Help! Affinity Publisher 2 File Corrupted!

[Amy Halim]

Hi there,

I have been working on this files for more than a week now and I hate having to start over. The error suddenly appeared saying it has to close the document. When I try to open the file again, the error reads:

 

/Users/amyhalim/Library/Mobile Documents/iCloud~com~seriflabs~affinitypublisher/Documents/2023 Planner Overview.afpub

The file appears to be corrupted.

is there any way that I can recover my file?

 

1. OS : macOS Ventura Version 13.2.1

2. Affinity Version : Affinity Publisher 2 2.0.4

3. Drive type saved : Local (sync to iCloud)

 

My file is 1.8GB, pretty big unfortunately I can't attach it here. Appreciate your help on this please. 

Thank you.

[Amy Halim]

p/s: I have also tried opening  a new file on Affinity > Document > Add pages from files.. didn't work for me

[firstdefence]

Try this...

1. Create a new Affinity Publisher document
2. Go to Document > Add Pages From File...
3. Look for your file and see if it will open long enough for you to import all the pages from that file.

Good luck.

[Dan C]

Hi @Amy Halim,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums & sorry to hear you're having trouble!

We can certainly take a further look at your document, can you please upload this to the below link for me?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/m70BaJzJniLP7i6RfLUu

Once uploaded. please reply here to let me know. Many thanks in advance

[Pšenda]

On 3/25/2023 at 11:11 PM, Amy Halim said:

3. Drive type saved : Local (sync to iCloud)

Citation from other thread with corrupted file: "As mentioned above, our team recommend saving/loading Affinity documents locally, then creating a copy of any files for uploading to cloud services such as Dropbox for backup purposes in order to avoid such corruption."

 

[Amy Halim]

On 3/26/2023 at 7:51 AM, firstdefence said:

Try this...

1. Create a new Affinity Publisher document
2. Go to Document > Add Pages From File...
3. Look for your file and see if it will open long enough for you to import all the pages from that file.

Good luck.

Hi there, 

Thank you for the suggestion! Didn't work for me unfortunately  

[Amy Halim]

7 hours ago, Dan C said:

Hi @Amy Halim,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums & sorry to hear you're having trouble!

We can certainly take a further look at your document, can you please upload this to the below link for me?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/m70BaJzJniLP7i6RfLUu

Once uploaded. please reply here to let me know. Many thanks in advance

Hi! Thank you for your respond. I've uploaded my file onto the said link. Realizing now that the file might be A LOT bigger than I said it was. The huge file size might have contributed to the issue as well. 

[Amy Halim]

7 hours ago, Pšenda said:

Citation from other thread with corrupted file: "As mentioned above, our team recommend saving/loading Affinity documents locally, then creating a copy of any files for uploading to cloud services such as Dropbox for backup purposes in order to avoid such corruption."

 

Hi!

Thank you for pointing that out. Definitely the way to go moving forward. I've started saving the file outside out the folder that syncs to iCloud.

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing that for me!

On 3/25/2023 at 10:11 PM, Amy Halim said:

My file is 1.8GB

The file you have uploaded is 19.9GB which is incredible large for a Publisher document. Is this the correct file as you seem to mention a 2GB file above?

What is your document composed of and do you recall the last steps you took with this document please?

[Dan C]

In regards to the file you've provided however, I can confirm that I'm seeing the same error/warning message when opening this file in either v2.0.4 or v2.1.0.1732 and therefore I am logging this with our development team now for further investigation.

Although I can't provide an exact reason for this, inspecting the file within a HEX editor, I can see that there is a considerable amount of missing/corrupted data in the file, which is likely the cause of this error shown when attempting to load/recover your file - 

As mentioned above, our team recommend saving/loading Affinity documents locally, then creating a copy of any files for uploading to cloud services such as iCloud for backup purposes in order to avoid such corruption.

I'd recommend reverting to a backup of this file, if available, for the time being as the investigation process can take some time, but we'll be sure to be back in contact with our findings.

Our sincerest apologies for any inconveniences caused due to this.

[Amy Halim]

On 3/28/2023 at 12:46 AM, Dan C said:

Many thanks for providing that for me!

The file you have uploaded is 19.9GB which is incredible large for a Publisher document. Is this the correct file as you seem to mention a 2GB file above?

What is your document composed of and do you recall the last steps you took with this document please?

There seems to have been a discrepancy with the file size. It's 21.35GB, but 1.8GB on disk? I'm not sure why perhaps it's because of the missing/corrupted data that you mentioned. I'm sorry about that.

The document mostly composed of imported .pdf files which ranges from 12KB - to maybe 600KB each, and they were linked since all new files were set as "Preferred Linked" instead of Embedded. The last step I took was clicking on one of the .pdf file > replace document (at the top toolbar, to replace the file with another one because I wanted to retain the size and drop shadow FX). That was when it froze and the pop up appeared. 

I really appreciate you taking the time to look into this matter. Thank you. 

[Pšenda]

9 hours ago, Amy Halim said:

There seems to have been a discrepancy with the file size. It's 21.35GB, but 1.8GB on disk?

This difference can be caused by the fact that file is stored on iCloud drive, when part of the working file can be on the local disk, and part already on the storage. After all, this is also the reason why you should not work with files stored/shared in this way - the iCloud service can interfere with the files during the work (solves their synchronization, frees up disk space, etc.), which can then lead to file damage.

Edit: Just to add - I use OneDrive on Windows, which allows you to define "Free up space" for files. Then the file is stored only on the storage, and it is uploaded to the local disk only if it is needed - see the example where the file, although it is 5MB in size, does not take up anything on the disk.

Edited March 31, 2023 by Pšenda

[Alex17]

Hello. 
I experience severe problems with corrupted files in Publisher. I use the Google Drive to sync my work files between the different computers and I never had any problems with Publisher 1. But, since some update of Publisher 2, my Publisher files just started to become corrupted en-masse, even if I just save them while working with the opened file.  It is becoming absolutely unbearable, and I keep loosing tons of my work progress. I experience no similar problems with any other files or software of which I use a few, and from this perspective Publisher just doesn't look very good, unfortunately. It is not realistic for Affinity to expect users to give up on network drives or cloud syncing, instead of fixing this bug. Is there any chance for this issue to be fixed?