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I've been using Publisher v1 for some years to produce a newsletter for a charity and all has been fine, with no need to upgrade to v2. 
 
However, today I tried to open a file (Windows 10, APub 1.10.6) and the app just froze, saying "loading 1 file" but with no apparent activity. After a while, it used 11% cpu, but there was no disk activity and the other apps running were also almost comatose! I tried other files and various suggestions from the FB Affinity Publisher group, plus my own ideas (repairing, uninstalling, reinstalling interspersed with reboots), but nothing I've done has made any difference.
 
I've no objection to upgrading to v2, but I didn't see a need. However, one of the comments in FB was that the suite is available free to registered charities, so I looked but only saw a comment about that happening in the future. 
 
Please could you advise me on how to investigate this promptly, as I have a deadline to meet? 
 
Thanks, Sam
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Hi Nathan,

Many thanks, but ...! I've tried to open several earlier versions and they all give the same behaviour. I've also copied the file to my old laptop and deliberately didn't rest the network credentials to the new ones (I've recently moved) and it opened without complaint and Resource Manager told me what it couldn't find, so I deleted those images, saved the file under a new name and copied it back to my normal machine - still the same problem!

I'm then wondered whether it could be due to a recent Windows update. I looked and the latest one (KB5039211) was applied successfully, but KB5034441 failed to install several times and it's a known problem which won't be fixed by MS, although it provides instructions for a workaround, which a comment near the end of https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/windows-10/kb5034441-fails-to-install-with-error-code-0x80070643/m-p/4028519 says is too risky unless you know what you're doing, which doesn't include me!

I'll upload the file in case there's anything you can see in it, but I would be very pleasantly surprised if you can!

I now have the option of taking Bitlocker off my C drive and reapply the update to see if that makes a difference, or upgrade to APub V2 and see if that works.

Ignore that - I looked at Bitlocker and it's awaiting activation, so I won't do that, even though Disk Management says it's being used. More obfuscation!

Any comments you may have will be very welcome!

Sam

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Hi @Sam Sexton thanks for sending the file over,

The good news is i'm able to open the file on my side in both V1 and V2 with no issues, so this indicates the document itself isn't corrupted. I can see that there are a few linked resources which were all originally located on the D:/ drive so they're missing on my side. I've PM'd you a link to your file in two different states and named them accordingly.

- One version is your file re-saved with the few linked resources deleted, I've put a picture frame in their place.

- Another version is a brand new document with your pages added in via the 'Add pages from file' function, the resources have again been removed.

See if you're able to open either of these documents, if you are try placing the resources again (perhaps embed them as they're tiny) and then see how it goes.

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Many thanks for your efforts, Nathan, but unfortunately I can't open either of those files. Harrumph!

I'd like to see if V2 doesn't have this problem, but I was hoping to get the impending free version as this is for a charity. Alternatively, a trial version of it might decide the issue. I've mentioned this to Lee and am awaiting a response.

Cheers,

Sam

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Oh well, I found the trial version of V2, but it has the same piggin' problem, which leads me to suspect it's a Windows issue - I had KB5034441 fail with status 0x80070643, which won't be fixed by MS, but the way to address it is not for the average user or faint-hearted - which counts me out!

I thought I could start with a new file, but as soon as I specify the page size, it hangs.

I then wondered whether I could use something like gdb (I was a UNIX man of sorts before I retired a decade ago), but WinDbg seems  to need to two machines and I was keeping the other one off the net to avoid troublesome updates. However, I've now reset the time on that and paused updates, so I'm going to risk putting it on the network. Lee has pointed me to the FAQS in case it's an issue with the GPU drivers, so I'll try that when I stop going round like a headless chicken!

Cheers,  Sam

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Hi Nathan,

I'm back, I'm afraid (!), and as I've been communicating with Lee via email, I'll copy this to him, but if it's better to send it once here and Lee can read it, let me know. 

I've now had some help from a friend (Frank) who's a lot more knowledgeable in Windows matters than I. With his assistance I have extended the Recovery partition issue that prevented KB5034441 from installing successfully - it has now been applied without problems. I then tried to open my file in Afpub V1 - and had the same lack of activity as before. 

Frank had downloaded the trial period version of afPub and installed it on a minimal Win 10 machine - which has very little on it and is up to date. He uses that for testing and investigating problems. This is his message to me about the issue:

=================

First I installed the software on my Windows 10 "spare / trial" machine.  This machine has almost no other software on it apart from Windows 10 so as to keep it "clean" for doing trials of faults etc. It appeared to install correctly and opened.  I then tried to OPEN the Info file sent by Sam and apart from a warning message appearing telling me that the file had been created in V1 of Publisher it looked like it was opening BUT then the Publisher software simply CLOSED with no warnings.

 
I tried opening it and the Info file again by various "ways in" but always got the same result.  This is different to the problem that Sam experienced but ended up with a similar outcome - new Publisher version not running well on Win 10.
 
After reporting back to Sam by phone, I  installed the V2.5.2 software on my main Windows desktop machine running Windows 11, followed by opening the same Info file and it just worked straight off.  The Info file was visible and appeared to be ready to be modified.  I am NOT a Publisher expert so I didn't play with it, simply shutting it all down.
 
So, the conclusion from what I have seen is that the V2.5.2 software has a problem with Windows 10 and its associated operating software modules (.net framework and other stuff that I don't understand).  Given the possibility that the developers are running a slightly different version of Windows 10 (I believe mine is absolutely current) they may have an undiscovered problem themselves.
 
My recommendations would be:
1 - Report these outcomes to Affinity and their developers.
2 - If we have one, load the software on to a Windows 11 machine for Sam to continue his work (and possibly purchase the updated software version)
3 - Ask the Affinity developers for a solution that works
==============
 
So, I'm doing the first, but my only other (backup) machine has Win 10 and I can use AfPub on it, although it's an inconvenient faff, so I don't want to repurpose it. I'd stopped Windows updates on it so that there was no attempt to install KB5034441, although that's now been ruled out as a cause of the problem.
 
When I was involved in UNIX development, there was often a debug mode that could create a file of what it was doing, so I wondered whether such a facility exists in your suite?
 
Cheers,
Sam

 

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Hi @Sam Sexton,

Apologies it's best to keep communicating via Email regarding this issue as posting over multiple support channels can become confusing for us and we'll likely end up cross-posting. I was not originally aware that you already had raised this over email that Lee had already been dealing with when I replied.

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