slow loading time for opening Affinity Publisher document in MacOS

[bluegray]

I'm having a problem with opening large 50Mb-100Mb Affinity Publisher documents in MacOS. When I try to open the file, a dialog box shows "Loading" status - this completes quickly. However, I am unable to navigate the document, move to any page, or adjust any thing inside the app, for another 5-10 min or so. In the "Pages" panel, I can see a thumbnail for only the current page. After about 10 min, the rest of the thumbnails appear and I can navigate and use the document. This is a significant disruption in workflow, and I believe it is a bug because the documents load quickly and without issues in Windows (same amount of RAM). 

The documents are on local storage, in a folder synced with Dropbox. The files are NOT on iCloud Drive. Also, they have lots of embedded SVG images and a total file size of 50-100Mb file. Often, during opening of these files, the application just goes unresponsive, and I have to "force quit". It's really interfering with usefulness for my research purposes where I want to store SVG images to track outputs. I can provide a copy of the document for official support staff, but not here in the public forums. 

Would appreciate any help

[Hangman]

Hi @bluegray,

• What is the spec of your Mac, which version of macOS are you running and how much RAM does your Mac have?
• What is the RAM Usage Limit set to in the Publisher Performance Settings?

I would try a couple of things to see if you see any improvement with document loading... Make sure you have a backup of your Publisher file first...

1. If Hardware Acceleration is enabled in the Publisher Performance Settings, turn it off which will force a reboot of Publisher to see if that makes any difference when opening the file.
    
2. If not, temporarily remove the Dropbox sync and see if that makes any difference, you can try this with Hardware Acceleration both enabled and disabled.
    
3. Select all the SVG files in Resource Manager and change their status to Linked. If they're not already, place all the SVG files in their own folder or subfolder separate from your Publisher document or just rename the folder if they're already in their own folder so the link to your Publisher document is broken.
   
   Close then reopen your Publisher file which should now show the 'Missing Resources' message. If you select 'No' when you see the message does your file now open quickly and display all page thumbnails? If it does close and reopen your Publisher document, relink the SVG files (keeping them as Linked rather than embedded) and Save your Publisher document using a new name. Does closing and reopening the file now exhibit the same issue with loading times?

Let us know if any of the above makes any difference and if not someone in the moderation team will be able to provide you with a private Dropbox link where you can upload your files so they can take a look at what might be causing the problem...