When copying elements from one page to another, placed graphics are rotated and distorted

[PeterB.]

Hi all,

I'm experiencing a very strange issue in Affinity Publisher on Mac OS Sonoma. I've attached the relevant files. When I select all elements on page 1, copy them, and then paste them onto page 2, the placed graphic gets inserted rotated and distorted. I can't figure out why. Does anyone happen to have a moment to try and see if this problem occurs only on my end?

Thanks!

Testfile.afpub Testlogo.pdf

[loukash]

Looks like a bug with pinned placed objects.

[loukash]

To work around for the time being, unpin the object before copying.

[Dan C]

Thanks for your report @PeterB.!

I can confirm I've been able to replicate this issue here, as well as discovered a few other issues with a similar document setup and therefore I have logged these with our development team now.

I hope this helps

[PeterB.]

Thanks @Dan C!

Would it be impertinent if I asked you to check something else? When I open the document, the placed logo is not displayed at first. Not even when I open the resource manager and the logo status is OK. Only when I click on it or zoom to about 3800% it does load. Can you replicate that too?

[Dan C]

No problem at all!

This sounds like a rendering issue for the file, as zooming will force the canvas to be re-drawn, essentially resolving the issue for you.

Unfortunately however I'm not seeing this issue here, on either macOS or Windows. 

As it's a rendering issue, restarting your mac may stop this from occurring.
If you're still seeing this after restarting, please navigate to Affinity Publisher 2 > Settings > Performance and provide a screenshot of your settings here for me?

Many thanks in advance

[PeterB.]

Thanks for the feedback. I have created a screenshot of the performance settings for you. Do you need any information about my hardware and OS version? I just tested something else: The phenomenon seems to occur especially when I open the file via a Samba network volume or the link is also there. Is there any way to force a manual redraw, e.g. shortcut? Or is there something like a verbose mode in Publisher where I would have a chance to see what might be going wrong?

[edit]: I have restarted my Mac and also the NAS and the network switch several times but the problem persists.

Edited December 12, 2023 by PeterB.

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me and the further information provided!

8 hours ago, PeterB. said:

The phenomenon seems to occur especially when I open the file via a Samba network volume or the link is also there.

This is certainly interesting information as it indicates the app may not be correctly 'caching' the placed file from the network drive - I'll be sure to pass this through to our team here for further investigation, as I believe we have had previous reports of this occurring on a network drive, though have been unable to replicate it internally thus far.

8 hours ago, PeterB. said:

Is there any way to force a manual redraw, e.g. shortcut?

Any zooming over the canvas should force a redraw - so you can use any Zoom shortcut (ie CMD + 1) to quickly redraw the document.

8 hours ago, PeterB. said:

In regards to the above settings, I'm unsure if this will change the behaviour but it would be useful information for our team to have - can you please try disabling Hardware Acceleration, then change the Display setting to OpenGL and restart the app as prompted.

Do you still see this issue when opening your file, after changing these settings please?

[PeterB.]

21 minutes ago, Dan C said:

This is certainly interesting information as it indicates the app may not be correctly 'caching' the placed file from the network drive - I'll be sure to pass this through to our team here for further investigation, as I believe we have had previous reports of this occurring on a network drive, though have been unable to replicate it internally thus far.

Do you have any tips on which network protocol I should use? I'm currently using a Synology DiskStation with SMB. Do you use another one internally like AFP or similar?

 

23 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Any zooming over the canvas should force a redraw - so you can use any Zoom shortcut (ie CMD + 1) to quickly redraw the document.

I tried using the different zoom levels of the keyboard shortcuts. However, that didn't help. I need to zoom to a value greater than about 1100% for something to happen. I'm attaching a video for you. The video was made with the test settings you recommended (OpenGL) so I can say that unfortunately this doesn't change anything.

[Dan C]

23 hours ago, PeterB. said:

Do you have any tips on which network protocol I should use? I'm currently using a Synology DiskStation with SMB. Do you use another one internally like AFP or similar?

I don't personally, though a colleague of mine uses Synology SMB without such issues - though I have asked them to double check this using your files provided to see if we can replicate it.

23 hours ago, PeterB. said:

I tried using the different zoom levels of the keyboard shortcuts. However, that didn't help. I need to zoom to a value greater than about 1100% for something to happen. I'm attaching a video for you. The video was made with the test settings you recommended (OpenGL) so I can say that unfortunately this doesn't change anything.

That's unlike behaviour I've seen previously, thanks for providing these for me - just to verify, is both the .afpub file and the linked PDF on your external drive, or only one of these documents?

If you move one/both of these files to your local disk, does this stop occurring please?

[Dan C]

Many thanks for your continued patience here!

A colleague of mine has been able to replicate this on their Synology SMB drive, and therefore I have logged this with our developers for further investigation.

However they also noted that if you set the PDF on the Context Toolbar from Interpret, to Passthrough then back to Interpret - then save, close & reopen the .afpub file, this stopped occurring for him, so hopefully this allows you to workaround the issue also

[PeterB.]

@Dan C Thank you very much for your efforts. Unfortunately, I had an unplanned surgery so I am unable to test your suggestion. I'll get in touch as soon as I can.

[PeterB.]

I tried it, but unfortunately, it only works sometimes for me. I hope the developers can find the cause. Thanks in the meantime.

[PeterB.]

@Dan C do you perhaps know of another workaround? I noticed other oddities when working in different layouts. When I export a publisher layout where I have not yet zoomed in to force loading, it sometimes happens that the affected graphic is not exported as a vector, but as a rasterized pixel image. If I then simply export the document again, the export in the second file is correct. It has also happened to me twice now that a placed graphic was not exported at all and was missing in print. Has your colleague been able to reproduce this, or has any tips as to whether you need to do anything special in the Synology settings?

[SamMN]

On 12/15/2023 at 3:11 PM, Dan C said:

Many thanks for your continued patience here!

A colleague of mine has been able to replicate this on their Synology SMB drive, and therefore I have logged this with our developers for further investigation.

However they also noted that if you set the PDF on the Context Toolbar from Interpret, to Passthrough then back to Interpret - then save, close & reopen the .afpub file, this stopped occurring for him, so hopefully this allows you to workaround the issue also

If it's useful, I've also experienced disappearing graphics (PDFs, SVG, etc), noted here: 

The files are all hosted locally on my machine (though some have sat in a synced OneDrive folder), and affects both linked and embedded graphics. I've not been able to determine any pattern as to what causes some graphics to disappear and others to work fine.

 

 

[PeterB.]

I have a guess as to what might play a role. I've examined the PDFs more closely and sometimes Publisher seems to get confused with Trimbox etc. so that the graphic is there, but Publisher doesn't recognize the coordinates correctly. Not in the picture frame but in the software technical framework of Affinity itself, I don't know how else to describe it...

[Dan C]

Apologies for the delayed response here - unfortunately I'm not personally aware of any workarounds for this issue, as no specific settings for Synology seem to change this behaviour in Affinity.

I have however 'bumped' this issue with our development team to bring it to their attention once again for you. I hope this helps!

[PeterB.]

@Dan C @Callum It happened again that a placed graphic was missing in the exported PDF and was printed without me receiving an error message!! So I have to pay for the reprint on my bill again. I'm really sorry, but that can't be right, can it? I have to trust Affinity Publisher to export all the elements when I don't get an error, right? I'm pretty sure the error here https://forum.affinity.serif.com/index.php?/topic/190892-graphics-are-not-displayed-until-i-zoom-in/ is the same cause has. I really don't want to complain too much, and I know you all have a lot to do, but the fact that elements are simply not exporting without an error message is, in my opinion, a serious error.

is the same cause has.

[PeterB.]

Would you at least be kind enough to tell me which NAS systems you work with and which ones don't have the problem? Then I just have to buy a new one, which is still cheaper than having to pay another 1,000 euros in printing costs...

[PeterB.]

For everyone who has the same problem, I have (hopefully) found a workaround. The problem appears to only occur with placed PDFs and Affinity documents. And especially if the placed documents have more than one page. So I started exporting logos and graphics as EPS files and then placing them. The problem has not yet occurred with these EPS files so far.