Crash to desktop bug, which seems to be index related

[IgorRock]

Hi support,

it looks like I found a - now more or less reproducible - issue with the index in Affinity Publisher V2.3.0.

With three (bigger) documents I created, I very often get a crash to desktop (no alert or anything) just after loading them (normally about the time the auto-correction has just finished underlining wrong words).

I'm using the German UI (but I have had the same crash when using the English version, too, so I guess this is not really relevant).

All three documents have in common that they have an index. I've created a new document with some filler text to try it out, and it crashed Publisher basically every time I load it. I have attached it to this post.

I can often prevent the crash with my bigger documents if I'm fast enough to click the "Update index" button (in "Index" studio) before it has finished rendering after loading (even though it doesn't work reliably with the below test document), which seems to point at some issues with the index itself.

This bug is really annoying, especially when you are just loading a second document to check something in there, only for Publisher to crash, and as such losing your work since the last save from the document you were working with at that time you loaded the second document!

Can you please have a look and get this fixed (I have this problem basically since V2.1 already, but couldn't easily reproduce or pinpoint it. I think it worked with V2.0 without issues, if I remember it correctly).

 

My system:

• Windows 10 Home, 22H2, build 19045.3803
• Hardware acceleration setting doesn't change anything, it crashes with enabled and disabled.
• 16 GB RAM, SSD Harddisks
• AMD Ryzen 5 2600 Six-Core Processor               3.40 GHz
• NVidia GeForce RTX 2060 (6 GB)
• I have a small Adesso tablet connected, but don't use it for Publisher
• I have an Elgato Stream Deck (15 key version) connected as well, but again don't use it for Publisher

 

Index-Issue_Example.afpub

[MikeTO]

Hi, I can open your document without issues and I don't think this is related to the index feature. I'm on macOS so that could be the reason why but I wonder if it's the linked document.

Could you please do this test with the document you uploaded?

1. Rename the linked resource (the old paper .afphoto file)
2. Open the document and click No in the Missing Resources alert

Does the document open correctly now, albeit with the missing old paper image? If so, the issue is a known bug with linked documents. Once you have the document open you can delete and replace the linked resource and it should open correctly from then on. If that doesn't fix it, change it from linked to embedded or avoid it entirely by changing it from .afphoto to a simpler format such as .tiff or .jpeg.

Good luck

[IgorRock]

25 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

Could you please do this test with the document you uploaded?

1. Rename the linked resource (the old paper .afphoto file)
2. Open the document and click No in the Missing Resources alert

Does the document open correctly now, albeit with the missing old paper image? If so, the issue is a known bug with linked documents. Once you have the document open you can delete and replace the linked resource and it should open correctly from then on. If that doesn't fix it, change it from linked to embedded or avoid it entirely by changing it from .afphoto to a simpler format such as .tiff or .jpeg.

Well, I'll be damned. I renamed the afphoto file, opened the example, clicked on "no" - and it doesn't crash. Closed it, renamed it back to the old name, opened it: immediate crash again.

OK, renamed it again, opened the file, clicked "no", deleted the linked image from the master page, renamed it back, put it in again, but changed it to "embedded", saved the file under a new name. Opens just fine three times in a row!

Which now makes me wonder why it didn't crash every time with the other documents, and why I could prevent it from crashing by updating the index in the bigger files?!?

Well, I guess I'll now have to replace all the images in the other documents with embedded versions to see if that fix works with them, too... 🙄

Just for completeness, I've attached the .afphoto file with this answer, would be interesting to see if the example document crashes for others with it, too (I guess one would have to replace it's path in the resource manager, though).

Thank you very much for your help! 🙂

Old_Paper-002-for-CMYK-print.afphoto

[IgorRock]

Some questions about the linked resources:

Does that bug affect all linked resources (I use PNG for most other images in those other documents), or just .afphoto (or .afdesign) ones?

And do I need to delete and insert them again, or is it sufficient to just go to the resource manager and switch them all to "embedded"?

[MikeTO]

6 minutes ago, IgorRock said:

Some questions about the linked resources:

Does that bug affect all linked resources (I use PNG for most other images in those other documents), or just .afphoto (or .afdesign) ones?

And do I need to delete and insert them again, or is it sufficient to just go to the resource manager and switch them all to "embedded"?

I'm glad you got it working.

I've never experienced this bug myself so I can't provide first-hand advice, but from what I've seen in this forum, it seems to happen mainly with linked documents (afpub, afdesign, afphoto, pdf, and psd). I don't think I've seen reports of it with SVG but I could be wrong. Simple files like TIFF, PNG, and JPG all seem to be fine.

I don't know for sure whether changing them to embedded will work or if you need to delete them first so try both ways.

Good luck.