Affinity Phot 2 - Preference changes not registering

[James Power]

After performing a factory reset I am still finding that any changes I make to any menu options (such as Edit / Preferences), are not registering when restarting Affinity Photo.  Its as if Affinity is automatically resetting itself every time I restart the program.  I'm using Windows 11.

Any advice much appreciated!

Thanks

Edited March 23, 2023 by James Power
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[walt.farrell]

Have you checked that the application is being closed properly after you make the changes? If it crashes, the changes won't be saved.

[James Power]

Hi Walt. 
Many thanks for your kind suggestion.  I have tried restarts (as required for some 'preferences' changes) and full AP2 closures, often followed by a PC restart to no avail.  When I return to AP2 everything's back to square one.  I've even tried reinstalling AP2!

[walt.farrell]

Thanks for confirming. No further ideas from me at the moment as to a cause. But, can you confirm if you're using the MSIX-based installer, or the EXE-based installer for Photo 2? That could perhaps make a difference.

[James Power]

Hi again Walt.  The 13.3.23 downloaded AP2 file was an MSIX file.

Many thanks

James

[Dan C]

Hi @James Power,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Can you please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%userprofile%\.affinity\Photo\2.0\Settings

In the folder that opens, do you see a 'PerformancePreferences.xml' file?

If so, can you please attach a copy of this to your reply here for me?

Many thanks in advance!

[James Power]

Hi Dan

many thanks for your help.

I’m away from my PC for the next week so will follow your suggestion as soon as I return. 
 

kind regards

james

[James Power]

Hi again Dan

Apologies for the delay in being able to respond to your kind offer to help.

Below is what I see when opening the  'PerformancePreferences.xml' file you mention.

Let's hope there's a clue here!

Thanks again for your help.

James

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<Settings xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xmlns:xsd="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema" xsi:type="Serif.Interop.Persona.Settings.PerformanceSettings">
    <RAMUsageLimit>
        <UnitType>Megabyte</UnitType>
        <Value>4096</Value>
    </RAMUsageLimit>
    <DiskWarningLimit>
        <UnitType>Megabyte</UnitType>
        <Value>32768</Value>
    </DiskWarningLimit>
    <UndoLimit>1024</UndoLimit>
    <ViewQuality>0</ViewQuality>
    <AutoSaveInterval>
        <UnitType>Number</UnitType>
        <Value>300</Value>
    </AutoSaveInterval>
    <UsePerfectClipping>False</UsePerfectClipping>
    <UseDithering>True</UseDithering>
    <RetinaPassIndex>0</RetinaPassIndex>
    <UseHardwareAcceleration>True</UseHardwareAcceleration>
</Settings>

 

On 3/24/2023 at 12:13 PM, Dan C said:

Hi @James Power,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums

Can you please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then paste the following string and press OK:

%userprofile%\.affinity\Photo\2.0\Settings

In the folder that opens, do you see a 'PerformancePreferences.xml' file?

If so, can you please attach a copy of this to your reply here for me?

Many thanks in advance!

 

 

 

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing that for me James - I was expecting this file not to be present as the settings were not being retained, and everything looks as expected in this file so I'm not certain why your setting changes are not being held currently.

Therefore I'd like to try resetting the app to default settings as this will re-generate these .xml files and hopefully retain any changes once done.

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 Affinity Photo 2 to enable all tick boxes in the top section of the dialog and then select Clear. The app will now open.

Once complete, does the app retain your setting changes please?

[James Power]

On 4/12/2023 at 12:20 PM, Dan C said:

Many thanks for providing that for me James - I was expecting this file not to be present as the settings were not being retained, and everything looks as expected in this file so I'm not certain why your setting changes are not being held currently.

Therefore I'd like to try resetting the app to default settings as this will re-generate these .xml files and hopefully retain any changes once done.

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 Affinity Photo 2 to enable all tick boxes in the top section of the dialog and then select Clear. The app will now open.

Once complete, does the app retain your setting changes please?

 

Have followed above when restarting several times but does not cure the problem of AP2 not remembering ANY settings made. The program seems to automatically resort to default every time I open it! Can you think of anything else I can try?  Also, thanks for your help so far!

[Dan C]

Thanks for letting me know and I'm certainly sorry to hear this!

It's possible that a third party application is removing these files, or stopping them from being saved when Affinity closes - do you have any 'Cleaner' or 'Anti-virus' applications installed that may be interacting with the Affinity app/folders?

[James Power]

I only have McAfee which has unworked fine with AP1.  I've just tried disabling McAfee and restarting my Windows 11 PC, but problem just the same!

[Dan C]

Thanks for verifying, it's unlikely that McAfee is interfering with these files.

Can you please open Windows Run (Windows Key + R) then navigate to:

%userprofile%\.affinity\Photo\2.0\

In the folder that opens, please select log.txt and upload a copy of this here for me.

Many thanks once again

[James Power]

Hi again Dan

Thanks again for your help.

Below is the contents of the file you mentioned:

Log.txt

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing that for me - there's nothing out of the ordinary here to indicate a reason for this.

Therefore I'd like to try/check the following:

Can you please close the Affinity app, then return to the following folder through Windows Run:

%userprofile%\.affinity\Photo\2.0\Settings

Then open the 'PerformancePrefernces.xml' in a text editor (such as notepad) and manually edit the following line -

On 4/11/2023 at 8:39 PM, James Power said:

 <AutoSaveInterval>
        <UnitType>Number</UnitType>
        <Value>100</Value>
    </AutoSaveInterval>

Save the xml file and then open the Affinity app and navigate to Edit > Settings > Performance. Has this used the new 100 value for Auto Save?

If you then restart the application, is this value retained, or reset?

Equally, I'd like to check your event viewer log to see if the app is silent crashing and failing to save your settings changes. To generate these logs, please do the following:

1. Open Windows Run and type the following - eventvwr
2. In the window that opens, select the Windows Logs drop-down list on the left and then Applications
3. With the Applications logs selected, navigate to the right side of the window and select Save All Events As... and save them as .evtx (the default option).
4. Attach this saved file to your reply here. 

Hopefully this should help indicate the potential cause of this on your machine

[James Power]

On 7/21/2023 at 12:11 PM, Dan C said:

 

 

Hi Dan - thanks again for your determination to resolve this matter.

1. Auto-save DID retain the 100 value as requested above.

2. Attached is the 'Save All Events' file you asked for.

Thanks also for your clear and unambiguous instructions!

James

Save All Events As (file).evtx

[Dan C]

No problem at all, it's interesting to know that manually adjusting the file has retained the value.

Your Event Viewer log shows me that there are potential issues with your Microsoft Visual C++ Install, which the Affinity apps are based on and this may be causing 'handshake' issues with your Affinity setting files when opening/closing the apps.

Can you please try running an 'SFC' scan, as outlined here - 

https://support.microsoft.com/en-au/topic/use-the-system-file-checker-tool-to-repair-missing-or-corrupted-system-files-79aa86cb-ca52-166a-92a3-966e85d4094e

Once run, please restart your system and try editing these setting values within the Affinity app once again - are these now retained as expected please?