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[rwpinto]

I am unable to load any previously created documents into either Designer 2.2.1 or Photo 2.2.1 in a reasonable amount of time, if at all. I am using Mac OS Sonoma 14.1. I have tried files that have been either stored locally, in iCloud drive, or in Dropbox and have the same problem under all circumstances. I read another Forum thread that describes the same problem, and suggested waiting long periods of time. Accordingly, I have waited more than an hour for a file to open in Designer and have waited 3+ hours without the documents successfully loading in Photo. I also opened a second document in Designer with the first one still open and had wait times similar to the first one. To provide an example, here is link to a 300MB file for Photo that does not load for me: https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/9lt9xibnz2oyv1enviqe6/pudgyDalmations30x36A.afphoto?rlkey=likjnop9y404jxouf2emoaty5&dl=0

 

[PaulEC]

FWIW it took about 10 secs to open this file in APhoto on my old, low spec, Windows laptop, so I think your problem must be something other than either Affinity or the file itself!

[rwpinto]

Thanks for trying! Yes, all of my current version 2 files used to open in seconds on my Macs; now they take several hours. This is obviously an unworkable situation.  A post by Affinity elsewhere in the Forum indicates that they do not know the cause and have not been able to reproduce it. They did mention that they are investigating the interplay of Photo on Mac OS Sonoma. 

[Hangman]

Hi @rwpinto,

As you mentioned above, this is a known issue with Sonoma but one thing you can try is to turn iCloud Sync off and see whether it makes a difference to the time it takes to open your files.

[rwpinto]

Thanks, Hangman. I removed Sync from iCloud for all the Affinity applications, but the load times are still gigantic. I let one file open overnight, Photo believes that it has finished loading, but nothing is displayed. As shown in the attached screenshot, the layers are turned on, but nothing shows in the display window. 

[rwpinto]

Let me answer questions posed in the Affinity post

• I am running Sonoma 14.1.1. The previous Mac version was Ventura 13.6.2
• All Affinity apps are version 2.2.1
• No Antivirus/Malware/Adware apps are installed.
• Documents are on the local disk drive in a shared folder. I have tried moving them to non-shared, local folders with no difference in the loading issue.
• Both iCloud Drive and Dropbox run on my machines.

[Hangman]

16 hours ago, rwpinto said:

Thanks, Hangman. I removed Sync from iCloud for all the Affinity applications, but the load times are still gigantic. I let one file open overnight, Photo believes that it has finished loading, but nothing is displayed. As shown in the attached screenshot, the layers are turned on, but nothing shows in the display window. 

Hi @rwpinto,

Many thanks for the update and for providing answers to the questions posed in the Known Issues section.

It's certainly very odd that you're seeing the layers in the Layers Panel for the Affinity Photo file but not the file itself... Two more suggestions though I'm not confident either will make any difference.

1. Try a factory reset of Affinity Photo by holding the Ctrl Key when launching Affinity Photo. When the 'Clear User Data' window appears, leave the three default options checked and then click 'Clear'. Note: Any UI customisation you've previously made will need to be reset back to factory settings.
    
2. If after doing so, you try to open one of your Affinity Photo files and you again see items in the Layers panel but not the canvas itself, try opening a new blank document while your other file is still open and after doing so switch back to your original document to see if the canvas has refreshed or whether you still see nothing.

As mentioned, I'm not confident either suggestion will make any difference but it will possibly help to rule a couple of things out. The issue appears to be very much Sonoma specific relating to an iCloud change but most users experiencing the problem find it is resolved after successfully opening a file after an extended wait so it's slightly odd that this isn't happening for you.

[Dan C]

Sorry to see your file is not displaying as expected @rwpinto.

The 'Loading 1 document...' time on macOS Sonoma is an issue our team are aware of and we're investigating this further with Apple directly.

However the screenshot provided above appears as though the document is past this 'Loading' phase, and is still experiencing issues, therefore I'd like to request a copy of the .afphoto file, so that I can investigate this further here.

Can you please upload a copy of this file to the below link for me?

https://www.dropbox.com/request/FrQBSBvIDAVDS29y1oQj

Once uploaded, please reply here to let me know - many thanks in advance

[rwpinto]

Hello Hangman,

I tried your suggestions, but did not see any improvement in load times, which remind about 3.5 hours. I could not get the canvas to display anything but the outline of a layer when it is selected.

I ran another test to see if the problem was associated with files created under a previous operating system, but now managed under Sonoma. I copied all the layers from a previous document into a new document, saved, and then tried to reload. The results unfortunately are the same. 

Thanks again for the suggestions. In the absence of any other suggestions, i just have to wait for the fix from Affinity.

 

[rwpinto]

Hello Dan C,

I have uploaded a sample file. FYI, all my tries have been on either m1 Pro or M2 Pro Macs running Sonoma 14.1.

Please let me know if you need other files. Thanks!

[Hangman]

Hi @rwpinto,

Thanks for letting me know, I pretty much expected that would be the outcome...

At least now that @Dan C has your sample file he can investigate further to see whether the cause of the problem can be identified as it sounds as though your file is taking an excessive amount of time to open and even then it's not opening properly.

Whether this is a combination of the Sonoma issue and the file size itself I don't know but hopefully, an answer will be forthcoming soon.

[Dan C]

Many thanks for providing that for me!

I've tested this here across 3 different devices, a Sonoma mac, a Ventura mac and a Windows 10 PC - all 3 machines opened the document in around 5-10 seconds.

Interesting on Sonoma only, the following 'pop-up' was shown when opening your file, confirming the known behaviour change for macOS and iCloud -

I did note that the file requires around 2.5-3GB of RAM (memory) in order to be opened/displayed, though this is not out of the ordinary for a rather large canvas with many images.

Can you please open Affinity and navigate to Affinity Photo 2 > Settings > Performance and provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

Can you also please open Apple > System Settings > Privacy & Security > Files and Folders > Affinity Photo 2 - is 'iCloud Drive' enabled here?

I have created a duplicate of your file using a specific workflow, which I've returned to your email via Dropbox. Do you find this version of the file loads faster/is displayed as expected please?

[rwpinto]

Hello Dan,

The file that you sent me opens in just a few seconds, and works perfectly!! None of my other files work properly as load times are still very long. BTW, I have the same problem when opening files with Designer.

I have attached the 2 screenshots that you requested. Notice that iCloud Drive seems to vibe enabled twice for both Designer and Photo. Seems odd. Thank you for your help!

[rwpinto]

Thank you Hangman for your helpful comments.

 

[Dan C]

21 hours ago, rwpinto said:

The file that you sent me opens in just a few seconds, and works perfectly!! None of my other files work properly as load times are still very long. BTW, I have the same problem when opening files with Designer.

Thanks for confirming that for me - the only difference with your file was the removal of iCloud source locations for the resources within the document, which seems to indicate this is the known issue previously mentioned above by Hangman.

21 hours ago, rwpinto said:

Notice that iCloud Drive seems to vibe enabled twice for both Designer and Photo. Seems odd.

That certainly is odd, it may be worth trying to disable one of these options for each Affinity app (perhaps try disabling the second listed instance for Photo and the first listed instance for Designer?) and see if this changes the file loading behaviour?

21 hours ago, rwpinto said:

Thanks for providing this! It's possible that Metal Hardware Acceleration is stopping the canvas from rendering once the file does finally load - if you disable this option and restart the app as prompted, then try loading one of your files you may find this is then displayed as expected - however I doubt this setting would affect the loading times of the files.

[rwpinto]

Hello Dan,

When I tried to disable 1 of the 2 iCloud Drive settings in Photo, both settings changed at the same time. I could not move just one slider. Consequently, I turned them both off, and all my Photo files seem to open correctly. I tried the same change for Designer and my files also loaded correctly. 

With the changes that you made to my file, it seems that you confirmed that iCloud Drive remains an issue. 

Do you think that there is an installation issue? As I mentioned, there are 2 dependent iCloud Drive settings in both Photo and Designer, but there are 0 iCloud Drive settings in Publisher. Shouldn't Publisher also have the same issue?

Thank you very much for getting me started again!

Robert

 

[Dan C]

58 minutes ago, rwpinto said:

When I tried to disable 1 of the 2 iCloud Drive settings in Photo, both settings changed at the same time. I could not move just one slider. Consequently, I turned them both off, and all my Photo files seem to open correctly. I tried the same change for Designer and my files also loaded correctly. 

That's wonderful to hear, I'm glad your documents are now loading correctly!

1 hour ago, rwpinto said:

With the changes that you made to my file, it seems that you confirmed that iCloud Drive remains an issue. 

As outlined in the below post, this issue seems to affect many different apps for macOS Sonoma users, and we're currently still waiting on further information from Apple regarding this - 

1 hour ago, rwpinto said:

Do you think that there is an installation issue? As I mentioned, there are 2 dependent iCloud Drive settings in both Photo and Designer, but there are 0 iCloud Drive settings in Publisher. Shouldn't Publisher also have the same issue?

I don't believe this is an installation issue - it's interesting to know that Publisher hasn't also prompted for this access, however this is fully controlled by macOS and not the Affinity apps themselves, so reinstalling the apps etc would not affect this.

As above, this issue appears to be caused due to this new Privacy setting introduced across macOS Sonoma, so hopefully Apple should resolve this with a future macOS update.

Hopefully you find that leaving these options disabled continues to allow you to open and edit your files as expected, but we're here to help if you need any future assistance