File destroyed by AFPhoto2

[Blastkist]

I'm devastated. I have worked for a couple of weeks now on this file/model and noticed that since the file was having multiple layers, AF Photo 2 started lagging. Then the thumbnails in layer panel stopped updating, relying instead on previous images. I have all my settings maxed out for cache etc. I have been saving ONLY to local disk. I respected the software struggling under the weight of the file, but alas, it has destroyed so many hours of work without so much as a backup or recovery although I saved it tirelessly. 

I'm just beside myself and not sure what can be done here. For some reason, it just put blue boxes into all of  my layers with almost none of my layer images left behind. I've closed and reopened the program. I've tried opening it in Designer 2, but it is the same. In fact Designer opens it as if it's an older version of the file which I know is impossible. 

Is there any way that we can recover files? It gave me no warnings. Only took 5 minutes to save each time (really frustrating) and it just locked up and did the blue boxes thing. 

 

Please help! :(

 

[RichardMH]

Hope you now have a back up copy. Please do that before you start playing with recovery methods.

One thing to try is to start a new document in Publisher and try Add Pages from File in the Document menu. 

 

[carl123]

You can upload the APhoto document to the forum if you want someone to have a look at it

[RobWu]

A bit late, and maybe not what you want to hear, but...

Always save a file in multiple versions, especially when it becomes one in which you put in a lot of time and effort.
Also, be sure to have backups, LOTS of backups so you can (hopefully...) revert back to a previous version before the data corruption occurred.

But good luck on retrieving (most of) the data. This stuff always sucks when it happens. 

[Dan C]

Hi Blastkist, welcome to the forum, 

Sorry to hear this has happened with your file, the previous advice on backing up is of course a wise course of action, possibly alongside versioning if you want to be doubly sure you can't lose everything.

If you would like to send us the file using the link below, we can take a look at it and see if we can recover anything, though I cannot guarantee success or a timeline for this.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/iGtqYzevfepDNr9gDi8v

Lee

[Blastkist]

6 hours ago, RichardMH said:

Hope you now have a back up copy. Please do that before you start playing with recovery methods.

One thing to try is to start a new document in Publisher and try Add Pages from File in the Document menu. 

 

I do have several as this was my eighth iteration of this model. The problem is that this was a complete revamp and everything was going so swimmingly with the others that I just saved this one as version 8 and continued on. I had been working on this iteration of it for 3 days straight...multiple hours. 

Having said that, I have also been learning the workflows between AD and AP while I'm at it, and I didn't realize you can save your document history until now. I wish I had known prior to this. 

 

I appreciate your response. I wasn't using Publisher though. I haven't tried it yet although I purchased the AF Suite.

[Blastkist]

6 hours ago, RobWu said:

A bit late, and maybe not what you want to hear, but...

Always save a file in multiple versions, especially when it becomes one in which you put in a lot of time and effort.
Also, be sure to have backups, LOTS of backups so you can (hopefully...) revert back to a previous version before the data corruption occurred.

But good luck on retrieving (most of) the data. This stuff always sucks when it happens. 

Live and learn. I was on version 8. I've successfully saved all previous versions but this one was a total revamp and had a lot more detail. I guess I'll have to go back to the drawing board on this one unless the file is recoverable. It was getting pretty big and had a lot of gradients/transparency. I wonder if AF Photo2 was struggling under the weight of that? 

[Blastkist]

1 hour ago, Lee_T said:

Hi Blastkist, welcome to the forum, 

Sorry to hear this has happened with your file, the previous advice on backing up is of course a wise course of action, possibly alongside versioning if you want to be doubly sure you can't lose everything.

If you would like to send us the file using the link below, we can take a look at it and see if we can recover anything, though I cannot guarantee success or a timeline for this.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/iGtqYzevfepDNr9gDi8v

Lee

Hi Lee. I've uploaded it for the sake of trying. I wish I hadn't closed it out before I looked at the undo history. It might have been salvageable at that point. Not sure. Of note though, if it helps to understand how it was behaving prior to the file becoming damaged...the thumbnail updates in the layers panel were not responding or were completely blank at times. Saving the file would take an inordinately long time. I figured it was because it was just a large file. I was restructuring some of the grouped layer items when it did the "blue boxes of terror" thing. Then almost all thumbnails became this blue box. The blue box was originally the background for the image as my model's parts are semi-translucent and that helped me to see them. I was finally wanting to trim the fat out of the model by working with my layer structure and when I went to delete the blue background, the whole thing froze up and then all thumbnails became blue boxes and lost all the parts of the model except for a few. Thank you for your time and attention to this. 

[Blastkist]

6 hours ago, carl123 said:

You can upload the APhoto document to the forum if you want someone to have a look at it

Done! Thank you Carl.

[Blastkist]

2 hours ago, Lee_T said:

Hi Blastkist, welcome to the forum, 

Sorry to hear this has happened with your file, the previous advice on backing up is of course a wise course of action, possibly alongside versioning if you want to be doubly sure you can't lose everything.

If you would like to send us the file using the link below, we can take a look at it and see if we can recover anything, though I cannot guarantee success or a timeline for this.

https://www.dropbox.com/request/iGtqYzevfepDNr9gDi8v

Lee

I forgot to add (if it helps)

My box is running on:

AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 8-Core Processor                4.28 GHz

64-bit operating system, x64-based processor

OS: Edition    Windows 11 Pro
Version    21H2
Installed on    ‎2022-‎06-‎18
OS build    22000.2057
Experience    Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.22001.1000.0

64G RAM

NVIDIA GeForce RTX3060Ti

Edited July 3, 2023 by Blastkist

[Blastkist]

Note how thumbnails in layer panels do not update in AF Photo2. I removed all the offending "blue boxes." 

There appears to be an issue where AF Photo2 struggles to update thumbnails in layers panel. 

[Dan C]

Hi Blastkist,

Your document is HUGE, and with GPU acceleration enabled, you are likely massively exceeding your video card's RAM.

Unclipped, the canvas is 25605 x 39065 or approx. 1GP.  A single layer of this would not be an issue but you have many, many layers using most of the canvas size, even though they do not fit fully on the canvas. Each one of these layers has to redraw when you make an operation.

I would examine if this is realistically needed. you can get better performance by disabling GPU acceleration (and relying less on GPU RAM) but in all honesty I think you have overshot the size requirements.

Lee

 

 

 

[Alfred]

7 minutes ago, Lee_T said:

Unclipped, the canvas is 25605 x 39065

If printed at 400ppi, the output would be 64 x 97.7 inches (or more than 5 x 8 feet).  No one is going to view something of that size from less than several feet away, so the pixel dimensions are massively bigger than they need to be for any practical purposes.

[Blastkist]

1 hour ago, Lee_T said:

Hi Blastkist,

Your document is HUGE, and with GPU acceleration enabled, you are likely massively exceeding your video card's RAM.

Unclipped, the canvas is 25605 x 39065 or approx. 1GP.  A single layer of this would not be an issue but you have many, many layers using most of the canvas size, even though they do not fit fully on the canvas. Each one of these layers has to redraw when you make an operation.

I would examine if this is realistically needed. you can get better performance by disabling GPU acceleration (and relying less on GPU RAM) but in all honesty I think you have overshot the size requirements.

Lee

 

 

 

Oh my goodness no. I would never create a file that size. The actual size of the canvas, while large, is NOT that. And it's set at 300 DPI...so I'm not sure why it's showing you those numbers.

I created the canvas as 8000x16000 and I don't know why it keeps changing itself. I haven't messed with those settings. I've grabbed the document resize canvas dialogue to show you where it's currently set at. I needed the canvas to be large as it tends to lose resolution when imported into Live2D.

 

Edited July 3, 2023 by Blastkist

[Blastkist]

1 hour ago, Alfred said:

If printed at 400ppi, the output would be 64 x 97.7 inches (or more than 5 x 8 feet).  No one is going to view something of that size from less than several feet away, so the pixel dimensions are massively bigger than they need to be for any practical purposes.

But it's not though. I'm confused. This is the current size. When it began to add those blue boxes, they extended beyond the bounds of the original canvas. I'm thinking that's possibly why you're seeing those dimensions. That was not my doing. The file was created using 8000px X 16000px.

[Blastkist]

1 hour ago, Lee_T said:

Hi Blastkist,

Your document is HUGE, and with GPU acceleration enabled, you are likely massively exceeding your video card's RAM.

Unclipped, the canvas is 25605 x 39065 or approx. 1GP.  A single layer of this would not be an issue but you have many, many layers using most of the canvas size, even though they do not fit fully on the canvas. Each one of these layers has to redraw when you make an operation.

I would examine if this is realistically needed. you can get better performance by disabling GPU acceleration (and relying less on GPU RAM) but in all honesty I think you have overshot the size requirements.

Lee

 

 

 

If it can't be salvaged, I understand. That said, I can assure you that I at no point changed or created those blue boxes that were extending beyond the canvas limits. They were created the moment I hit delete on the original blue bkg, which was 8000px X 16000px. I believe this is a result of AF Photo2's glitch and not my doing. I wanted to put this forward nonetheless as it really baffled me. I'm comfortable with Clip Studio Paint Pro, Adobe Suite of tools etc...so this was something altogether unexpected. For whatever reason, AF Photo2 completely changed this document based on a deletion of one layer (the blue background) as is the case here. I had created the original background using the bounding box of course. 

[Blastkist]

I should have prefaced with a compliment to Serif overall. 

Affinity Designer is a game changing piece of software. I have thoroughly enjoyed its smooth and clean interface as well as the layout. Extremely intuitive and you have MASTERED this aspect. The aesthetic is just beautiful. So pat yourselves on the back for that. Yes, there are a few things that I'd like to see added and I'm certain that , in time, I'll see some wonderful changes, but at its core, it works exceedingly well. One thing that always struck me about the Adobe Suite is that their interfaces feel stiff and bulky. Affinity's suite of products all have this really smooth, modern feel and a flow to them. That said, it was the first time I had dipped into AF Photo2 and I saw right away that it was struggling to open a document from the onset (probably because it was a larger canvas I had imported from AD) so it felt somewhat different. I was missing Designer already but the pixel persona in AD wasn't quite meeting my needs. 

As I learn and improve, I'm sure I will be able to more adequately assess the strength of the tools, but I still want to assure Serif that they have my full adoration for developing these programs. I keep dancing back and forth, but find myself missing AD the most so I come right back to it. 

I like to use my 24" Kanvas GT221 Pro by Huion with it. It's sometimes a bit buggy but I suspect the drivers for the tablet and the software aren't playing very nice together. I'm able to get around it by reinstalling drivers and doing a soft boot. Seems to work most of the time.

 

Well done Serif! Big fan here. ❤️

[Old Bruce]

22 hours ago, Blastkist said:

Oh my goodness no. I would never create a file that size. The actual size of the canvas, while large, is NOT that. And it's set at 300 DPI...so I'm not sure why it's showing you those numbers.

This (the huge size) could be the result of Copy and Paste from somewhere. 

The key word is "Unclipped". You made a Document with the 16,000 x 8,000 and if you pasted in items that are bigger then your canvas size remains at 16,000 x 8,000 but the dimensions are actually the size of the pasted item.

On 7/3/2023 at 10:03 AM, Lee_T said:

Unclipped, the canvas is 25605 x 39065 or approx. 1GP

You can try selecting the various layers and doing a "Rasterize and Trim" on them. This will get rid of the stuff outside the canvas size (16,000 x 8,000)

[Blastkist]

7 hours ago, Old Bruce said:

This (the huge size) could be the result of Copy and Paste from somewhere. 

The key word is "Unclipped". You made a Document with the 16,000 x 8,000 and if you pasted in items that are bigger then your canvas size remains at 16,000 x 8,000 but the dimensions are actually the size of the pasted item.

You can try selecting the various layers and doing a "Rasterize and Trim" on them. This will get rid of the stuff outside the canvas size (16,000 x 8,000)

Yes, that's precisely the issue. I hadn't pasted anything at all. I was deleting the artboard's background layer when it happened. It froze, and these blue boxes showed up on almost every layer and they were massive. I saved the file and just uploaded it without touching it to show what had happened. Prior to the deletion of that background, all was well...going slowly but well. Then, disaster. Ah well, it is what it is. I went into all the random boxes created and deleted them...there was little left. 

[Dan C]

Was there anything on the layers before they were blue? It's unfortunately impossible to say how they were created at the size they were, but as @Old Bruce suggests, use rasterise and trim  to remove everything outside of the canvas.

As for the document dimensions itself, what is the destination for your artwork, i.e. print size, device etc as the filename and layers suggests this is for an animation rig. so depending on the zooms you are expecting the canvas size may be necessary of course, but for a visual indicator the yellow box is the resolution of a 4k display.

Lee

[Blastkist]

1 hour ago, Lee_T said:

Was there anything on the layers before they were blue? It's unfortunately impossible to say how they were created at the size they were, but as @Old Bruce suggests, use rasterise and trim  to remove everything outside of the canvas.

As for the document dimensions itself, what is the destination for your artwork, i.e. print size, device etc as the filename and layers suggests this is for an animation rig. so depending on the zooms you are expecting the canvas size may be necessary of course, but for a visual indicator the yellow box is the resolution of a 4k display.

Lee

Yes. But the parts (as labelled) were small compared to the boxes that were generated on the freeze up. I have no idea why they went beyond the bounds of the original artboard. Puzzling. I was creating it to import into Live2D and for web view, but the meshes tend to distort images that are imported at lower sizes/resolutions so I was erring on the side of caution as an 8000X16000 canvas. These blue boxes generated go way beyond that apparently. I wasn't sloppy with my work. Each part was well within the artboard boundaries but as stated previously...when I went to remove the blue bkg, the software froze up and suddenly generated all these blue boxes on many layers. I then was attempting to parse through them to find my actual layer images and alas, all was lost except an eye , the stars and the bell of course. 

[Dan C]

The software freezing was likely a response to a fill action made with all the now blue layers selected, as I would imagine completing this action would take -quite- a bit of time, it would have felt like a freeze.

Unfortunately without a backup I would say the best course of action is now to remove the blue layers, as combined pixel area of the document even trimmed is still 4+GP so you will likely find your document will still lag quite badly with GPU acceleration enabled.  

The overall size of the document isn't so much of an issue as long as each layer isn't unnecessarily large.

Lee

[Blastkist]

13 hours ago, Lee_T said:

The software freezing was likely a response to a fill action made with all the now blue layers selected, as I would imagine completing this action would take -quite- a bit of time, it would have felt like a freeze.

Unfortunately without a backup I would say the best course of action is now to remove the blue layers, as combined pixel area of the document even trimmed is still 4+GP so you will likely find your document will still lag quite badly with GPU acceleration enabled.  

The overall size of the document isn't so much of an issue as long as each layer isn't unnecessarily large.

Lee

So I've started over with a new model. This time canvas is 4000x8000px. As soon as I got done with the head/face, it started to lag at saving again, some thumbnails struggling to update and I've been going at it slowly, saving constantly and have a backup file. I think it's honestly to do with the layers and transparency as well as the multiple gradients. Unfortunately, I need to do it this way as she is a jellyfish girl. I will finish up with my shapes and lay down the rest of the form/body and I'll likely use something else to do the rasterizing as it becomes tedious to wait so long for the saving of the file. 

 

 I think I've managed to test the limits here. LOL 

 

[Dan C]

The link above is still active if you would like to send me the current version to check it over.

Lee

[Blastkist]

Done! Pardon her appearance. She's a work in progress. Let me know what might be bloating this thing up. It's at a little more than 79KB on my end. 

Canvas sized as stated previously.