work to make illustrations (I'm a scientist), create graphical journals, etc. In the last maybe 4 months, I truly felt crippled. Say I'm at a telecon, can I open Designer to do an illustration on the fly? That's a coin toss. I'm back from lunch, is the Designer with a screenshot database of my project still open? A coin toss. A colleague asks to update an illustration I've made in the past. You get it... Upgrading to Ver 2 did not help, so it kind of feels like I've wasted money upgrading. It really can't go on like this. Please please help. Thanks. 

 

[Anna M]

Found some application logs, I don't know if this helps: 

The program Designer.exe version 2.0.4.1701 stopped interacting with Windows and was closed. To see if more information about the problem is available, check the problem history in the Security and Maintenance control panel.
 Process ID: 3f54
 Start Time: 01d93a88a8ccf121
 Termination Time: 39
 Application Path: C:\Program Files\WindowsApps\SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityDesigner2_2.0.4.1701_x64__3cqzy0nppv2rt\App\Designer.exe
 Report Id: 4c26ae95-cb38-45a7-bcf7-0c638dd0fb75
 Faulting package full name: SerifEuropeLtd.AffinityDesigner2_2.0.4.1701_x64__3cqzy0nppv2rt
 Faulting package-relative application ID: SERIFEUROPELTD.AFFINITYDESIGNER2
 Hang type: Unknown

This may not identically correspond to the attempt from the dump file, as I've been running it multiple times to take screenshots, make sure Ctrl+click doesn't help, etc. 

[Lee_T]

Hi Anna M,

Thanks for the information, and sorry this is happening to you.

I think the culprit is unfortunately the Intel GPU,  they do not play nicely with OpenCL which we rely on for graphics acceleration. 

Thankfully this can be disabled in the Edit > preferences > performance window at the bottom.

I would suggest disabling this as a first step to see if things are improved for you.

Lee

[Anna M]

Hi, and thanks for the reply! 

I did try running "%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityDesigner2.exe --no-ocl" from the FAQ's, and it did not resolve the not-loading issue.

However, reinstalling and rebooting did, in this case, solve the issue. But, please understand that I cannot always reboot when Designer does not load; there are often processes running, such as SSH to remote servers, etc, that are difficult to relaunch, and needing to reboot every other day would compromise my work a lot. (I used to use Designer almost daily, and now it freezes almost every other time I try to run it.) 

[Lee_T]

Could you please try holding control and launching the software, and hitting reset on the following window.

Lee

[Anna M]

As I mentioned in the original post, Ctrl+click does not open the reset window for me. I don't know why. 

Also, I had OpenCL turned off for a while, long before I created this topic -- turning it off did not resolve the frequent freezes. 

[Lee_T]

Just to try and eliminate the GPU from being the cause, could you please try changing the renderer to WARP.

Lee

[Anna M]

Thanks! Just did. After the last reboot a few hours ago, Designer runs again, so I guess I will give it a couple days. I will report either once it freezes again, or in a few days if it doesn't. Fingers crossed, thanks!