Missing linked resources Affinity Publisher

[IgorA]

Hello,

I already searched the forum but couldn't find a relevant answer to my problem. So, here it is.

I have Mac and iPad Pro. I use Affinity Publisher on both. All up to date. Dropbox is linked on both via Settings. Dropbox folder is on encrypted hard drive. Publisher's file is on it so are the photos (in various folders). On Mac I created the file added photos through linking, saved and closed. The path to linked resources are not as shown in help files. 

When I open this file on the iPad it shows that resources are missing. When I try to replace the image from the same Dropbox folder it a) embeds the image despite preference to link, b) the path to the image has nothing to do with Dropbox.

If I insert another image, it will be linked but when I open the file on Mac I will get missing resources message. 

What am I doing wrong? Thanks.

[Dan C]

Hi @IgorA,

Welcome to the Affinity Forums and my apologies for the delayed response here!

Your screenshots within Affinity on Desktop seem to show that a local file location is being used, rather than the Remote Dropbox location.
As outlined in the below helpfile page, it's expected for the path to read Dropbox:/[File Path] , however yours shows your macOS Volumes drives, indicating it may not have been setup or placed correctly -

https://affinity.help/publisher2/English.lproj/index.html?page=pages/Media/linkedServices.html?title=Linked Services

I believe this is the reason the placed documents are showing as 'missing' when opening on iPad, as they are looking for an absolute path on your mac, which is not present.

If you select one of these resources on macOS and use Replace, then select the same, or a different document from your Dropbox folder, is this path updated as expected?

It may be due to the encrypted drive in use - do you have a secondary drive you could add a separate Dropbox folder to, to see if this issue continues? As unfortunately we're unable to replicate this during our testing.

On 12/13/2023 at 8:07 PM, IgorA said:

When I try to replace the image from the same Dropbox folder it a) embeds the image despite preference to link, b) the path to the image has nothing to do with Dropbox.

Equally, we're not seeing this behaviour here currently - when replacing the image it remains using the previous placement policy, and continues to show the expected Dropbox:/ path. It's possible that due to the unexpected setup when the file is transferred to the iPad, further issues then occur that our team aren't seeing here.

However one issue we have been able to replicate is that these resources should show as Linked (Remote) in the Resource Manager, and this has been logged with our development team  

[IgorA]

On 12/15/2023 at 4:21 PM, Dan C said:

However one issue we have been able to replicate is that these resources should show as Linked (Remote) in the Resource Manager, and this has been logged with our development team  

Now it does show as Linked (Remote) on the iPad, however it is still missing resources. What should I change on my iPad to be able to work on the document without resources being missing?

Thanks

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, IgorA said:

however it is still missing resources.

Just guessing, but:

1. Are you signed-in to your Dropbox app on your iPad?
2. If you browse the Dropbox folder where the files should be, using the Files app, are they downloaded to your iPad or only in the cloud?
3. If they are only in the cloud, then if you open the Dropbox app, and look at the files there, and mark them to be available offline, does that resolve the problem?

[IgorA]

3 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

If they are only in the cloud, then if you open the Dropbox app, and look at the files there, and mark them to be available offline, does that resolve the problem?

I did mark them to be available offline, it didn't change anything.

I unlinked and relinked Dropbox. Now, the status of the resource shows Pending.

[IgorA]

Hello,

The problem still persists: if I started to work on Mac and linked photos then open the same file on iPad all resources are shown as missing. If I replace photo from Dropbox on iPad it works on iPad but not on the Mac. 

Attached are screenshots of setup on iPad and resource manager on iPad (when opening file saved on Mac and when replacing photo) and Mac (when opening file saved on iPad).

I don't know how to make it work on both. What am I doing wrong?

[Lee D]

@IgorA I've logged this with the developers to look into further.