Affinity publisher 2.2.0 book crashes on export

[PaulMH]

I'm using Affinity publisher 2.2.0 on Windows 10 (KB5031356 (OS Builds 19044.3570 and 19045.3570)), and have a book with 28 chapters with endnotes and without images.

On trying to export to pdf the program closes before it can distil the pdf.

This didn't happen in version 2.1, where export went fine, and I was using the same 28 chapters.

I've tried with hardware acceleration ON and OFF, and it crashes in both cases.

At your disposal for further info.

 

[stokerg]

Hi @PaulMHand Welcome to the Forums,

We would really need a copy of the chapters and a copy of your latest crash report in order to look into this.

If you can check for your latest crash report by following the advice on this post and upload that, along with the 28 chapters to our Dropbox here and I'll look into what's causing the crash  

[PaulMH]

Hi stokerg and thanks very much in advance for looking into the issue. I've attached the 28 chapters, the book file and the crash report to your Dropbox.

[stokerg]

Hi @PaulMH,

The book is exporting fine for me.

Which PDF export settings are you using when exporting?  The crash is happening in librenderer.dll which is normally used to render what's on screen.

You can try a basic reset by starting Affinity with the Control key held down and you'll see a window with a number of tick boxes on, 3 will be ticked and you can click on Clear.  Now try exporting your book again and let me know the results  

[PaulMH]

Hi Stokerg,

Thanks very much indeed for your suggestion.

I followed your suggestion and in fact 4 boxes were ticked and I cleard all of them.

I tried exporting again, but it still crashed. This happens about a second after pressing the export tab, so I could not specify any export settings.

Another shorter book I have still exports.

Another thing, I do notice that the export seems to get as far chapter 2 and then blocks since after the crash there are "remnants" with names like Chap2.afpub~lock~

Best,

Paul

[PaulMH]

Hi Stokerg,

I found some more stuff which might help.

I can export individual chapters OK using a pdf export profile

But, when I try to export the whole book, it crashes again straight away bfeore I can choose export options.

Then, when I export a single a chapter again, the default has gone to export PNG, so it's as if the system  has "remembered" that default from somewhere?

[PaulMH]

And here's a screenshort of this apparanet default revert...

[stokerg]

Hi @PaulMH,

I've tried this on 2 different PCs and still don't get a crash.  Can you just confirm you've uploaded all of the chapters? Just in the Dropbox folder, there are only 25 .afpub files and not the 28 you stated in the first post.  I just want to make sure I've got all the files as that could possibly be why I've not had a crash yet  

37 minutes ago, PaulMH said:

Then, when I export a single a chapter again, the default has gone to export PNG, so it's as if the system  has "remembered" that default from somewhere?

That's normal, If you quit Publisher and then open it again, start a New Document and click File>Export it will be on PNG.  If you change that to JPG, export and start New Document and click File>Export Publisher will have JPG selected.  It's just remembering the last exported format and if you haven't exported anything, it should default to PNG.

[PaulMH]

Hi Stokerg,

I've just re-uploaded the files to your dropbox, named Chap1-27 and Prelims, plus the book file.😀

[stokerg]

Hi @PaulMH,

I'm still not getting a crash here.  I've also had a member of our QA team try this and they also didn't get a crash.

Another member of QA who's looked over the crash reports, mentions this could possibly be related to a colour profile issue.  Could you just try this in the latest beta and see if you get a crash?  You can sign up for the beta here: https://affinity.serif.com/affinity-beta-program/ once signed up, download and install the beta which installs along side the release build.  Then create a copy of your .afpub files and try exporting the book from Publisher beta and let me know the results.  

[PaulMH]

Hi Stokerg,

I opened the files on the beta, but I'm afraid the book crashed there as well.

[PaulMH]

Hi Stokerg and Chris B,

Thanks very much for all your help.

When I export a chapter it works, but when I try exporting the whole book (from the books panel) it then crashed.

Further info: Publisher 2.2 worked OK until I installed the latest update to Windows 10 (KB5031356 (OS Builds 19044.3570 and 19045.3570)), could this be a factor?

 

 

[PaulMH]

I uninstalled those latest Windows updates and the crash still occurred. Oddly enough it seems to crash more quickly now, both if I try to export or to print the whole book. Attached latest crash report to drop box.

 

[PaulMH]

Hi all,

Great news, I opened a new book, and added all the same chapters once again, saved with a new name, and the new book has exported OK.😄

So there was something not right about the earlier book.

Sorry if I have wasted your time, but it is an odd phenomenon, maybe the problem is at my end.😉

Thanks very much once again for your help!

[stokerg]

Hi @PaulMH,

9 minutes ago, PaulMH said:

Great news, I opened a new book, and added all the same chapters once again, saved with a new name, and the new book has exported OK.😄

 

Well that is great news!

Just so we are clear when the crash was happening, it was as soon as you selected Export from the Book Panel?

[PaulMH]

Hi Stokerg,

Thanks very much. The crash happened as soon as I selected Export from Book panel.

But ... it still happens I'm afarid even with the new book, as soon as I selcted Pdf/1a from the comptibility option under pdf export.

Export works however with simple pdf 1.7 as on screenshot attached.

I've uploaded lastest crash report with new book file for pdf/1a to your dropbox.

Best,

PaulMH

[PaulMH]

But, oddly it will let me export to PDF/2 (2003)!

[PaulMH]

Sorry meant PDF X/3:2003😊

[stokerg]

Hi @PaulMH,

A couple of things to try, first the Prelim chapter uses a greyscale colour space and all the others are using CMYK, so try changing the Prelim chapters colour profule to CMYK/8, which can be done under Document Setup.  Then try exporting the whole book again.

Also can you just enable PDF logging as outlined here and we can see if that catches anything?  You to do that with Affinity closed once logging has been enabled, open up Affinity, try exporting your book and attach the log file (even if you get a crash, if the log file is present, please attached it), which should be on your desktop.

[PaulMH]

9 hours ago, stokerg said:

Hi @PaulMH,

A couple of things to try, first the Prelim chapter uses a greyscale colour space and all the others are using CMYK, so try changing the Prelim chapters colour profule to CMYK/8, which can be done under Document Setup.  Then try exporting the whole book again.

Also can you just enable PDF logging as outlined here and we can see if that catches anything?  You to do that with Affinity closed once logging has been enabled, open up Affinity, try exporting your book and attach the log file (even if you get a crash, if the log file is present, please attached it), which should be on your desktop.

Hi Stokerg,

Thanks very much for the suggestions. I tried changing prelim chapter to CMYK, and attempted exporting under PDFX/1a, but it still crashed..

I followed the procedure for enabling pdf logging, but despite installing PDFLibLogging key in the registry it didn't produce a log file in the C:/Temp folder or on the desktop, only the usual .dmp file which I'm uploading to your dropbox.

[PaulMH]

PS I should add that the program crashed before it could throw up an error message

[PaulMH]

Hi stokerg,

Just wanted to add that I updated to Publisher 2.2.1 just now, but it still crashes on trying to export this book to pdfx/1a

[PaulMH]

And, another shorter book does not crash, so maybe there's something wrong with this longer book file?😊

[stokerg]

2 minutes ago, PaulMH said:

And, another shorter book does not crash, so maybe there's something wrong with this longer book file?😊

It's possible but it's odd that we can't replicate the issue here with your files.  I can load all the chapters you uploaded to our Dropbox into the Books panel and complete a PDFX/1a export without issue.

Could you do a screen recording of the issue?  From loading the chapters and trying to export, as that might show us something that we are missing.  To record your screen on Windows 10, see this link

 

[PaulMH]

Thanks very much indeed stokerg, I'm uploading a screen recording of the crash to your dropbox.