Photo v1 suddenly stopped working

[Tilly]

I have Photo v1  installed on Mac OS Big Sur (11.7.2) which worked fine up to yesterday.  When I tried to open Photo v1  today the spinning coloured ball appeared for a few minutes and as nothing happened I  force quit.  After that the whole system froze and I couldn't open any of the apps on the dock.  I restarted the Mac and tried opening Photo but the same thing happened again.  Don't  what has suddenly caused this or how to resolve it.  Can anyone help?

[nickbatz]

Sounds like a case of corrupted software?

My suggestion is to do a Mac Dance:

1. Delete the preferences. If that doesn't work,

2. Run Disk Utility. If that doesn't work,

3. Reinstall Affinity photo. If that doesn't work,

4. Waste a whole lot of time reinstalling everything from a backup, or worse start over with a clean installation.

 

[Dan C]

Hi @Tilly,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please confirm for me, do you see a crash report appear on screen at all, or does the Affinity app simply 'hang' and never recover?

Can you also please confirm, did you install the app from the Affinity Store or from the Mac App Store? I'd like to request a copy of your Affinity log file and the installation method will change the location of this.

Many thanks in advance

[Tilly]

4 hours ago, Dan C said:

Hi @Tilly,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please confirm for me, do you see a crash report appear on screen at all, or does the Affinity app simply 'hang' and never recover?

Can you also please confirm, did you install the app from the Affinity Store or from the Mac App Store? I'd like to request a copy of your Affinity log file and the installation method will change the location of this.

Many thanks in advance

Hi Dan

Just to confirm that no crash report appeared onscreen when Affinity Photo froze, the app just 'hung' and never recovered and it was installed from the Affinity Store.

I checked the logs in 'Utilities' but I’m not sure what to look for in relation to the Affinity app so I'm unable to send a copy.

[Dan C]

No problem at all, thanks for verifying that for me!

Can you please open Finder and navigate to:

~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Photo/

Please select this folder and rename it to Affinity Photo_old

Now, launch the Affinity app once again and you should see a new 'Affinity Photo' folder is created in this location.

Does the app launch as expected please?

[Tilly]

There is no application support for Affinity Photo in the Library!

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me, can you please check in the below location for this folder:

~/Library/Containers/Affinity Photo/Data/Library/Application Support/

If this folder exists, please rename 'Application Support' to 'Application Support_old' and then try reopening the Affinity app.

Please also ensure you are opening the library folder in a way that shows these hidden folders, the easiest method for this is to open Finder, then from the top menu select Go and hold down the Alt key on your keyboard. Library should now appear in this list, and hopefully will allow you to find one of the aforementioned locations

[Tilly]

Found the folder, renamed it, tried to re-open Affinity, the icon bounced on the dock for a couple of minutes then stopped and everything froze.  Re-started the computer and clicked on the icon.  This time there was a black dot beside the icon indicating that Affinity was opening but nothing happened.  After a few minutes  the screen froze and it was another shut down and re-start. 🙁

[Dan C]

Thanks for trying that Tilly and I'm certainly sorry to hear this hasn't helped.

I'd like to try resetting the Affinity app to default settings, to see if this allows the app to launch correctly.

You can reset your app back to its default settings by holding down the CTRL key while launching the app. When the Clear User Data window appears, click Select All and then Clear. The app will now open.

Does this dialog show for you, and does the app launch after resetting please?

[Tilly]

No Clear User Data appeared so I was unable to reset to default settings.

[Dan C]

My sincerest apologies for the delayed response here Tilly as I have been out of the office for a few days - many thanks for trying the CTRL reset procedure for me.

Can you please try renaming the folder ~/Library/Containers/Affinity Photo/ to 'Affinity Photo_old' and then launch the Affinity app once again?

From the information you've provided, it sounds as though there is an incorrectly cached or corrupted file that the Affinity app is trying to use from these folders, so renaming this should cause the apps to re-create a new version of these folders without the corrupted file included.

Do you find that after renaming the folder and launching the app, a new 'Affinity Photo' folder is created in the Containers location? Does this change the behaviour of the app at all for you?

Many thanks for your continued patience and understanding here

[Tilly]

Thanks for your patience Dan.  There was no Containers file in the Library.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Tilly said:

There was no Containers file in the Library.

Are you sure you are looking in the correct Library folder? Specifically, it should be in your user's Library folder (indicated by the ~/ prefix), which is hidden by default.

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know, previously you mentioned you found the 'Application Support' / 'Affinity Photo' folder after I provided both possible locations depending on the install source.

Can you please confirm the exact location where you found this folder, and the folder you renamed?

[Tilly]

I found it in ~/Library/Containers/Affinity Photo/Data/Library/Application Support/  then re-named it Application Support_old.  Tried re-launching Affinity but it froze again.  Checked ~/Library/Containers/Affinity Photo/Data/Library/Application Support/  but there was no new Affinity folder.

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me - the file location you've confirmed indicates that you've installed the app from the Mac App Store and not the Affinity Store.

I have tested this here with the Mac App Store version and renaming the folder on my Mac does correctly create new folders when launching the app, so I'm unsure why this is happening for you currently.

Have you recently installed any new apps or updates to your Mac before this issue occurred?

I'd also like to try installing the app to a new user account, if you create a new user login on your mac and then sign into the Mac App Store, you should be able to install Affinity Photo from the Purchases section of your account.

Once installed for this new user, does the Affinity app launch as expected please?

[Tilly]

Setting up a new user account was beyond me so at that point I decided to give up and upgrade to Affinity Photos v.2.  Thank you for all the time and effort you have spent trying to resolve the problem.  I really appreciate it.

[Dan C]

No problem at all, I certainly understand - many thanks for letting us know and for your kind feedback, it's certainly appreciated!

Should you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to start a new thread

[Loui]

We tried opening affinity v1 and all we get is a blank affinity screen with no icons. 

[Pšenda]

14 minutes ago, Loui said:

blank affinity screen with no icons

Press TAB key?