Failed to import LUT (.cube) - file greyed out

[Christian L.]

Hello!

First of all I want to use this chance to say ‚Thank You‘. I‘m using Affinity Photo since version 1.0. The release for iOS was the reason for me to buy my first iPad.

Now the reason for my post:

I tried to create my first LUT based of some editings I made. (The resulting cube file is appended)

Afterwards I tried to apply this LUT on another picture. To do so, I tried to import this file the described way (see the howto). I created a new LUT category and clicked ‚import from file‘. The (system) file dialog opened and I navigated the used folder (on my iPad; also tried iCloud as well). I can see my cube file, but it’s greyed out, so I can‘t select it.

The same file works just fine on the desktop version of Affinity Photo.

I already tried to reinstall the App. Also tried to reboot the iPad. Nothing worked.

I’m using a M2 iPad Pro.

Maybe it‘s useful to mention: beside this LUT, I created myself, I’ve installed the ‚Ivan Weiss‘ LUTs from the add-on store. These are working fine.

 

Thanks for your help!

 

Best regards,

Christian

caramel.cube

[walt.farrell]

Edit: These screenshots are from V1, but the menu locations are the same in V2.

Just to confirm: You're using "Import LUT" from the menu on the category:

And not Import Category from the menu at the top of the panel: 

 

[walt.farrell]

Also, as a workaround, you could try:

1. Open the Adjustments panel and switch the header to say Adjustments (not LUT, etc.)
2. Scroll down the list of adjustment types to LUT, to add a default LUT adjustment.
3. In the Adjustment dialog, click Load (upper left icon on V2)
4. If that allows you to use your LUT file, then Create Preset (+ icon on V2)

By the way, I have no problem loading your LUT file on my iPad using V1 or V2. However, in V2 there is an unresolved problem where the imported LUTs do not show up in the LUT category you're adding them to. The approach in steps 1-4 will save it, but I haven't figured out how to control which LUT category it's added to, yet.

[Christian L.]

Hello Walt!

Thank you for your quick response!

Regarding to your first question:

Yes, I used the „import LUT“ menu, not the „import category“.

I‘ve tried your alternative approach. This way has the same result. The cube file is greyed out.

Is there any other way, I could try? Is there any way to debug this behaviour?

 

Best regards,

Christian

[walt.farrell]

You could try one other workaround, that works in some circumstances: long-press on the greyed-out .cube file, so you get the detailed file information. You may find Open available there.

I have no idea how to debug this, nor why .cube files are usable on my iPad and not on yours. What iPad model and iPadOS release are you using?

[Christian L.]

Thank you for this tip! Unfortunately this didn’t worked neither.

I‘m using an iPad Pro M2 12,9“ with iOS 17.4.1.

Do you know, if there is any official bug tracker, where I could file this bug?

 

Best regards,

Christian

[walt.farrell]

This is it, and you've done it.

At some point, the ticket for your post will reach the head of the queue, and one of the Serif staff will handle it. As they are very busy, that could take a few days, or even a week or so in some cases.

[Alfred]

2 minutes ago, Christian L. said:

Do you know, if there is any official bug tracker, where I could file this bug?

This ‘V2 Bugs found on iPad’ is the correct forum section for your bug report. Serif staff will pick it up from here and log it in their (internal) bug tracking system.

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @Christian L.,

Do you have any other apps on your iPad that are capable of importing or opening .Cube files that you've used before? In previous instances we've seen this for other specific file types that are normally importable are showing as 'greyed out' in the apps, and this is caused by file association permissions on iOS. The first app that is installed is then associated with that file type, and other iPad apps are locked out of selecting this file type. I've similarly seen this with DXF/DWG when CAD apps are installed as an example.

From our understanding the only way to resolve this is to temporarily uninstall any app(s) that are holding that file association, and you should then find that they're accessible in Affinity, but also bear in mind that there is a bug in the LUT adjustments panel where they will fail to show up after importing them as Walt mentioned.

[Christian L.]

Hello Nathan!

 

Thank you for your advice!

How can I find out, which app is also associated with cube files?

I tried to remove the obvious ones (image editing apps), but this didn’t helped.

 

Best regards,

Christian

[NathanC]

36 minutes ago, Christian L. said:

How can I find out, which app is also associated with cube files?

Not that i'm aware of unfortunately, but it would certainly be helpful in situations like this.

If you rename the file externally, for example in the Files app and change the extension from .cube to .cub it should still be detected as a valid LUT format, and then try importing it into the app again.

If this works, you could also try exporting from Photo 2 to other LUT formats, such as .CSP or .3DL and then see if they import/load successfully going forward.

[Christian L.]

Thank you very much!

Renaming the file to *.cub does the trick for me.

In point of view since this is more likely an issue with iOS than affinity Photo, we can mark this issue as resolved.

@walt.farrell & @NathanC Thank you for your support!

[robb5]

Hi, 

I just installed Affinity Photo2 for iPad (version 2.5.4) on my iPad Air4 (IpadOS 17.5.1) and I'm still not able to import LUT's. Renaming the .cube extension to .cub won't help.

Is there an update on this issue?

fyi ...Affinity Photo for iPad (version 1.10.7.317) on the same iPad imports LUT's normally. 

 

regards,

rob

[TariqMK]

Im experiencing this exact issue now (M1 iPad Pro).

I have tried rebooting the iPad and reinstalling the app. No success.

I have also not used the LUTs on another app so they are not associated anywhere else.

Quite frustrating, especially as a photographer.

[Christian L.]

Hello TariqMK!

Did you tried the suggested solution to rename the LUT fille?

 

Best regards,

Christian

[NotMyFault]

Did you save the .cube file in a folder e.g. download (iPad local) where Affinity is able to open image files?

while using the iPad Files app, does the file have an app associated with it? 
long-touch on the file, and choose „info“.
Next, click share. A popup shows, first row a list of contacts. Second row a list of apps. If Affinity Photo is there, choose it. If Affinity Photo is missing, scroll all to the right and click the … three dots. Now you can add Photo.

[TariqMK]

On 8/17/2024 at 8:41 AM, NotMyFault said:

Did you save the .cube file in a folder e.g. download (iPad local) where Affinity is able to open image files?

while using the iPad Files app, does the file have an app associated with it? 
long-touch on the file, and choose „info“.
Next, click share. A popup shows, first row a list of contacts. Second row a list of apps. If Affinity Photo is there, choose it. If Affinity Photo is missing, scroll all to the right and click the … three dots. Now you can add Photo.

Hello there, thank you for your detailed reply.

I figured out that another app I had on my iPad 'VideoLUT', was forcefully 'claiming' the .cube extension for itself, this is despite me never actually using the app yet. 

As soon as I deleted the app, the files became available for use in AP.

It seems that some apps forcefully take over the association for file extensions, and this means other apps cannot use them. 

Lastly, I realised that there is a bug in the latest version of AP where LUTs simply do not appear, even when imported. Very frustrating and I hope Affinity are able to fix such an essential feature soon.

My questions:

1. Is this behaviour something that Apple explicitly allows? It seems pretty scummy to forcefully takeover an extension for your own app to the exclusion of everyone else, and I don't think all apps do this by default

2. Is it possible to copy the LUTs to a local folder in the Affinity Photo local iPad folder? I see that the only folder in the the local AP Folder is the 'Logs' folder. I could just duplicate the files in the folder there, right?

Also, thank you to @Christian L. for the suggestion too, I didnt try it yet as I figured out the root cause.

 

[NotMyFault]

8 hours ago, TariqMK said:

1. Is this behaviour something that Apple explicitly allows? It seems pretty scummy to forcefully takeover an extension for your own app to the exclusion of everyone else, and I don't think all apps do this by default

It is the same on Apple and Windows devices on principle. Apps can claim file associations, and only one app becomes „default“.

i don’t know if Affinity made an error in the file UI, but it is more likely an Apple thing.

[NotMyFault]

8 hours ago, TariqMK said:

2. Is it possible to copy the LUTs to a local folder in the Affinity Photo local iPad folder? I see that the only folder in the the local AP Folder is the 'Logs' folder. I could just duplicate the files in the folder there, right?

Don’t use the default local Affinity Photo folder for own files. Just create a new one and use it.

The default folder will be deleted with all content when deleting the app, which may be required occasionally to cleanly reinstall the app.

[tomocr]

I'm finding that when I use 'walt.farrell's' approach, AFP2 will force close. I then reopen the same file and attempt again to import the LUT from Adjustments/LUT/ and then open the LUT from the LUT dialogue box. It will then load. I tried this with a few .cube files and got the same result.

The strange thing is though, that I have 80 .cube files to do this to...

When I then go to the Import LUT option, select ALL 80 LUTS's, AFP2 will Import the .cube files and show them in the category menu. However, it will only import and show the ones I have already applied to an image using walt.farrell's technique but at least they are there under the LUT category box. Will I do this for all my .cube LUTS? I don;t think I have the time for 80, let alone 6000

Weird.

[robb5]

Hi, 

I just found the proper workaround .. I added an extra folder containing all the LUT's in the 'On my Ipad/Affinity Photo' map on the iPad.

It seems that the Affinity Photo 2 app gets confused when it does not find the LUT's within it's own directory.

 

Thanks for your time,

regards,

[walt.farrell]

22 hours ago, robb5 said:

It seems that the Affinity Photo 2 app gets confused when it does not find the LUT's within it's own directory.

Interesting discovery, @robb5. That works for me, too. Trying to Import LUT from a network drive seems to work, but it never shows up in the LUT Adjustments list. Copying them to a folder in the Affinity Photo folder and Importing, they do show up.

 

[Peteg]

Nope, unfortunately it doesn’t do it for me….

[walt.farrell]

17 hours ago, Peteg said:

Nope, unfortunately it doesn’t do it for me….

As it works for several other users, perhaps something else is happening with your system. For example, do you have another application installed on your iPad that has registered itself as handling LUT files? If so, you may have to uninstall it, as that will cause iPadOS to restrict those files to that application.

If that doesn't explain it, perhaps you could provide a screen recording of the problem and of the workaround failing, and we could see if we spot anything else that might explain it.

[Peteg]

Hi Walt. This is the only program using LUTs (as far as I know!). I can create and export LUTs, but importing them is a problem: it finds the LUT but the import function fails to add it to the list of LUTs (I have only the default category). That’s it, nothing else running.