Affinity Publisher V2 - Crashing selecting an image frame

[leonMo]

sorry, I am now falling into the middle of this discussion and running into this crash problem when trying to select an image frame.
after several crashes i cant even save the file, links are gone.

so is this problem fixed in the beta version? i haven't tried it yet.

[Dan C]

Hi @leonMo,

I have split your post from the thread you have posted in as I believe the issue you are reporting to be separate, requiring further investigation.

Can you please attach a copy of your .afpub document that is crashing when trying to select image frames?

Is this happening with any image frame in your document, or only certain ones?

On 3/3/2023 at 10:45 PM, leonMo said:

so is this problem fixed in the beta version? i haven't tried it yet.

Unfortunately it's unlikely to be fixed in the beta as we haven't yet determined the cause of the issue you are reporting.

[leonMo]

Hi Dan,

unfortunately, my document consists of over 150 pages and all the images (many per page) are linked to it; and as for your next question, it occurs randomly, there’s no frame in particular cursing this problem.

So I don’t think it's of any use sending this to you.

BTW: I have been working on it now for a few days and up till now it didn’t happen, it’s stable, so maybe …? but if it happens again I’ll get in touch with you right away.

Thx grz leon

[Dan C]

Many thanks for letting me know, I certainly understand and I'm glad to hear the app appears to be more stable currently!

If this does occur again, a copy of your latest crash reports generated by the app would help me to investigate further, these can be found following the info in the below FAQ - 

Though hopefully the app remains stable for you

[leonMo]

and for all of us   

but....in the meantime I had a crash again but now on another issue… it happened a few times now when doing a save... but maybe this is for another topic. I included a screenshot of it  

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know and I'm sorry to hear this - can you please attach a copy of your latest 2-3 crash reports here so I can investigate further?

20 hours ago, leonMo said:

In regards to the above issue;

• Is this happening in the Beta version only?
• Does this happen with one file, or any document in Publisher?
• What location has the file been loaded from, and where are you trying to save to?
  (ie a local folder, a 'cloud synced' folder, an external drive etc)
• If you open the Resource Manager (Window > Resource Manager) and check each of your placed files, do any appear with Size: 0x0 in the info panel on the right?

Many thanks once again

[leonMo]

On 3/7/2023 at 5:46 PM, Dan C said:

Thanks for letting me know and I'm sorry to hear this - can you please attach a copy of your latest 2-3 crash reports here so I can investigate further?

In regards to the above issue;

• Is this happening in the Beta version only?
• Does this happen with one file, or any document in Publisher?
• What location has the file been loaded from, and where are you trying to save to?
  (ie a local folder, a 'cloud synced' folder, an external drive etc)
• If you open the Resource Manager (Window > Resource Manager) and check each of your placed files, do any appear with Size: 0x0 in the info panel on the right?

Many thanks once again

hi dan... how are you doing?

maybe something to take in consideration : I've changed the colour format of the document to grey/16 and up till now it's working perfectly

any help? grz

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know, that's certainly strange as I've not heard of behaviour like that previously - are you able to provide a copy of your crash reports from this file as it would help investigate further?

As above, is this occurring in the beta version only?

[leonMo]

2 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for letting me know, that's certainly strange as I've not heard of behaviour like that previously - are you able to provide a copy of your crash reports from this file as it would help investigate further?

As above, is this occurring in the beta version only?

hi dan,

I already sent you the crash reports as a reply to the email I received (the 7th at 18:23 local time).
It's been happening since version 2 of the app

Affinity Publisher 2-2023-03-03-142447.ips Affinity Publisher 2 Beta-2023-03-06-215535.ips Affinity Publisher 2-2023-03-03-152825.ips

[Dan C]

My apologies, I wasn't aware that you are also dealing with our team via email - we ask that you only report issues to our team in one location (either on the Forums, or via email, but not both) as this can slow down the resolution time for this issue.

Do you have a ticket reference number for the email support please? As I cannot find a contact under the email address you have used for your Affinity Forums account.

 

In regards to the crash reports provided, these indicate that the operating system terminated the process, though unfortunately not much further information is provided.

This may be due to a Linked placed document in your Publisher file, though as above this is not exactly clear.

I note you mention these crashes occurred when selecting a Picture Frame, which could backup the suspected Linked resource crash reason - how many linked files do you have in this document please?

[leonMo]

2 hours ago, Dan C said:

My apologies, I wasn't aware that you are also dealing with our team via email - we ask that you only report issues to our team in one location (either on the Forums, or via email, but not both) as this can slow down the resolution time for this issue.

Do you have a ticket reference number for the email support please? As I cannot find a contact under the email address you have used for your Affinity Forums account.

 

In regards to the crash reports provided, these indicate that the operating system terminated the process, though unfortunately not much further information is provided.

This may be due to a Linked placed document in your Publisher file, though as above this is not exactly clear.

I note you mention these crashes occurred when selecting a Picture Frame, which could backup the suspected Linked resource crash reason - how many linked files do you have in this document please?

every time you do a post I get an email, so at first that's a little confusing, but now i know!
I count about 650 links to 610 images (some are double) in this document, soo maybe that's a little overdone?

[Dan C]

20 hours ago, leonMo said:

every time you do a post I get an email, so at first that's a little confusing, but now i know!

Thanks for confirming that for me, I certainly understand now

20 hours ago, leonMo said:

I count about 650 links to 610 images (some are double) in this document, soo maybe that's a little overdone?

That is a lot of links, but Publisher should be able to handle this - it's possible that one of the links has become corrupted causing the crash. Can you please attach a copy of your .afpub file so I can investigate this further? I shouldn't require any of the linked files themselves, simply the .afpub file should be enough for me to investigate further.

Many thanks once again!

[leonMo]

56 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Thanks for confirming that for me, I certainly understand now

That is a lot of links, but Publisher should be able to handle this - it's possible that one of the links has become corrupted causing the crash. Can you please attach a copy of your .afpub file so I can investigate this further? I shouldn't require any of the linked files themselves, simply the .afpub file should be enough for me to investigate further.

Many thanks once again!

herewith the file, I hope you can find something in it...

SIis_aff2.1.0 (original).afpub

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing that for me!

I can't see any clear issues with the images in your file, however I do note that many of your pages contain empty Picture Frames, mostly assigned within Master Pages, and some with FX applied.

It's possible that with this many empty picture frames, some with FX applied, some being hidden and others being drawn behind other images in your file, the app is 'caught' when trying to select one of these frames and causes the app to crash.

I would recommend 'trimming' as many of these empty picture frames from your document in order to simplify this document.

I can also see in your beta crash report that the app crashed when using Metal Hardware Acceleration. Can you please open the app and navigate to Affinity Publisher 2 Beta > Settings > Performance and untick Metal Hardware Acceleration at the bottom of this dialog.

Restart the app as prompted and then try editing your document once again. Does this reduce the crashing behaviour for you please?

[leonMo]

On 3/15/2023 at 5:46 PM, Dan C said:

Many thanks for providing that for me!

I can't see any clear issues with the images in your file, however I do note that many of your pages contain empty Picture Frames, mostly assigned within Master Pages, and some with FX applied.

It's possible that with this many empty picture frames, some with FX applied, some being hidden and others being drawn behind other images in your file, the app is 'caught' when trying to select one of these frames and causes the app to crash.

I would recommend 'trimming' as many of these empty picture frames from your document in order to simplify this document.

I can also see in your beta crash report that the app crashed when using Metal Hardware Acceleration. Can you please open the app and navigate to Affinity Publisher 2 Beta > Settings > Performance and untick Metal Hardware Acceleration at the bottom of this dialog.

Restart the app as prompted and then try editing your document once again. Does this reduce the crashing behaviour for you please?

hi dan,

I followed your advice, at least unchecking 'Metal Hardware Acceleration' and for now it is working stably.
Maybe you can explain to me what this option is for since I am working on an M1.
I do not know if it is safe to start deleting the image frames in the masters; it is a pity that there is no overview of the all the spreads used per master... maybe..?

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know and my apologies for the delayed response here as I have been out of the office for a few days!

On 3/20/2023 at 9:31 PM, leonMo said:

Maybe you can explain to me what this option is for since I am working on an M1.

Metal hardware acceleration uses your GPU to render the canvas within Affinity, it's possible that the number of images & FX applied to your document are negatively interacting with Metal and hence disabling this option helps improve stability for you. I'll be sure to pass these findings though to our development team with a copy of your file for further investigation, to see if this can be improved in the future.

On 3/20/2023 at 9:31 PM, leonMo said:

I do not know if it is safe to start deleting the image frames in the masters; it is a pity that there is no overview of the all the spreads used per master... maybe..?

I certainly understand. If you hover the mouse over the page in the Pages Studio then this will show you which masters are applied to that page/spread - but unfortunately there's no dialog with an 'overview' of applied masters and spreads as far as I'm aware, my apologies.