Publisher Crashes When Image Placement Policy is Forced

[Hangman]

Publisher will consistently crash on both Mac and Windows when the Image Policy is forced, owing to the amount of document data.

Steps to Reproduce

1. Create a new document with the image placement set to Prefer Embedded
2. Add a picture frame to the page and set its Property to None (so far, I've only triggered the crash with this set to none)
3. Add an image to the picture frame
4. In Resource Manager select the image and change the placement from Embedded to Linked
5. Save the document (this step isn't essential)
6. Select the image inside the picture frame and click Edit Image from the context toolbar
7. Switch to the Photo Persona
8. Apply a Filter* (so far, I've only triggered the crash using Unsharp Mask using a Radius of 100 px and a Factor of 4)
9. Close the tab
10. Click Save
11. Publisher shows the Image Policy confirmation dialog window suggesting the document contains a large amount of Embedded image data despite having set the image placement policy to Linked in Step 4 (this in itself seems incorrect)
12. Click Yes and Publisher crashes

*Something sufficiently complex is needed to trigger the image policy dialog in Step 11...

Screen Recording

 

Mac and Windows Crash Reports

Affinity Publisher 2 Affinity Store-2024-08-11-114347.ips

3b8af2cc-664c-4a80-9f22-4d5732e764b8.dmp

[Lee D]

@Hangman Thanks for the report. I've reproduced and logged with the developers.

[Hangman]

Hi @Lee D,

Thanks for testing, reproducing and logging...

I'm curious as to why the Image Policy dialog appears in this scenario since the Image Placement Policy is set to Linked. Would this be expected or in and of itself be considered a bug?

[Affinity Info Bot]

The issue "Publisher Crashes When Image Placement Policy is Forced" (REF: AF-4092) has been fixed by the developers in the latest beta build (2.6.0.2805). The fix is planned for inclusion in the next customer release.
Customer beta builds are announced here and you can participate by following these instructions.
If you still experience this problem once you are using that build version (or later) please reply to this thread including @Affinity Info Bot to notify us.

[RCB]

I am not sure this issue is identical, but it seems to match the name. Using 2.6.2, when I attempt to Place an image, the dialog asks if I want to conserve resources by linking images rather than embedding them. If I say yes, please link, it hangs with a moving progress bar on loading the image. This is inescapable and a complete crash of the program (you can only get out of it by terminating the process from task manager). If instead I decide to embed, the load is nearly instant, and everything proceeds as normal. Repeated several times with the same document (a 2-page PDF loaded in) and with two different versions of the image embed - one .afphoto the other .png. I have not had this issue consistently outside of this, but it appears to be repeatable in this case at least.

Edited April 16 by RCB
added clarification.

[Hangman]

Hi @RCB,

The original bug reported in this thread was fixed in 2.6.0.2805, and having just tested it, I can't reproduce it in 2.6.2, so this does sound like a slightly different issue...

Can you upload the two-page PDF file so we can test to see if we experience the same issue? Are you placing it into an existing file or a new empty file?

[RCB]

You can find it at this link: https://boardgamegeek.com/file/download_redirect/35a411482c3c72f2d9ca654cd8960f827b75e3e0c0e5b2ef/Nonaga+Pocket+Rules.pdf

I was replacing the photo. First with a .afphoto image, then when that failed repeatedly, with a .png. Same failure. I also tried Place with the image I was going to replace selected, and Place with nothing selected. Same failure.

[Hangman]

Hi @RCB,

I've tested this on Windows and Mac with an .afphoto and a .png file, and I'm not experiencing any issues... Can you upload the .afphoto and png files that you've been using so we can test it with the same files...

[RCB]

FWIW I just tried it again - Computer as well as Publisher have been restarted in the meantime - and it still fails the same way. Also, I'm on Win10, on a somewhat older processor but with a 3070 and plenty of RAM.

 

Nonaga.afphoto

[Hangman]

Hi @RCB,

Many thanks for the files, both work without issue here on Windows and Mac, so the only thing I can suggest is running a factory reset of Publisher by holding the Ctrl Key when launching the app until you see the Clear User Data screen.

Leave the first option ticked and untick the second and third options, hit the Clear button, let Publisher finish launching and then see if you still experience the same problem...

Note: A factory reset will change any toolbar and tool panel customisation back to their original settings.

[migelammon]

On 4/17/2025 at 2:27 PM, RCB said:

You can find it at this link: https://boardgamegeek.com/file/download_redirect/35a411482c3c72f2d9ca654cd8960f827b75e3e0c0e5b2efTuBIdY/Nonaga+Pocket+Rules.pdf

I was replacing the photo. First with a .afphoto image, then when that failed repeatedly, with a .png. Same failure. I also tried Place with the image I was going to replace selected, and Place with nothing selected. Same failure.

Have you tried exporting to JPG before replacing? Sometimes that can be a simple yet effective solution.