photo and designer 2.2.0 will not load any existing affinity file (split)

[DavidSilverSteel]

I have just updated both affinity photo and affinity designer to version 2.2. Now neither programme will load any existing affinity file. I always get the message that someone else seems to be using the programme as the file is locked. How can I unlock the programme? I have one file which , if I load an existing affinity photo by double clicking the file, it loads with A/P v1 and asks me if I want to update to affinity v2.2. If I say "NO" then I get a small message in the upper right corner saying "loading 1 photo". I wait a while and then it loads the document which is actually an Affinity Designer document.

It appears that I seem to have a ghost document behind the required document and Affinity thinks that it is another user causing a lock on the file! How do I unlock this system? A/P and A/D worked fine until the update to V2.2 and now I am in a great mess and cannot edit any Affinity documents.

Can you help  me?

David Haythornthwaite 

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, DavidSilverSteel said:

if I load an existing affinity photo by double clicking the file, it loads with A/P v1 and asks me if I want to update to affinity v2.2

That seems very odd, as V1 would not update to V2. 

Can you provide a screenshot showing the V1 application window and the prompt?

When in that scenario do you get the message about the file being locked?

[DavidSilverSteel]

Yes very strange. I attach an affinityDesigner file (.afdesign) extension. Mainly a photo to which I have added a panel using A/D. If I double click on it, the system loads affinity Designer 2 with a blank A/D screen and the message that the file is in use - there is a lock on this file, with just one option on the message [Close]. If I press Close I eventually just get a tiny message above the minimise icon saying "Loading 1 Photograph" . The locked file warning comes up immediately the app loads. It seems very unstable and I cannot replicate my previous  problem with the question regarding updating to V2.

I have both V1 and V2 on the same machine of the three programmes AP AD and APub. Will this be causing the problem do you think? I was reluctant to remove V1 and in fact do not know for sure just how to do that. I am considering whether to uninstall AfDesign 2 using "programmes and Features" in Windows 11. Do you think that this would be a good idea?

Thanks for your help Walt

2019 August Zoe & Leonie.afphoto

[walt.farrell]

48 minutes ago, DavidSilverSteel said:

Mainly a photo to which I have added a panel using A/D. If I double click on it, the system loads affinity Designer 2 with a blank A/D screen and the message that the file is in use - there is a lock on this file

Sorry, but I'm unclear on exactly what scenario you've performed. I'm also confused that the message is about a .afdesign file, but you included a .afphoto file as an attachment to your post.

Do you have that file open in another Affinity V2 application before you tried to open it in Designer? Or, perhaps, was it open in an Affinity V2 application, and that application crashed or was terminated without closing properly?

Either of those could explain the message about the file being locked.

If the .afdesign file is truly locked, then if you open its directory with File Explorer, you should find a file with the same name as the .afdesign file but with ~lock~ appended to the end of the file name.

 

 

[NotMyFault]

A reboot of the PC might help in this specific case.

If not, Antivirus software maybe blocking the file - check those apps / logs.

Sysinternal suite has a tool to show which process is locking a file - if nothing else helps.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/handle

[Pim]

Hi David and Walt

I am a quite new user of Affinity Publisher but ran into a similar error message after an upate to version 2.2.0 while trying to open an existing .afpub file:

The file may be in use by another user. There is a lock on the file.

With prevous versions I never encountered this.

Initially I suspected the Publisher app but since the Photo app showed an identical message Windows settings got suspected. I found Windows Defender messages on Ransomware protection blocking access for Publisher. Specifically: "Controlled Folder Access" (which was switched ON) blocked the Publisher app. Switching off the Ransomware protection solved my problem.

You may also allow specific acces for an app within Defender's Ransomware protection as an alternative.

 

Hope this is of some help to you!

Regards,   Pim

[DavidSilverSteel]

Thank you - Thank you Pim. Yes you have solved my problem. since I recently updated both A/Designer and A/Photo to version 2 this problem has appeared in the folder that I use for storing A/Designer and A/Photo files. As you suggested I went into Windows Defender and looked in the ransomware protection settings. Sure enough there were Designer and Photo programmes listed with a + sign there ready to be ticked to add them to the white list. I ticked these in the ransomware settings and the problem has simply gone away. 

It is early days yet but I think that you have cracked it. I shall inform you if I am mistaken.

Kind Regards

David

[Patrick Connor]

@DavidSilverSteel

Thanks for confirming that you have resolved this problem, sorry that the new file locking caused this temporary issue.

@Pim

Welcome to the Serif Affinity Forums   and what a helpful first post, thanks for the suggestion that turns out to have been something Serif were not aware of, much appreciated.

[v_kyr]

22 hours ago, Patrick Connor said:

that turns out to have been something Serif were not aware of

As Serif is now aware of it and this seems to happen more often to people, it would be good to have a general FAQ entry about that problem and how to fix it!

[Hofnaar]

Have the same problem today... it sucks...

and the Ransom protection is already off. Only a duplication of my file with copy and paste within the folder solved the problem.

//EDIT:

I found out that a *affinity-filename*.loc* file was in the folder, maybe cause of a crash of the app the day before...
Simply delete the loc file solved the problem.

I found the solution to delete the locked file here under step 3:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/topic/-the-document-is-locked-for-editing-by-another-user-error-message-when-you-try-to-open-a-document-in-word-10b92aeb-2e23-25e0-9110-370af6edb638