Affinity Photo 2.3 hangs on startup when executed as non-admin

[whoanders]

I've updated Affinity Photo to 2.3 this morning. I was on 2.1.1 before, without problems.

Now that I'm on 2.3, I cannot use the app anymore, when I'm not logged in as an admin: when I launch it, it hangs before having opened the New Document dialog. The loading splash screen remains stuck at "loading data...".

When I try to interact with the window, Windows tells me that it's not responding and offers me to close it. Since I have to force-close the app, no crash report is generated. Since the window cannot be interacted with, I cannot try and change the settings to see if it makes a difference.

I have reinstalled Affinity Photo after trying the first few times. I use the default settings (no change to the values that come upon app installation, no templates).

The app works normally when run as admin (which is not my default). I do not want to use this workaround permanently, as it's a security liability, but it avoids the problem.

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @whoanders,

Looks like a couple of users have ran into this problem before with it getting stuck at this load stage (Thread below). Here's what I'd suggest doing first to reset your local user settings folder:

1. Close all affinity apps
2. Press Win + R to bring up run and enter the following: %APPDATA%
3. Dependant on how you originally installed the app (.MSIX or .EXE) there will be an .Affinity or Affinity folder in here, rename this folder and append it to have 'OLD' on the end of the folder name, E.G '.Affinity.old'
4. Try launching the app regularly again

If it still fails, try the following to clear the account data and re-activate:

1. Close all affinity apps
2. Hold down CTRL and launch Photo 2 while still holding CTRL
3. A 'Clear user data' menu should appear, tick 'Reset account data' and 'De-activate affinity 2 apps' at the bottom
4. The app will now hopefully launch, sign in with your credentials to activate it again and then see if the app can be launched normally.

Hopefully you'll then be able to activate to sign in, but if it fails try the above again, but instead run it as admin while holding down CTRL and repeat the steps, and then try opening it normally again. 

If you're still having trouble, dependant on how you installed the app originally uninstall it and then re-install it using the alternative installer method from the link below (Large Blue download button is for the MSIX, smaller link below it is for .EXE installer) as it looked like this resolved it in the previous thread, but it had to be launched as admin initially.

https://store.serif.com/en-gb/update/windows/photo/2/

Let me know how it goes.

Old thread:

 

[whoanders]

This fixed the problem, thanks a lot! (for anyone stumbling upon this in the future, rebooting afterwards is essential for the fix to work)

[walt.farrell]

43 minutes ago, whoanders said:

This

Which? Nathan gave you three approaches to try, so it would be helpful to know more about which of them worked for you.