Affinity Photo v1.10.6 will no longer open NEF images (Mac)

[Soleil]

Apologies if this has been covered but I could not find anything in my searches.  I am not super tech savvy.  

The details:  

Mac OS Monterey version 12.3.1

Affinity Photo version 1.10.6

Nikon D5300 images shot in Raw (NEF)

The Problem:

I can no longer open NEF images.  At this point, I will have sporadic success opening NEF files but for the most part I get an error message stating that the file format is not supported.  How can this be when I've been using this software to open my images for nearly 10 years?  Why does it sometimes work but others not?  Nothing has changed on my end.

On the rare occasion that I am successful at opening a NEF image, I can "develop" it, but I usually cannot export, instead getting an error stating "An error occurred while exporting files to: /"xyz"

Please help.  This is very frustrating and I would really like to have access to my images.

Thank you!

 

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, Soleil said:

On the rare occasion that I am successful at opening a NEF image, I can "develop" it, but I usually cannot export, instead getting an error stating "An error occurred while exporting files to: /"xyz"

Which RAW engine do you've setup and have in use in APh, the Affinity one (LibRaw) or instead the by MacOS supplied one? - Did you already tried to export to some other folder, like your User account's "Download" folder?

[Soleil]

I don't know what Raw engine is set up, how would I go about figuring that out?

I can't remember if I've tried exporting to a different folder when that issue arrises.  I would test it out now if I could, but nothing will open at the moment.

Edit:  I was just able to open a NEF image and develop it.  I've tried exporting to multiple locations, desktop, documents, external hard drive, but none were successful.  

Edited October 7, 2023 by Soleil

[walt.farrell]

10 hours ago, Soleil said:

how would I go about figuring that out?

Assistant Settings, then click on the Develop button at the bottom of the dialog.

[Soleil]

On 10/7/2023 at 3:19 PM, v_kyr said:

Which RAW engine do you've setup and have in use in APh, the Affinity one (LibRaw) or instead the by MacOS supplied one? - Did you already tried to export to some other folder, like your User account's "Download" folder?

The RAW engine is Serif Labs.

[v_kyr]

33 minutes ago, Soleil said:

The RAW engine is Serif Labs.

Did you updated your Mac OS Monterey version, installed some antivrus/malware protection tools or the like since when it worked flawless? - Also check the security access rights for APh under your macOS system settings, aka if APh has the permission to access all system folders or not ...

Quote

Open System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy > Full Disk Access - and look if Affinity Photo is listed there?

If not, under the same Privacy tab, in the Files and Folders section, does Affinity Photo appear there? (and if so, which folders does it have access to?)

Other than that try to use/open NEFs from your local filesystem and not some cloud or external drive.

[Soleil]

Since I am not certain of the date that I last updated the OS, there is an ever so slight chance that it was updated before the problems started, but I don't believe they coincided.  Other than that, nothing has changed on my end.  I only use my computer once every few months, just to catalog photos and use Affinity Photo.

Affinity was not listed under Full Disk Access or Files and Folders (and no option to add it either).  Could that be the culprit?

The aspect that makes no sense to me is that sometimes NEF images open, sometimes they don't.  Sometimes I can export, sometimes I can't.  

[v_kyr]

11 hours ago, Soleil said:

The aspect that makes no sense to me is that sometimes NEF images open, sometimes they don't.  Sometimes I can export, sometimes I can't.

The question in turn here is, if on/to always one and the same folders here, so let's say if it sometimes can open and write NEFs from ~/Pictures or ~/Downloads and sometimes not?

 

11 hours ago, Soleil said:

Affinity was not listed under Full Disk Access or Files and Folders (and no option to add it either).  Could that be the culprit?

Maybe, you can give it a try if it makes any difference or not.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, v_kyr said:

16 hours ago, Soleil said:

Affinity was not listed under Full Disk Access or Files and Folders (and no option to add it either).  Could that be the culprit?

Maybe, you can give it a try if it makes any difference or not.

FWIW, on my Mac running Catalina, in System Preferences > Security & Privacy, once I click the Lock icon & authenticate with my admin user name & password, I can add apps to Full Disk Access by clicking on the plus button, but for reasons I have never understood I can't do that for Files and Folders because the plus & minus buttons are always greyed out. A web search for that apparent bug turns up several references to it not working but nothing about how to fix it.

[v_kyr]

21 minutes ago, R C-R said:

but for reasons I have never understood I can't do that for Files and Folders because the plus & minus buttons are always greyed out

Whenever you open a file or folder, either with Finder or with the system Open/Save Panel, or a few other ways, you are automatically adding that item to the list of files/folders the app can access. But there is extensive security around this, for example Open/Save Panels run on a dedicated system process and not within the app they appear to belong to. Also, certain areas are just always available. Such as parts of ~/Library to store settings, caches, etc. Documents and Downloads and iCloud are also special cases. The exact rules are tweaked with each release. What version of MacOS are you running?

Also, Mac App Store apps have a set of "capability" flags like "access the internet" or "location services" or "print documents" and various filesystem capabilities. The app review team only allows these if they are appropriate for the app. A game for example can't see your printer or documents folder.

Further you may find it useful to know that one can use the following commands to reset the privacy (TCC) permissions for folder access:

tccutil reset SystemPolicyAllFiles
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDesktopFolder
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDocumentsFolder
tccutil reset SystemPolicyDownloadsFolder
tccutil reset SystemPolicyNetworkVolumes
tccutil reset SystemPolicyRemovableVolumes

These permissions are stored in the file /Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db, which is an SQLite database; however, this file can't be easily modified by the user while macOS is running.

There is usually also a second privacy permissions database that is specific to each user, which is located at ~/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db. When opening that database on a Mac, one can see what some Apps were only granted exactly (some only three permissions as default):

kTCCServiceSystemPolicyDesktopFolder

kTCCServiceSystemPolicyDocumentsFolder

kTCCServiceSystemPolicyDownloadsFolder

 

[R C-R]

26 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

What version of MacOS are you running?

57 minutes ago, R C-R said:

FWIW, on my Mac running Catalina,

It's also listed in my sig below every post as macOS 10.15.7.

As for the rest of it, from the Catalina macOS User guide accessible by clicking the ? button in System Preferences > Security & Privacy > Privacy tab there is this for Files and Folders:

It appears that this guide is no longer online & it can't be copied as text in the version that opens by using the ? button, which is why I copied it as a jpeg, but the point is there is no way to deselect an app on that list because no app listed can be selected, as well as no way to add any app to it like can be done with Full Disk Access. There are also other longstanding issues with it like trying to untick an item like Desktop Folder often either does nothing or unticks or ticks a folder option in another listed app.

A web search will turn up several topics about this issue for Catalina & I think for other versions but I never have tried that.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

...as well as no way to add any app to it like can be done with Full Disk Access. There are also other longstanding issues with it like trying to untick an item like Desktop Folder often either does nothing or unticks or ticks a folder option in another listed app.

A web search will turn up several topics about this issue for Catalina & I think for other versions but I never have tried that.

Can't tell for Catalina as I never used that macOS version really for any development purposes. Though usually there should be hints and related tips for that too on the net if you perform some careful search about these topics.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

Can't tell for Catalina as I never used that macOS version really for any development purposes. Though usually there should be hints and related tips for that too on the net if you perform some careful search about these topics.

I have searched many times for info about this but like I said, while this issue has been reported by several different people, nobody has figured out how to resolve it. No one seems to have found a way to deselect any app in the list. It just does not work like the guide says it should.

But all that aside, @Soleil should be able to add the Affinity apps to the Full Disk Access list after authenticating to unlock the panel & clicking the Plus button. That should open a Finder-like list of the installed apps that includes the Affinity ones.

[Soleil]

On 10/12/2023 at 1:44 PM, R C-R said:

FWIW, on my Mac running Catalina, in System Preferences > Security & Privacy, once I click the Lock icon & authenticate with my admin user name & password, I can add apps to Full Disk Access by clicking on the plus button, but for reasons I have never understood I can't do that for Files and Folders because the plus & minus buttons are always greyed out. A web search for that apparent bug turns up several references to it not working but nothing about how to fix it.

Oddly enough, when I initially tried this a few weeks ago, mine was grayed out for both Full Disk Access as well as Files and Folders, even with unlocking the window.  But I tried again just now, and I was able to click the plus button under full disk access and add Affinity Photo.  Cross your fingers for me!!  I don't have the time or patience for this stuff 😵‍💫