Affinity Photo 2 won't launch

[Dylan16]

Hi, I'm experiencing some strange behaviour from Affinity Photo 2 whereby every time I try and open a document or create a document the app just crashes and closes completely. Not sure what's causing this as it was working yesterday.

[MikeTO]

20 minutes ago, Dylan16 said:

Hi, I'm experiencing some strange behaviour from Affinity Photo 2 whereby every time I try and open a document or create a document the app just crashes and closes completely. Not sure what's causing this as it was working yesterday.

Hi Dylan and welcome to the forums.

Try holing down Ctrl and then starting Affinity - hold it down until you see the Clear User Data window. (On macOS, press and hold Ctrl immediately after you click the icon.) Don't change anything in this window, just click Clear. You'll lose a few things such as your panel setup but you should be able to get Photo working again by doing this.

Good luck

[Dylan16]

34 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Hi Dylan and welcome to the forums.

Try holing down Ctrl and then starting Affinity - hold it down until you see the Clear User Data window. (On macOS, press and hold Ctrl immediately after you click the icon.) Don't change anything in this window, just click Clear. You'll lose a few things such as your panel setup but you should be able to get Photo working again by doing this.

Good luck

Hi Mike, 

Thanks for your help however unfortunately this hasn't fixed the problem :(

[R C-R]

3 hours ago, MikeTO said:

(On macOS, press and hold Ctrl immediately after you click the icon.)

FWIW, since it can be tricky to get the timing right for that, if you have the Affinity app set to be kept in the Dock, you can just hold down CTRL first & then click & hold on the Dock icon until the menu pops up & start the app that way to get the Clear User Data window. Likewise, if you use Launchpad you also can hold down CTRL first & then click on the app to start it that way to get the Clear User Data window.

It's really only necessary to do the 'immediately after' thing if you launch from a Finder window, like with the Applications folder.

[Dylan16]

7 hours ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, since it can be tricky to get the timing right for that, if you have the Affinity app set to be kept in the Dock, you can just hold down CTRL first & then click & hold on the Dock icon until the menu pops up & start the app that way to get the Clear User Data window. Likewise, if you use Launchpad you also can hold down CTRL first & then click on the app to start it that way to get the Clear User Data window.

It's really only necessary to do the 'immediately after' thing if you launch from a Finder window, like with the Applications folder.

Slight mis-understanding - the clear data step has been completed and I haven't had any issues doing that. What I meant is that clearing data didn't fix the problem. 

[tsudatomo]

I am also suffering from the same problem...

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @Dylan16,

If the app crashes/freezes upon creating or opening an existing document this can be an indication that there is a problem with your GPU/Drivers. I would recommend running through the potential solutions outlined below, this is based off the assumption you're running Windows 10/11:

Disable Hardware Acceleration 

Within the apps under Edit > Preferences > Performance try disabling Hardware Acceleration (The last tickbox) and then close the interface and restart the app when prompted to and try again. 

Change App Rendering Method 

Within the Apps under Edit > Preferences > Performance try changing the Renderer to ‘WARP’, close the interface and restart the app when prompted to. this forces the software to do the rendering which is significantly slower, but can help confirm what’s causing the issue as a temporary measure. 
 

Update your GPU Drivers  

Make sure that you have the latest available drivers installed for your GPU, i've linked the AMD and Nvidia and Intel driver search tools below, dependant on your GPU. If possible, perform a clean installation of your drivers if given the option. 

https://www.nvidia.com/download/find.aspx  

https://www.amd.com/en/support  

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/download-center/home.html  

— 

If you’re still having trouble, could you send me a DXDIAG report? To do this, bring up run command (Win + R) and then type in the following: DXDIAG and then press enter. On the new window, press ‘Save all information’ and then save it to a text file on your device and send me a copy of the .txt file. 

Could you also send me a screenshot of your in app performance preferences?  

If there’s any recent crash reports for the app(s) available, could you also send me these? I’ve provided a link to an FAQ post below on finding crash reports. 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/168448-where-do-i-find-crash-reports-for-affinity-v2-apps/#comment-963913 

[Dylan16]

On 9/15/2023 at 11:07 AM, NathanC said:

Welcome to the forums @Dylan16,

If the app crashes/freezes upon creating or opening an existing document this can be an indication that there is a problem with your GPU/Drivers. I would recommend running through the potential solutions outlined below, this is based off the assumption you're running Windows 10/11:

Disable Hardware Acceleration 

Within the apps under Edit > Preferences > Performance try disabling Hardware Acceleration (The last tickbox) and then close the interface and restart the app when prompted to and try again. 

Change App Rendering Method 

Within the Apps under Edit > Preferences > Performance try changing the Renderer to ‘WARP’, close the interface and restart the app when prompted to. this forces the software to do the rendering which is significantly slower, but can help confirm what’s causing the issue as a temporary measure. 
 

Update your GPU Drivers  

Make sure that you have the latest available drivers installed for your GPU, i've linked the AMD and Nvidia and Intel driver search tools below, dependant on your GPU. If possible, perform a clean installation of your drivers if given the option. 

https://www.nvidia.com/download/find.aspx  

https://www.amd.com/en/support  

https://www.intel.co.uk/content/www/uk/en/download-center/home.html  

— 

If you’re still having trouble, could you send me a DXDIAG report? To do this, bring up run command (Win + R) and then type in the following: DXDIAG and then press enter. On the new window, press ‘Save all information’ and then save it to a text file on your device and send me a copy of the .txt file. 

Could you also send me a screenshot of your in app performance preferences?  

If there’s any recent crash reports for the app(s) available, could you also send me these? I’ve provided a link to an FAQ post below on finding crash reports. 

https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/168448-where-do-i-find-crash-reports-for-affinity-v2-apps/#comment-963913 

Hi Nathan, thanks for your help.

I'm pleased to say that disabling hardware acceleration fixed the issue. 

 

Thanks.