Launch Error: Sorry, there was a problem launching the application. Cannot communicate with other Affinity apps. Please ensure the app is up-to-date and that your firewall isn’t blocking local network traffic.

[Milo_D]

All,

Help! Affinity designer will not launch. Was using all afternoon. Closed the app. Tried opening Designer an hour or so later and received this message:

 

It is happening for Photo and Publisher too.

Then tried to debug following prior issues/suggestions in this forum and tried the following:

1) CTRL when launching, cleared everything. No luck.

2) CRTL and launch, deactivated apps, No luck.

3) Scanned every rule in the Firewall, no issues there. 

4) Checked and rechecked Windows file protection - all three apps are allowed.

5) Uninstalled perfectly working [until now] designer, photo and publisher apps, restarted and installed freshly download MSIX installers. No Luck.

6) Uninstalled new install of MSIX, restarted and installed freshly downloaded MSI (.exe) installers. No Luck.

Nothing has changes on the system in the hour that it was working and when it stopped. Hoping the community or the Serif team can help point me in the right direction asap. I have already spent several unplanned hours on this and up against a deadline.

Many thanks.

 

Config:

- Win 11 most recent updated from Oct 25. (Note designer was launched several times after this update.)

- i9, nvidia discrete graphics (latest driver), 64gb RAM. 

 

 

[Milo_D]

Addendum: 

• The apps don't work and throw the same error message even after switching off windows firewall. 
• The connection to local host works.
• After the 2nd time reinstalling, only Designer is installed, i.e. no affinity other app for it to communicate to.
• Tried CTRL + launch and cleared settings.

All the suggestions in the error message have been tried/tested, with no joy.

Is Designer trying to connect to an Affinity server and not making a successful connection? 

TIA.

[thomaso]

Maybe this Serif info is helpful:

"In rare cases this message can appear if you have another in Affinity V2 app open that's in a Not-Responding state, such as processing a large document. You will have to wait for the other app to finish what it's doing before you can open another V2 app. If you suspect the app has hung, you will need to force quit the app before another Affinity V2 app can start."

[Milo_D]

10 hours ago, thomaso said:

Maybe this Serif info is helpful:

"In rare cases this message can appear if you have another in Affinity V2 app open that's in a Not-Responding state, such as processing a large document. You will have to wait for the other app to finish what it's doing before you can open another V2 app. If you suspect the app has hung, you will need to force quit the app before another Affinity V2 app can start."

 

Thanks for the suggestion and checked. It does not start even on a fresh reboot - when no affinity apps are running. plus at this point only designer is installed, and checked that there are no affinity apps / services in task manager. 

 

[NathanC]

Hi @Milo_D,

Do you have any dedicated antivirus apps installed, and if so have you checked if it has an active firewall which is potentially blocking local network traffic/Preventing the app from communicating? If so it may be worth just temporarily disabling it to confirm if this then allows the app to start to confirm it that is the cause.

If you don't have an antivirus firewall/there was no change, could you try uninstalling the MSIX version of the app(s) and use the alternative .MSI (AKA .EXE) installer for the app to see if this version of the app functions?

How to download MSI:

 

[thomaso]

8 minutes ago, NathanC said:

could you try uninstalling the MSIX version of the app(s) and use the alternative .MSI (AKA .EXE) installer for the app to see if this version of the app functions?

Didn't the OP already try this when they mentioned:

On 10/29/2023 at 1:18 AM, Milo_D said:

6) Uninstalled new install of MSIX, restarted and installed freshly downloaded MSI (.exe) installers. No Luck.

[NathanC]

1 minute ago, thomaso said:

Didn't the OP already try this when they mentioned

Oops, Yes I misread that thanks. That point can be disregarded.

[Milo_D]

Solved it with brute force for now, but there must be a better solution:

• Uninstall all affinity apps
• First backup and then Delete .affinity folder from c:\Users\<your_user_name>\
• Reinstall all apps. I used the latest build of the MSIX installers. 

Reinstalled apps are working now, but lost All customization, including palettes, settings, etc.

👉 Can someone share how I can recover my custom application palettes? I have the original .affinity folder in case they are stored there. Or are they stored somewhere else? I did a search for *.afpalette with no joy.

thanks.

 

 

 

[walt.farrell]

17 minutes ago, Milo_D said:

I have the original .affinity folder in case they are stored there. Or are they stored somewhere else? I did a search for *.afpalette with no joy.

.afpalette are files you exported.

The working files (palettes, assets, etc.) are all .propcol files, located in, for example: C:\Users\your-username-here\.affinity\Common\2.0\user as explained in the FAQ:

 

[thomaso]

8 minutes ago, Milo_D said:

• Uninstall all affinity apps
• First backup and then Delete .affinity folder from c:\Users\<your_user_name>\

With what method did you uninstall? I would expect from a "proper" uninstall to get all related files removed – without the need to delete them manually.

10 minutes ago, Milo_D said:

👉 Can someone share how I can recover my custom application palettes? I have the original .affinity folder in case they are stored there. Or are they stored somewhere else?

This might contain the required path …

– while I wonder if .afpalette files (used as application palette) possibly are stored in a .propcol file once they got imported to the panel?
(To me on mac in V1 it seems to be the "fills.propcol")

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

With what method did you uninstall? I would expect from a "proper" uninstall to get all related files removed – without the need to delete them manually.

Standard Windows Uninstall does not remove the auxiliary data,  probably in case it will be useful. So it does not eliminate Assets, Brushes, Swatches, etc. that you've created.

[thomaso]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Standard Windows Uninstall does not remove the auxiliary data, 

In this case of "standard" the OP's conclusion confuses: "Solved it with brute force for now, but there must be a better solution:"

What could the "better solution" be then in case of uninstall + reinstall?

Or does the OP's solution mean that it would have worked "just" to reset the app's preferences (via CTRL-click on app launch) … as a simpler solution?

[walt.farrell]

3 minutes ago, thomaso said:

Or does the OP's solution mean that it would have worked "just" to reset the app's preferences (via CTRL-click on app launch) … as a simpler solution?

Yes, possibly a full Reset would have worked.

4 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In this case of "standard" the OP's conclusion confuses: "Solved it with brute force for now, but there must be a better solution:"

What could the "better solution" be then in case of uninstall + reinstall?

There are add-on applications that claim to do a better job of uninstalling things. Often they may work, but sometimes they also mess things up. I don't use them.

[Milo_D]

42 minutes ago, thomaso said:

In this case of "standard" the OP's conclusion confuses: "Solved it with brute force for now, but there must be a better solution:"

What could the "better solution" be then in case of uninstall + reinstall?

Or does the OP's solution mean that it would have worked "just" to reset the app's preferences (via CTRL-click on app launch) … as a simpler solution?

Good point. I was headed in a different direction with a "better solution."

I did try CTRL+Click on launch and clearing out settings/preferences, and it did not work, including clearing Designer settings and all app settings, and deactivating apps. A full reinstall was the last option after trying many other things that did not work.

I was hoping there is a better way than a full reinstall for an issue that has occurred for others, and a number of recommendations are reinstalls, including on this thread. A reinstall is a disruptive, time-consuming process, with loss of settings and time taken to recreate settings & environment post-reinstall. 

If this issue is prevalent, even if infrequent, it is severe in impact, and IMHO, there should be a better way to "heal" launch issues without a reinstall. Even if there is a way to throw more detailed error codes that can be debugged more precisely, it would be helpful (and pardon my ignorance if there already is - I am not aware of it).

Also, the error message references firewall access, etc. - which could be one of the issues, but the launch failure does not appear to be any of the issues in the error message. e.g., the reinstall is working under the same firewall setting that the prior install was working under (until it failed). Another example is the failure of the MSI reinstalls with the .affinity folder intact. It took more debugging first to delete .affinity before any reinstall would work.

Sorry for the grumpy note. I love the product, not the occasional gremlin that shows up. It is Halloween though...

[Milo_D]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

.afpalette are files you exported.

The working files (palettes, assets, etc.) are all .propcol files, located in, for example: C:\Users\your-username-here\.affinity\Common\2.0\user as explained in the FAQ:

 

 

Worked by replacing the new fills.propcol with the old one. This is was very helpful. Palettes restored - thank you!!!

 

 

[thomaso]

18 minutes ago, Milo_D said:

I did try CTRL+Click on launch and clearing out settings/preferences, and it did not work, including clearing Designer settings and all app settings, and deactivating apps. A full reinstall was the last option after trying many other things that did not work.

Do you mean CTRL+Click when launching Designer "did not work" to reset ("including clearing Designer settings") – or it did not solve the launch issue and prevent the communication error message?
• In case of the first: did the dialog appear but the UI not work for?
• In case of the latter: did you select all of its offered reset options?

From your previous post it appeared that manually deleting your user preference folder solved the launch issue – which would also mean that resetting it via CTRL-click on app launch would / could have solved it (because this reset dialog is meant to cause the recreation of this folder with factory defaults).

So currently it seems to be unclear what part in particular / in fact did solve it for you … and accordingly for what part "there must be a better solution".