Can't save document??

[electrolyte]

Hello, 

I've produced a 70 page user manual with Affinity Publisher. It's great, I love it. 

The problem now is that I cannot save this document in its final stages. The error is "Save failed because the file could not be written to" (error message screen shot attached - I blocked out the user path and file name). The file with the appropriate name is created, but the document's size is Zero bytes.

I've tried "Save", "Save As ..." and "Save As Package ..." in various locations (network drive, local drive, saving to overwrite the old version, saving new versions in new locations, etc etc) but nothing works. I am now extremely worried about ever closing this program or my laptop failing, as a huge amount of work can't be saved. I've saved versions successfully in the past, but a lot has been done in the last couple of days in terms of edits and updates. 

The only thing that's changed in my system is that Affinity Publisher was updated about a week ago. Additionally my trial ran out and I bought the suite (oh the irony). 

Any ideas how I might address this? Thank you so much for any insight!

[Oufti]

0) As you noticed, it is crucial not to close your file nor quit or reboot!

1) You said you tried to save your file on local disks. Did you mean an internal or external disk? The latter are known to be problematic. 

2) You could try to create a new document, save it on an internal disk (be it the boot disk or not) and then copy the content of your initial file in the new one.  

[electrolyte]

Hi @Oufti, thanks so much for your reply.

I have tried saving to my internal drive, Dropbox, Google Drive, and an external drive. Nothing works.

Do you have any idea how can I copy my content, styles, illustrations, layouts, etc etc to a new document? I can't just copy the pages, I tried that. 

[Oufti]

I would first only try to save a new empty document (on the internal drive to play on a safe ground).

If it succeeds, well… it can be long to go copy/pasting all the layers page after page, if you can't copy the pages at once, but it would still be better than nothing… 

(In other circumstances, there is the Place command but it needs to select a previously saved file…)

++++++++++++

Gosh! Testing copying in a new file, I got the same error as you! 

Not as easy to get out of it as I hoped… 

++++++++++++

I don't want to squat your topic (and I don't need any help, as it was just a testing file) but I'll explain what happened here, in case it rings a bell to someone: 

I created a new document to place an open .afpub file in it. 

Suddenly, when I was on Safari, the Publisher's icon jumped in my Dock because of this:

Access was apparently lost to a file named "intégré" — in fact this file seems to be a temporary copy of the placed file. [I only have my internal SSD and a Time Machine external hard disk, mounted but not used for anything else. So I have no idea why the access could be lost…]

Anyway, I clicked on Retry and a tab named "intégré" appeared on the right of my "Sans titre" unsaved new document. 

Then I tried to save my document and found myself in front of your error panel:

I tried to Export as a PDF my still unsaved doc. This was a success. (You try that also, just to have a copy of what you've done so far…)

There after I went in the Finder and found the two files, PDf and .afpub, but the latter was created with a zero bit size: 

By force, I was unable to open it:

And trying to copy the pages all at once in a new file (XXX-ter) resulted in the same error… 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Oufti
Screen captures added and bug explained

[Oufti]

[TL;DR] I found a way to relaunch Publisher with current .autosave file put safely aside and I recovered my file, able to save it now. 

 

+++++++++++++++

48 minutes ago, LondonSquirrel said:

Can you check your System Preferences/Security & Privacy. 

Good suggestion.

For Affinity Designer, I have the three folders Desktop, Downloads and Documents enabled, Photo has not yet asked for Desktop and Publisher has only Documents enabled. 

I sometimes open some afpub files from my Download folder but have'nt saved them in. At present time, there was no such file opened in Publisher. So I'm not certain that it is related with that bug, but it could well be… 

 

++++++++++++++

 

Meanwhile, I found a (tricky) way of exiting the situation, keeping intact my document. 

1) In the Finder, I opened the "autosave" folder in my (hidden) user library: 

/Users/[admin]/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher 2/autosave

To open your user library, you go in the menu Go and press Alt, then you will see your Library. Or in the same menu you can choose "Go to the folder…" and paste this:

~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher 2/autosave

Therein were two files, each with the date of creation as name. Like this: "20230724011400.autosave".

2) I copied both somewhere else on my drive (on the Desktop or in the Documents folder). 

3) I decided then to renounce saving my open files and quitted Publisher. As a result, the .autosave files in my Library were suppressed. (Expected behaviour: since I explicitly renounced saving my files when quitting Publisher, there was no apparent need to keep the safety copy. But… cf. point 2)

4) I copied back, from my desktop to my library, the .autosave files (in my case, only the biggest) (copying, not moving — safety first!) and relaunched Publisher. 

Bingo! It offered me to restore an unsaved file. (Please, note that this will delete the autosave file in your library, hence the importance of keeping a copy aside of the autosave files, not moving them.)

I agreed and my file was perfectly up to date and this time, I could save it. 

 

This method seems sensible but is by nature delicate. Please consider well every aspect before using it. I would not be responsible for any regrettable consequences… 

First, you could check your Time Machine (if any) and try exporting your file as PDF in case of disaster… 

 

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Oufti

[electrolyte]

@LondonSquirrel I checked my security preferences but Affinity applications aren't listed there. However I haven't had a problem saving anything up to now, so I don't know that this would make a difference. There's no way to add things, so I can't do anything about them not being there. I also can save a new document - the only problem is with this one, that I've put hundreds of hours into - so I don't think it's the problem. Thanks for the tip though.

@Oufti I really appreciate these in depth investigations. This laptop is relatively new (I bought a new one a couple of months ago, but this is the only one I've worked on with this document). It doesn't have the level of history on it that I'm used to, but I checked for the usual Application Support folder but there's no Affinity files in there. I've also looked for a .autosave document but there's not one associated with Affinity. 

It's a real mystery, and I'm still stuck. If the only option is to spend hours copying dozens of masters, pages, layouts, illustrations etc to a new document then I'm going back to Adobe, I can't work like this, and the irony of purchasing the whole software suite a week ago to now be met with this is infuriating. I can't fathom why this hasn't been a problem in this whole process until now, at the final stage where there's a ton of work in place, it's refusing to save. It's so disappointing, and I can't use software where I have to worry that it's going to turn on me and cause an enormous amount of stress and anxiety.

Buyer beware. 

[electrolyte]

Update: I started copying stuff to the new document that was able to be saved. I copied the masters and started copying the content.

I then tried to save the document, and am now - after being able to save before - getting the same error as I was before, and I again am in a situation where I've sunk more hours into this and now, again, can't save.

[Dan C]

Hi @electrolyte,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums & we're certainly sorry to hear you're having trouble here.

1 hour ago, electrolyte said:

I then tried to save the document, and am now - after being able to save before - getting the same error as I was before

There are 2 possibilities here, the Affinity app is losing access to your file/folder and is unable to save the document (which is addressed in our latest beta version) or there is a corrupted element within your document that you are copying across, and once this corrupted element is included, the file fails to save.

As the document is able to be saved after copying some content, but not when copying all content, it certainly sounds as though option 2 is more likely.

Unfortunately without being able to request a copy of the document that cannot save, it is very difficult for me to identify the exact cause of this - though from the information provided it's certainly possible that this is a Master Page element causing the issue for you.

If you copy all of your content, but not your Master Pages - are you able to save this resulting file please?

[Oufti]

3 hours ago, electrolyte said:

I checked for the usual Application Support folder but there's no Affinity files in there. I've also looked for a .autosave document but there's not one associated with Affinity. 

I think you have not investigated on the right place.

It's inside your User's library (the invisible ~/Library, not /Library nor /System/Library) and the folders for Affinity are created in the Application support at first install. An .autosave file is created inside the autosave folder whenever opening a file. They are, normally, automatically deleted on closing the file (being it saved or not). 

[electrolyte]

There isn't an Application Support folder in my user directory, the only place it exists is the root directory and there's no Affinity folder in it at all. 

[thomaso]

1 hour ago, electrolyte said:

There isn't an Application Support folder in my user directory, the only place it exists is the root directory

The root directory? I think it contains only "Applications", "Library", "System" and "Users" (+ a some more invisible folders). Whereas nearly every app uses your user folder for user-related data. – Possibly a misunderstanding of paths. Try this: If you are in Finder press Shift-Cmd-G, then copy/paste this into the field and press the "Open" button:

~/Library/Application Support

There the Affinity folder names start with A.

Or, depending on your macOS version and/or app purchase store (Serif vs. Apple) you might find "Serif" folders (with included "Affinity" folders) in …

~/Library/Containers

… where their names don't start with "A" but for instance with "com.seriflabs"

[Oufti]

57 minutes ago, electrolyte said:

There isn't an Application Support folder in my user directory,

The Library folder in your user folder is hidden by default.
To access it, please, try this:

1. In the Finder, open a new window
2. Click once on the menu Go (just to show it and leave it dropped down)
3. Press the Option touch while the menu is still dropped-down
4. You will see a new line "Library". Choose it. 

Then you are in your user library. You can now open Application support and you will find the desired Affinity Publisher folder. 

 

 

[electrolyte]

@Oufti and @thomaso, you're right, the problem is that this is a new laptop and I've just upgraded to Ventura. Thanks so much, I found it, and I really appreciate your clear explanations!

@Dan C I have started copying the content to yet a new document, and meticulously saving between each chunk of copy and paste to catch any errors as they happen. It complained when I copied an image across so I deleted it, saved, and re-pasted it and it seems to be fine ... that's frustrating, because there doesn't seem to be any logic to what is corrupted or why. I copied across the masters and there doesn't seem to be any problem at all, mainly what I've changed in the last week is text layout and it's unclear why that would suddenly make the document unwritable. 

[Dan C]

I'm sorry to hear this - again it is hard to be certain when supporting without a copy of the file. Have you been able to locate a copy of your .autosave file relating to this document?

If so, please upload a copy of this here for me.

[Oufti]

22 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Have you been able to locate a copy of your .autosave file relating to this document?

If so, please upload a copy of this here for me.

@electrolyte In case you have multiple .autosave files and you doubt which is your original file, remember its name reflects its creation date. Size can also help to determine which is the wanted file.