Designer v2 intermittent problem with symbol instances not showing all layers

[Meanderling]

Hi all,

I'm using symbols to see what a design will look like within different mockups. I have 1 artboard for the main design/symbol and have used an instance of that symbol on separate artboards; 1 showing it in a desktop view, the other showing the instance within a mobile view - the symbols have never been unsync'd.

The design isn't that complicated and the file size is around 40MB. While designing, I'm trying out different coloured overlays, painted with a textured brush on a pixel layer. I have 2 groups containing the coloured pixel layers, occasionally one or other of the groups will stop showing any of the coloured overlays on any of the symbols. Alternatively, it'll show the overlay(s) on only 1 of the 3 symbols and not necessarily the instance I'm actually working on. Likewise, if I put the paintbrush over a symbol in an active artboard, the preview may or may not show and if it does, it may not show on the active artboard.

All the layers are still visible in the panel and within all instances, I can even see that they contain colour, it's just not showing on the artboards - restart, reboot, copying & pasting the layers within the same file or pasting them into a new file doesn't bring the colour back.  However, I've just discovered that if I cut the pixel layers and paste them outside their original group, the colour is visible again. Even if I regroup them, the colour remains - although I'm not sure how long that will last... 

Occasionally the file size bloats by 10-20MB for no apparent reason, but that doesn't necessarily accompany the above behaviour. Thinking that perhaps the file had become corrupted, I recreated it, but eventually I get the same behaviour. Very odd...

Wondering if anyone's experienced similar or has any idea what might be causing the problem??

Many thanks in advance!

[walt.farrell]

Screenshots of the application window (including Layers panel) would probably help.

Even better, a .afdesign file that has the problem, if you can share one. 

[Meanderling]

@walt.farrell Sorry about the delay in getting back to you. 

I'm not sure screenshots would help, as it's not possible to show the expanded layers for more than 1 artboard at a time (not on my screen anyway). All it would really show is that the active layers are within a symbol and that none of the links are broken. As for sharing, it's actually client work and therefore not really suitable for sharing - I thought about re-jigging it for that purpose, but then I stumbled upon the 'cut & paste' hack I mentioned, so rather than lose any more time, I figured I'd better make the most of it... while it lasts. If the issue comes back, I'll do what I can to make it shareable and super obvious in a screencast, as that would probably be the best way to show the issue.

Thanks again.

[Meanderling]

It's doing it again...

So, after a bit more investigation, I think I've figured out what's going on (assuming that's been the case all along?). The layer(s) in question have moved from the visible artboard into no-mans land, which is why they're not visible when I make changes. How they got moved or when, I don't know, as it's not something I did (I had to zoom quite far out to find them). I've also just noticed that when I hover over the symbol in the layers panel, it does briefly show a popup saying, "Unlinked Attributes: Transform/Constraints" - it's pretty quick, so I didn't notice before. However, it's worth noting that all layers within each symbol instance show a solid orange line, indicating that all layers are indeed sync'd. 

If I delete the symbols from the 2 artboards that aren't showing the 'missing' layer and drag a new instance from the symbols panel to the now empty artboards, the 'rogue' layer is still out in no-mans land (on both new instances), despite being able to see the exact same layer on artboard #3. This suggests that it's this layer that has become unsync'd... However, if I delete the object in no-mans land, the object that's visible in artboard #3 is also deleted, confirming that this object is sync'd, as the solid orange bar indicates.

If I delete all symbols from all artboards and drag a fresh instance of the symbol from the symbols panel, all new instances show the popup, "Unlinked Attributes: Transform/Constraints". 

Now that I've found the 'missing' layers, most of the behaviour makes sense and is correct (more or less). I'll even concede that the/a layer (or indeed, an entire group of layers) may have inadvertently become unsync'd and got moved (although it seems unlikely). However, there's no dashed orange line in the layers panel to indicate this (if I deliberately unsync things, the dashed line shows up, so the functionality is working). I also don't understand how a fresh instance (from the symbols panel) can be unsync'd from the off - is this a bug or am I missing something?

I've attached a trimmed down file, as @walt.farrell suggested. If this is deemed a bug, I'll move this topic, or perhaps admin can do that??

Symbol_Test.afdesign