The rotation cursor has become very difficult to find and operate

[Lobivia]

Hi Affinty Friend,

I open a jpeg picture using Affinity Photo 2, and I want to rotate the picture a few degrees. I select the whole picture by clicking inside with the "Move tool [V]".  The cursor is, as usual, the standard MacOS cursor (slanted bold arrow). NB: I work on MacBook Pro, M1 processor, OS 14.2.1

Up to yesterady, when flying over a corner (small white circle that is some kind of handle) of the selected area, the MacOS cursor temporarily changed into a "half circle" that allowed rotation, or into a "45°-inclined double arrow" that allowed 2D-resizing.
Since yesterday the MacOS cursor remains as such when flying over any corner of the  image.
I observe that the MacOS cursor shortly blinks (or flickers) about 1/10 of seconds (or less!!) when flying over the corner but it is almost impossible to get the "half-circle cursor" trypical of the rotation tool: it dispapears immediately and the MacOS cursor reappers, and only resizing is possible. NB: when the MacOS cursor blinks, I see a fleeting glimpse of the 45°-inclined arrow or of the half circle cursor.
Only at random, the MacOS cursor allows me to rotate when flying and clicking somewhere close near to the corner of the image, but much of the time it resizes the selected area.

The phenomenon appeared suddenly along my work, but I don't remember on which occasion exactly… It happens on any jpeg files. I quitted and restarted Affinty Photo, and I restored any "miscellaneous settings" but it did not cure my problem; what else can I do?

Further observations:

• The "local cursors" (double vertical arrows, 1D-resize arrow) near the "circular handles" in the midlle of the edges of a seleted area do not appear, as well. Making the selected area to become "slanted" is almost impossible; most often only 1D-resizing is possible.
• After inserting horizontal or vertical blue lines dragged from the top or left rulers, the MacOS cursor remains as such when I select and move the blue line; it only blinks shortly to the normal "displace ruler" cursor.
• I also feel the the size of the "enable transform origin" icon (cross within a crircle) is smaller than previously.

I think that these observations are related to my problem, and that the automatic change of cursor shape and behavior when flying over some specific areas has been suddenly bugged… How to restore the "normal" behavior?

Sorry for my description written in "Frenglish" 😉

[Dan C]

Hi @Lobivia,

Thanks for your report and sorry to hear you're having trouble!

Can you please confirm for me, are you using the trackpad on the MacBook Pro or a connected mouse when this issue occurs?

If you navigate to Affinity Photo 2 > Settings > Tools, what option is set for the Tool Handle Size?

If possible, are you able to provide a screen recording showing this issue for me?

Many thanks in advance

[Lobivia]

Hi Dan,

I use a connected (Bluetooth) mouse (LOGI M240); I never use the trackpad! I was already using this mouse before my problem of rotation took place… The mouse is thus not involved I guess.

Thanks for your remark about "tool handle size": it was (re)set at "Default". I just changed to "High" and the size of the "Enable transform origin" icon is as prior to my problems. It was due to my restoration of the factory settings! I feel a little ashame… 🫣

But the problem of finding/seeing the rotation cursor icon with the "Move Tool" cursor flying close to the corners of a seleted area is still present. I don't undertand which screen recording you need: when recordind the screen with shift-command-5, the mouse/trackpad cursor is not visible!

To be continued…

[Dan C]

Thanks for confirming that for me - out of interest if you disconnect this mouse and use the trackpad, do you see the same results, or different?

I ask as we've previously seen similar reports from users, though only when using a trackpad in Affinity so it's certainly strange to hear this is occurring with a USB mouse also.

No problem at all, I'm glad to hear changing this setting has helped

2 hours ago, Lobivia said:

I don't undertand which screen recording you need: when recordind the screen with shift-command-5, the mouse/trackpad cursor is not visible!

When Quicktime screen recording on macOS, you should see a 'floating' toolbar appear towards the bottom of the screen before the recording starts - within this toolbar are settings you can control for the recording, one of these will allow you to enable/disable the cursor, and cursor clicks to be shown in the recording.

Hopefully this recording can help our team further investigate and locate a cause for this issue!

[Lobivia]

I am not able to take a picture where the cursor can be seen, even though I ask to show the cursor in the option box! The cursor is used by the camera!!!

I thus take a picture of my screen with my iphone:

You can see the MacOS arrow cursor close to the upper right corner of the picture that I want to rotate. But I can not obtain/see the "1/4 circle with arrows at both ends" that allows rotation. However, if I am close enough, like in the image above, sometimes I can rotate upon right click… This means that the region where the cursor is, induces the relevant behaior, but the user cannot know whetehr he is in the proper region or not because he sees the MacOS cursor only…

I hope I am clear……… (Although, I fear I am not!)
 

[Lobivia]

Hi Dan,

I am SCANDALIZED by Apple MacOS 14.2.1… that can be easily corrupted or that corrupts your Affinty software(s) !           Grrrrrrrrr……    ☠️

I was still trying to get some information about the "bug" that I reported… Eventually, I was always cornered by the fact that everything came back to the MacOS arrow cursor.

I finally decided to restart my computer… Without a shred of conviction...
Then, I opened again an image with Affinity Photo.
Then, I wanted to rotate it a few degrees.
Then, I located the cursor of the "Move Tool" close to the upper right corner of the image (see my image above in my previous message).

And…

Then I obtained:

As you can see, my problem has been suddenly solved (by Harry Potter OS???)! The MacOS cursor changes now as  expected, and as previously!

I screamed so loud you must have heard me from across the Atlantic ocean!

Conclusions:

• OS 14.2.1 is definitely shitty… 🤮
• Never forget to tell the author of a bug report to check whether the bug is reproducible or not upon MacOS system restart! 🤔
• Tell that story to the Affinity developpers (and report it to Apple???):
  • Can Affinity Photo be resposible for the MacOS corruption? A corruption of cursor behavior… I guess the naswer could be of some interest to Affinity developpers.
  • Or is Affinty Photo "corrupted" by MacOS that can sometimes enforce his cursor instead of a temporary Affinity cursor?    (after several days of ordinary/expected work!).
    I guess that Apple will never confess…
  • I have also observed VERY SEVER crashes of Affinty software(s?) (either Photo or Publisher, I don't remember) which resulted in unstable blinking screen (not frozen) with zig-zag interferences of any colors (like the old TV screens of the '60s; NB: I am 73 yo!), and the necessity to enforce low-level extinction of the computer (Long press on start button)!
• Close (or hide, or delete?) this discussion thread which is now useless…

Thanks a lot Dan!

PS: I started long ago (in the early '70s) with a "Mac 128"… I kept it in the cellar now, togetner with the old good French wines… I wonder whether I should buy Apple products naowadays……………    🤔

[Dan C]

Many thanks for updating us here - I'm certainly glad to hear that restarting your mac has resolved this issue!

Unfortunately a myriad of issues can occur, either due to an OS update or a prolonged period between restarts, so I personally recommend checking for updates and restarting a system as often as possible - but I do appreciate this is not always possible, especially on a production/work machine.

However I will be sure to inform our team of this issue occurring on your device following the latest macOS update & we'll be sure to keep an eye out for similar reports from other users.

If we're able to replicate this issue internally, our developers can investigate further to determine whether the Affinity app itself is the cause, or the macOS update (or perhaps a combination of them both). If we require Apple to make a fix on their end, we can then inform them of such and await an updated macOS to be released.

Please do let us know if this issue returns, but I suspect this should hopefully not occur again following your system restart