Understanding crash files

[spyderbryin]

Good evening to anyone who can help me!

I am really struggling to understand why my pc is continually crashing when using Publisher V2.1.1

It seemed to be happening whenever I used the down arrow key, but all sorts of keystrokes seem to now be triggering a crash. Today I experienced it 4 times in 20 minutes.

I'm not very technical I'm afraid, hence why I am asking for any help that can be given!

Thank you in advance

[RichardMH]

Best thing to do is post a crash report. 

 

 

[thomaso]

Does it help to "Save As…" this document with a new name? Does the document contain any linked or embedded resource that maybe a culprit object?

Do this keystroke-crashes happen with a specific document or on certain pages in this file … or even if all documents get closed and a new, empty document gets created and used with just a new 'Rectangle' object for instance?

[spyderbryin]

Whoops - I didn't realise that I could. Thank you

2c1c768f-15c4-49ee-a6c4-c68fe10fadfb.dmp f8b86af0-0435-4d6a-9a74-d363245ace53.dmp 10e0540d-07ba-45d0-89ff-5ba46570fbb3.dmp cfb20347-11dc-4603-8fad-62b10f09b66c.dmp ef973dfd-e3b8-4c77-bfcd-8705a5afb734.dmp

[spyderbryin]

I didn't even realise there was an actual support line, I just presumed the forum was how I got help?

Will support now pick up on this?

[RichardMH]

They should. They monitor the forum. Think its still the weekend where they are so you might have to wait a bit.

[spyderbryin]

Thank you Richard

[Callum]

Hi Spyderbryin,

Thank you for providing the crash reports. While I am looking into this please could you try navigating to Edit > Preferences and try disabling Open CL just to see if it helps at all? Does the crashing only occur when typing? If so has this always been the case or has it just started happening recently?

Thanks
C

[spyderbryin]

@Callum

Hi Callum

Sorry to have dragged my feet on responding.

I have tried quite a few times to find an option in Edit > Settings (I couldn't find Preferences) to no avail!

Regarding your second question, I am 95% certain that every crash has been caused by me using the Arrow Keys whilst navigation forwards or backwards through sections of text.

Hope this helps

Thanks

Brian

[v_kyr]

41 minutes ago, spyderbryin said:

I have tried quite a few times to find an option in Edit > Settings (I couldn't find Preferences) to no avail!

• https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Workspace/preferences.html?title=Settings (or Preferences)
• https://affinity.help/publisher2/en-US.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Extras/hardwareAcceleration.html?title=Hardware acceleration

Look under:  Top Menu -> "Affinity Publisher" -> "Preferences" -> "Performance Options"

Quote

Performance options

• RAM Usage Limit—allows you to set your preference for optimising app performance for your projects.
• Disk Usage Warning At—choose the limit at which you are warned about disk usage.
• Undo Limit—choose the history length you are able to access.
• View Quality—choose the way in which the image displays during modifications. Select from the pop-up menu.
• Choose whether to dither gradients, when working on projects, to speed up performance.
• Choose a clipping option for optimising performance.
• File Recovery Interval—sets the interval for saving temporary data for currently open documents, allowing a document restore to be offered at startup if the app develops a fault.
• Display—Choose whether to use hardware acceleration such as Metal, OpenGL or OpenGL (Basic), or use Software acceleration. If your computer experiences performance problems, use the above option order until performance is acceptable. If your Mac has an additional discrete graphics card, checking the Use only integrated GPU will not allow access to it, therefore reducing power consumption and conserving battery life (useful for unplugged MacBook Pros).
• Retina Rendering—choose your rendering experience. Select from the pop-up menu.
  • Automatic (Best)—renders as non-retina followed by retina for balanced performance and quality.
  • Low quality (Fastest)—renders as non-retina only for highest performance level but compromises on quality.
  • High quality (Slowest)—renders as retina only for high quality but may compromise performance.
• Hardware Acceleration—checking Enable Metal compute acceleration boosts some tasks' performance if a compatible GPU is available. See the Hardware acceleration topic.

See also ...

... and so on ...

[spyderbryin]

Thank you @v_kyr I managed to find the Clear User Data screen, but mine doesn't have the same options as your image. Hope you can see what I'm doind wrong from the attached? 

[v_kyr]

16 minutes ago, spyderbryin said:

I managed to find the Clear User Data screen, but mine doesn't have the same options as your image.

In order to get that screen did you launched APub by holding the CTRL key down?

Other than that if the app starts usually, use the "Preferences" top menu way for accessing the Preferences -> Performance Option panel ...

• Top Menu -> "Affinity Publisher" -> "Preferences" -> there then under the the point "Performance Options"

... and disable/uncheck the hardware OpenCL acceleration. - Afterwards restart APub.

 

[v_kyr]

Or tryout the ...

... or what the Affinity FAQ recomends further ...

Quote

2. No OCL Flag Method

Using the --no-ocl flag will disable OpenCL for this and subsequent launches meaning you only have to use --no-ocl once and is not necessary for subsequent launches.

MSIX / MS Store 

To use the flag, press the Windows Key + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog and then type CMD and press Enter. This will launch Command Prompt.

• Affinity Photo: Type in %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPhoto2.exe --no-ocl and press Enter - the app will now launch.
   
• Affinity Designer: Type in %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityDesigner2.exe --no-ocl and press Enter - the app will now launch.
   
• Affinity Publisher: Type in %LocalAppData%\Microsoft\WindowsApps\AffinityPublisher2.exe --no-ocl and press Enter - the app will now launch.

EXE/MSI

To use the flag, press the Windows Key + R on your keyboard to open the Run dialog and then type CMD and press Enter. This will launch Command Prompt.

*Presuming you have the app installed in the default location, type in cd "C:\Program Files\Affinity\Photo 2\" and press Enter. Now type Photo --no-ocl and press Enter - the app will now launch.

*If you installed the app to a different location or you're using Affinity Publisher or Designer, please update the location to point to correct folder.

 

[Komatös]

20 minutes ago, spyderbryin said:

Thank you @v_kyr I managed to find the Clear User Data screen, but mine doesn't have the same options as your image. Hope you can see what I'm doind wrong from the attached? 

This screen shot looks like you use V1 instead of V2.

[spyderbryin]

Sorry - I was using a desktop shortcut (with the Control key pressed down. 

I have now brought up the correct screen and ticked the setting as suggested (screen shot attached) and will see how it goes. (I'll also look through the other post you made next!)

[spyderbryin]

Thankyou @Komatös - I did go into the wrong version at one stage this morning!

[Komatös]

@spyderbryin

You are welcome! Let us know If deactivating hardware acceleration helps!

[spyderbryin]

@Komatös

Thank you 

 

[v_kyr]

2 minutes ago, spyderbryin said:

(I'll also look through the other post you made next!)

If you disabled Hardware Acceleration further alternate disabling methods usually aren't needed. - And if the app still crashes under certain usages, then the issues is related to something else here than hardware acceleration (aka possible bugs etc.). So then one have to inspect the crash reports more carefully, in order to find out (identifying) what concretely causes the app to crash then under certain situations.

[spyderbryin]

@v_kyr

@Komatös

Thank you both - I seriously appreciate your patience and support!

One final question of today, I have tried the help files and looked as far into the forum as I could manage, but....

Can I export a picture frame as an image, so that I can re-use it?

 

[thomaso]

31 minutes ago, spyderbryin said:

Can I export a picture frame as an image, so that I can re-use it?

Does your 'final question' mean that disabling hardware acceleration finally solved your issue with misbehaving key strokes / crashing APub?

Ideally you don't mix topics within a thread, especially if they are fully unrelated like in this case. It seems you want to use one of the two Export options for "Area" -> "Selection Area" | "Selection Only". They enable you to export any currently selected element(s) independently of the page layout.

[spyderbryin]

@thomaso

Sorry to be new to this!! I was just excited to get my previous issue solved, so randomly asked another.

Thank you yes, I would say that the crashing problem is solved - but the crashes were a littel sporadic anyway so a little hard to tell if the problem is cured.

I have followed your new instruction, thank you

 

[thomaso]

9 minutes ago, spyderbryin said:

the crashes were a littel sporadic anyway

How abaout "continually crashing" "happening whenever I used the down arrow key" or with "all sorts of keystrokes" ?

If you re-enable hardware acceleration, does the crash occur again when you press the down arrow key?