Beta 1931 - copy or duplicate crashes app frequently

[Dennison]

Was not having this challenge yesterday with previous version.

Now attempts to copy or duplicate frequently causes app to crash.

One particular group of Text Frames will not copy or duplicate. Even when ungrouped and a single Text Frame selected and copied. Crtl-V  instantly crashes.

 

Any ideas?  Suggestions welcome.

[Hangman]

Hi @Dennison,

Any chance of a sample file, again it's going to be a tricky one to diagnose without having a file to work with exhibiting the behaviour as I can't replicate the behaviour here with a new file.

[Dennison]

Sure. Thanks

The problem part - which crashes every time copy or duplicate - is top of page 28 - you will see that it has not been copied over to the page on the right

 

 

DE TWIN MLog Aug3.afpub

[Sean P]

Thanks for the file Dennison - I can reproduce the crash here and will get it logged!

[Sean P]

Just to add that it appears to be the Index Mark in the 'Propellertyp' text frame that is causing the crash.

[Dennison]

1 hour ago, Sean P said:

Just to add that it appears to be the Index Mark in the 'Propellertyp' text frame that is causing the crash.

Thank you Sean.

That seems to have been it. Deleted the Index Mark and voila - no crash.

Though that begs the question why this mark, when did not have the same issue with other Index Marks.

[Sean P]

6 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Thank you Sean.

That seems to have been it. Deleted the Index Mark and voila - no crash.

Though that begs the question why this mark, when did not have the same issue with other Index Marks.

From what I could tell this Index Mark is orphaned and doesn't appear to have an entry in the Index list (I cut the document down to just this frame and it shows under none of the entries), so when a new entry is added it tries to populate the list and can't find the entry and crashes.

Not sure how the mark got orphaned in the first place however. 

[Sean P]

25 minutes ago, Sean P said:

Not sure how the mark got orphaned in the first place however. 

If you're aware of how you did it that would be very helpful, so we can get to the route of the problem.

[Dennison]

Thanks for the insight.

Is it possible the Index Mark was left over if its entry in the Index was deleted?

This German edition is created by pasting the German text into each Text Frame that had English (thus more or less preserving the layout). So the Mark could be an orphan from the English version where the text in the Index itself was modified.

Apologies I can't be clearer as I'm uncertain myself where it came from.

[Sean P]

17 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Thanks for the insight.

Is it possible the Index Mark was left over if its entry in the Index was deleted?

This German edition is created by pasting the German text into each Text Frame that had English (thus more or less preserving the layout). So the Mark could be an orphan from the English version where the text in the Index itself was modified.

Apologies I can't be clearer as I'm uncertain myself where it came from.

Thanks for that - unfortunately that doesn't seem to be the case from what I've tried. Deleting them does appear to be deleting the marks.
There is an issue that allows them to be orphaned when copying a text selection, and based on what you've said it could well be that. I did try that however and couldn't get it to crash, so there might be a slightly more to it than that. I've informed dev either way. 

Thanks for your help.

[Dennison]

Thank YOU for your help and the great apps.

12 books in 36 editions in 5 languages! ++

[Hangman]

2 hours ago, Dennison said:

12 books in 36 editions in 5 languages! ++

That must be keeping you busy... 😱

[Dennison]

Yes, but the tasks are enjoyable using Affinity Designer and Publisher!

And keeps me out of trouble.

 

The only thing that really annoys me is the INDEX.  I've just deleted the Index in a book - but AfPub won't allow a new Index because somewhere in a 288 page document there is an Index Character.  BUT in that case, how were there TWO indices before (I just deleted one)?

The app badly needs a Go To Index button.

[walt.farrell]

4 hours ago, Dennison said:

I've just deleted the Index in a book - but AfPub won't allow a new Index because somewhere in a 288 page document there is an Index Character.  BUT in that case, how were there TWO indices before (I just deleted one)?

Try deleting the Text Frame that used to contain the Index.

[Dennison]

Thanks.  First thing I did - been through this circus multiple times. Still will not allow a new index, and I am certain I did not use any index formatting anywhere else  (I'm very very careful about this, knowing from past experience how much time gets wasted looking for invisible text!)

[Sean P]

Would you mind attaching a copy of the offending document at all please?

[Dennison]

Sure

GER TWIN MLog Aug10.afpub

[Hangman]

5 hours ago, Dennison said:

The app badly needs a Go To Index button.

It does have a Find in Document option when right-clicking an index in the Index panel... and there appear to be quite a few Index Markers still in your document...

 

[Dennison]

My understanding is that one has to search each Index Character and Paragraph style one at a time. It's cumbersome and very slow and tedious.

 

I've had "phantom" indices appear in most of my book layouts, despite being super careful not to add any Index text styles, only Add Index Mark.

[Sean P]

23 minutes ago, Dennison said:

Sure

GER TWIN MLog Aug10.afpub 11.46 MB · 3 downloads

The Index is on the (it was empty for me after I removed all the index markers from the document) frame on Page 4. If you place a caret in there and Ctrl+A and hit backspace it should delete the index, allowing for insertion at the end of the document (providing thats what you were wanting).

All I had to do was add a word that was unlikely to be in the document (such as 'Bacon!'), create an index entry for it and add a marker, regenerate the index and then do a Find & Replace to find the frame that the index was generated in.

Hopefully that makes sense? However as you say your document does raise a good point of having a less 'hacky' way to work around this problem. So I'll get an improvement logged. 

Hopefully that helps you going forwards!  

[Sean P]

31 minutes ago, Sean P said:

The Index is on the (it was empty for me after I removed all the index markers from the document) frame on Page 4. If you place a caret in there and Ctrl+A and hit backspace it should delete the index, allowing for insertion at the end of the document (providing thats what you were wanting).

All I had to do was add a word that was unlikely to be in the document (such as 'Bacon!'), create an index entry for it and add a marker, regenerate the index and then do a Find & Replace to find the frame that the index was generated in.

Hopefully that makes sense? However as you say your document does raise a good point of having a less 'hacky' way to work around this problem. So I'll get an improvement logged. 

Hopefully that helps you going forwards!  

Hmmm there is more to it than the work around I've suggested! 

I've reopened the file and what I suggested won't work (as it was after I removed all index markers in the document). However performing the add marker and then F&R option does show the index as being created on Page 40 in a frame at the bottom left of the document.

What I think is happening, is that its generating the index at every index marker!

[Sean P]

2 minutes ago, Sean P said:

What I think is happening, is that its generating the index at every index marker!

We have just found that copying a frame is copying the invisible index marker as well, so I suspect that is also part of the problem here.

[Sean P]

So I've made a very short video on how to solve this for you. Instead of giving you a corrected file, I wanted to send a video to show which frames I had to delete, so you know exactly what text has been modified. Ignore the message at the end - that was just an overzealous clicking finger!

Hopefully that helps you proceed with the document! As mentioned we're going to pass this on to development, as this is a very unpleasant situation as you're very aware of!

 

[Dennison]

Thank you Sean for delving into this.  I followed your vid and have cleared all the Index Markers - voila!  Thank you so much!

IMHO this does open a potentially larger issue of how all this inadvertently Index formatting is getting repeatedly into every document.

1) operator error - maybe the first time, but not on book 12. I am fastidious about using the desired Text Style as I enter text.  The look of the book is created as I enter text and images, not pre-designed. On my Text Styles dropdown, Index et al are well separated from the styles I use regularly, so I do not believe I am making multiple accidental clicks.

2) new Text Frames inherit invisible Text Style.  I know the discussion about default Text Style in a new Text Frame has happened elsewhere on the Forum.  At the moment, it is not possible to create a Default Text Frame style. As I understand, at the moment, a new Text Frame inherits whatever Style was last used in a new Frame.  So a random mistake can be inadvertently copied across a document.  My preference is to allow a choice of Text Frame - a default set up in Preferences for all new Text Frames OR inherit style one Frame to the next.

3) I've noticed multiple times in the Betas what seem to be random changes of Text Style. When I re-open a file, sometimes some text styles have changed.  Can't demonstrate that because it's intermittent and random, but it happens from time to time - as in Text - Regular becoming Index Entry 1 etc.

Anyway, thank you to you and all the team for a great product.

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Copy and Pasting a text frame with a rogue index mark causes app to crash" (REF: AFB-8157) has been fixed by the developers in internal build "2.2.0.1951".
This fix should soon be available as a customer beta and is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Serif Info Bot to notify us.