Can't save in most folders. Getting "Check the file name and try again." after using Save As or Export in Photo and Desiner

[Mikegrebo]

When I try to save in My Pictures or My Documents or most other folders I get  It will only save to a folder on my desktop

[walt.farrell]

Welcome to the Serif Affinity forums.

Do you have some kind of cloud service managing those folders, such as OneDrive, perhaps?

[walt.farrell]

Or, perhaps, do you have Windows Controlled Folder Access enabled? In that case, you'll need to authorize the application to write into the protected folders.

[Mikegrebo]

Im not sure about Windows Controlled Folder Access never set anything up. Other programs don't have any issue and dont think Publisher does, just Photo and Designer. Why if I'm using "Save As" does it say "File not found"?

[Mikegrebo]

I just opened an old file. Turned on a layer and pressed SAVE and got

[walt.farrell]

43 minutes ago, Mikegrebo said:

Why if I'm using "Save As" does it say "File not found"?

Because Saving can be a two-step process, where the solution first creates an empty file,  then updates it. And if the creation fails, and this isn't noticed by the application, the update will fail with "file not found".

 

[Mikegrebo]

Is there a solution do you know? Trying reinstalling

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, Mikegrebo said:

Trying reinstalling

Probably won't help, unless you initially installed using the MSIX-based installers. In that case, you could uninstall all three applications, then download the EXE-based installers and reinstall using them.

 

[Mikegrebo]

just downloaded the exe's from my account. Unistalled them and reinstalled and no change. Is it something with windows 10? don't have a problem with other programs just Affinity. Seems it's My docs, Pictures, Music & Video folders that are a problem

[Komatös]

7 hours ago, Mikegrebo said:

Is there a solution do you know? Trying reinstalling

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/allow-an-app-to-access-controlled-folders-b5b6627a-b008-2ca2-7931-7e51e912b034

[Mikegrebo]

Thank you. Will look at that shortly. For now, I think I may have sorted it. Tell me if I'm wrong if this possibly has nothing to do with it.

I remember switching "Ransomware protection" in Defender after watching one of these "Things you didn't know" video. I've turned that off.

I also noticed in the properties of one of the folders "Users" WMPNetworkSvc and a Microsoft page said to disable Network Sharing.

Could it be one of these?

[walt.farrell]

49 minutes ago, Mikegrebo said:

Could it be one of these?

Yes.