100% reproducible crash when trying to print from Publisher

[JacquesF]

I'm running Publisher v1.10.6 on macOS Sonoma 14.1 (but the problem first started happening on Sonoma 14.0). I opened a document in Publisher, set it up to do an N-up print, and accidentally hit the print button. I started sending data to the printer, so I opened Print Center in macOS and cancelled the job. Publisher crashed right after.

When I went to try printing again, Publisher crashed again before the dialog even showed up. I restarted my computer, tried printing, no dialog, got a crash. I upgraded to Sonoma 14.1, tried printing, no dialog, got a crash. Checked for updates, I'm on the latest version.

I closed my project and created a simple sample project with just the word "text" in a text box. Tried printing, no dialog, crash.

Needless to say I'm really stuck here since I'm unable to print a project that I need to get proofed before sending to my print shop. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I've attached the crash report.

 

crash.txt

[JacquesF]

I tried printing from Safari and got the print dialog without issues. I also tried printing from Affinity Photo, which also works. This appears to just be a Publisher issue.

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, JacquesF said:

Needless to say I'm really stuck here since I'm unable to print a project that I need to get proofed before sending to my print shop. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Workaround: You could export the document instead of printing it from APub, especially if you don't send an .afpub / .afpackage to the print shop.

FWIW, to me APub's print dialog gets reset when APub got quit (both via usual quit and force-quit) and reopened. So possibly it helps if you empty the .autosave file(s) in your user library when APub is closed, in case they store any misleading data.

BTW, because your crash report mentions Print Marks / Crop Marks in the Crashing Thread 0: Note, for N-Up with print marks I need to set the scale factor manually ('fit' and 'shrink' don't work) + I need to set in the N-Up options the Left/Right offset + H/V gaps to make the marks appear in the print dialog preview. (however, ignoring these settings doesn't cause a print crash to me and seems to be related to your macOS Sonoma, as you mentioned already).

[Dan C]

Welcome to the Affinity Forums @JacquesF & sorry to hear you're having trouble!

I've requested further testing of this issue internally, as thus far I've been unable to replicate this crashing behaviour from my Sonoma mac - however in the meantime I'd like to try the following on your device to resolve this crashing:

Firstly please ensure the Affinity app is fully closed (Quit) , then depending on your installation method, please navigate to the below location through Finder:

Affinity Store  ~/Library/Application Support/Affinity Publisher/
Mac App Store ~/Library/Containers/Affinity Publisher/Data/Library/Application Support/

In this folder, please select the User folder (and the printing folder, if one is present) and move these folders to a different location, such as your desktop.

Now, relaunch the Affinity app and you should see new versions of these folders are generated.
Once complete, try printing any document again. Does this stop the app from crashing please?

[JacquesF]

Moving the library files aside didn’t work. I did eventually find a workaround. Something in the preset I was using to print led to the crash. To work around it, I had to print from another app with the default preset, then go back to Affinity and I could print again. Until I printed with a different preset in the other app, Publisher kept opening the print dialog with the preset that triggered the crash. 
 

I’ll see if I can narrow down which setting was causing the issue.

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me, I'm glad to hear you've been able to resolve this issue!

We've previously heard of similar issues being reported, though we're yet unable to replicate this internally - please do let us know if you are able to narrow down the exact setting which causes this

[AndyTIG]

Thanks to JacquesF for the workaround! I've struggled with this for months now and I couldn't figure it out. I did delete the printer one time, and after re-installing it worked (because it removed the presets). But that wasn't quick to do each time, so I did the export trick, but that got old quick.

Anyway - the preset is the issue. 

So I tried my preset and saved it different ways and tried different things; tray, paper size, etc. But still it blew up.

Then I resaved it in AP and it was working just fine. Why?

Turns out it required two things:

1) The preset needed to be saved in AP (not any other apps)

2) Saved as a Print Job Preset and not a Custom Preset (see the attached image). 

When I saved it as a new preset in Word and Photoshop, even though I tried Print Job Preset vs Custom Preset, they both blew up. 

But when I saved it in AP as a Print Job Preset it worked! I have no idea why, but that seemed to do the trick for me.

For anyone else who wants to try, get AP open (follow JacquesF's workaround) and then select the preset you want. Resave it as a new preset and make sure to select Print Job Preset. And see if that works for you, too!