Constant beachballing when no internet available

[Armelline]

macOS 13.6.7, Affinity Photo 2.5.3.

I have been having a lot of problems with my internet recently leading to periods where I'm working with no internet. I noticed that Affinity Photo also started having issues at the same time, with long, frequent beachballing and freezing up. It's consistently doing it, and proving to be a huge headache. Doesn't do it when I have internet.

Suspecting that it was trying to make a connection to Affinity and locking up while it tried, I added some Little Snitch rules to deny Affinity Photo any connections to the internet even when I have working internet. Constant beachballing and freezing up.

Is this a known issue? Anyone else able to replicate it? Anything I can do about it?

Thanks!

[R C-R]

Do you have any linked items in your documents that are stored remotely?

[walt.farrell]

I just disabled WiFi on my Mac, which is its only method of accessing the Internet, and Photo 2.5.3 was not affected in any way.

When setting up rules with Little Snitch you need to be careful what (or how) you block the application. It still needs to have access to the local network, so the Affinity V2 applications can talk to each other. If you cut off that access it could cause issues, I think.

[Armelline]

20 hours ago, R C-R said:

Do you have any linked items in your documents that are stored remotely?

Not that I'm aware of, though several I've been working on are PSD created in Photoshop by someone else.

[Armelline]

1 hour ago, walt.farrell said:

I just disabled WiFi on my Mac, which is its only method of accessing the Internet, and Photo 2.5.3 was not affected in any way.

When setting up rules with Little Snitch you need to be careful what (or how) you block the application. It still needs to have access to the local network, so the Affinity V2 applications can talk to each other. If you cut off that access it could cause issues, I think.

 

Thanks for the response. I'll note that it happens when I have no internet as well, which is why I investigated with Little Snitch. When you say "needs to have access to the local network" do you mean literally needs to be seeking devices on the local network, as when my internet goes down it's the router going down so the local network goes down with it. I do not have any other Affinity apps, though, only Photo. (I also don't really see why I should need to provide internet to Photo at all, though, unless I'm using internet connected features.)

I also cannot guarantee that the lack of internet even is the issue. Just that it starts beachballing pretty consistently when I lose internet, and doesn't when I have internet.

[walt.farrell]

15 minutes ago, Armelline said:

When you say "needs to have access to the local network" do you mean literally needs to be seeking devices on the local network, as when my internet goes down it's the router going down so the local network goes down with it

Your OS has a built-in local network, which applications running on it can use to talk to each other. No other machines or router required. This is not the Internet, or even your LAN; just happening on your machine.

16 minutes ago, Armelline said:

I do not have any other Affinity apps, though, only Photo.

But you could have other Affinity apps, and you could install an additional one at any time. For certain actions that you take (such as installing brushes, assets, styles, etc.) any running Affinity V2 apps will need to talk to each other to coordinate changes to the shared data files, and to let the other Affinity V2 apps (if any) know that changes were made so they can refresh their copies of the data and Studio panels.

19 minutes ago, Armelline said:

(I also don't really see why I should need to provide internet to Photo at all, though, unless I'm using internet connected features.)

It will need Internet:

• when you want to work with your Affinity Account via the Account dialog.
• Or at startup if license activation is required.
• Or at startup or once per day to see if there are updates avalable.
• Or if you attempt to access some functions via Help or via the Lessons function in the Startup dialog (or File > New dialog).

It would not need Internet to work on your files, though it would still need the local on-machine network.

[Armelline]

45 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Your OS has a built-in local network, which applications running on it can use to talk to each other. No other machines or router required. This is not the Internet, or even your LAN; just happening on your machine.

But you could have other Affinity apps, and you could install an additional one at any time. For certain actions that you take (such as installing brushes, assets, styles, etc.) any running Affinity V2 apps will need to talk to each other to coordinate changes to the shared data files, and to let the other Affinity V2 apps (if any) know that changes were made so they can refresh their copies of the data and Studio panels.

It will need Internet:

• when you want to work with your Affinity Account via the Account dialog.
• Or at startup if license activation is required.
• Or at startup or once per day to see if there are updates avalable.
• Or if you attempt to access some functions via Help or via the Lessons function in the Startup dialog (or File > New dialog).

It would not need Internet to work on your files, though it would still need the local on-machine network.

This is sounding very much like Affinity Photo is bascially unusable for me without internet, which seems absurd. I am not trying to use any online services or my Affinity Account. My license is activated so shouldn't need verification on every startup. Software update checks should be entirely optional. I'm not trying to access any help or lessons. But even if I *was* specifically trying to use those features, Photo should surely be failing far more gracefully than just beachballing for up to several minutes at a time. Even Photoshop doesn't behave this badly when I don't have internet and that app is simply insane with the number of connections it tries to make.

Similarly, it trying to poke around my system looking for other apps should, if required at all (and I'd argue it's really not), be failing more gracefully if that's the cause. It shouldn't *need* anything but itself.

Very much regretting paying for the upgrade to 2 right now. I can't believe that because my internet is down half the time I'm having to use *Photoshop* instead of Affinity because it handles no internet so much more gracefully.

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, Armelline said:

This is sounding very much like Affinity Photo is bascially unusable for me without internet, which seems absurd.

Lacking an external network should not have this effect (and doesn't, for me, for example). So there's something else going on that we need to figure out. Either some system Setting or another application that I don't have interfering, would be my guess. 

 

[Armelline]

Just now, walt.farrell said:

Lacking an external network should not have this effect (and doesn't, for me, for example). So there's something else going on that we need to figure out. Either some system Setting or another application that I don't have interfering, would be my guess. 

 

The problem literally only occurs if my internet is down (i.e. there is no network connection and no access to the router - no wifi or ethernet attached) or if I block all outgoing connections with Little Snitch. I definitely don't rule out the possibility it's something else, but that seems a huuuuge coincidence if so. I can't rule out one of the many OS processes, but I tested Affinity being the only application (manually) opened and the problem persists. I also can't rule out there being a system setting involved, but I am 100% certain I manually changed no system settings in the time between it not happening and it starting to happen, and installed no system updates. (Though I'm about to install a system update now.)

It happens consistently on app startup (normally ~30 seconds but sometimes several minutes) and seemingly randomly while just working.

[walt.farrell]

4 minutes ago, Armelline said:

or if I block all outgoing connections with Little Snitch

That will (and should, given the application) cause problems.

I wonder if you have some other setting that blocks all communication when the network is down. For example, do you normally have Little Snitch running? If so, does the problem occur when you stop it?

Or do you have some kind of anti-malware or firewall app running that wants to check "home" to validate network communications, and can't when the network is down so it just blocks all communication (even local) until it can talk on the network again.

[R C-R]

On 8/17/2024 at 8:57 AM, Armelline said:

Is this a known issue? Anyone else able to replicate it?

At one point when my internet service was very slow to respond (so things like using my Safari browser to access this forum could take anything from 20 seconds to ten minutes to load a page) I did experience some equally long stalls in one of my Affinity apps (or possibly more than one but I don't remember) but I could not duplicate that behavior the next day when I tested for it by completely disconnecting my Mac from the internet.

I never did figure out what caused this or any way to get it to happen again.

[Armelline]

On 8/18/2024 at 6:42 PM, walt.farrell said:

That will (and should, given the application) cause problems.

I wonder if you have some other setting that blocks all communication when the network is down. For example, do you normally have Little Snitch running? If so, does the problem occur when you stop it?

Or do you have some kind of anti-malware or firewall app running that wants to check "home" to validate network communications, and can't when the network is down so it just blocks all communication (even local) until it can talk on the network again.

Any application that can't be used without internet is poorly designed. Any application that attempts to connect to a server or another app, fails, and locks up rather than silently trying in the background is poorly designed.

I don't see any evidence that the problem is related to any attempts to find other Affinity apps on my system, though. It seems to be directly related to the app attempting to connect to events.api.serifservices.com and/or things.seriflabs.com. If I deny those (or simply don't have internet), beachball galore. If I let them through, no problems. No universal Little Snitch rule being applied, only denying those specific connections.

[walt.farrell]

27 minutes ago, Armelline said:

It seems to be directly related to the app attempting to connect to events.api.serifservices.com and/or things.seriflabs.com.

That is good diagnostic info, which should give Serif something to work with. Thanks!

[Armelline]

The app appears to attempt to make connections to those (and others which may be related to the later beachballing issues, these are just the ones that cause beachball at strartup though), and attempts them repeatedly. Seemingly at the expense of everything else. Though not always. My new router arrived today so the issue will be moot, but I'm not a fan of apps constantly connecting to online services I don't use so it would definitely be nice to be able to block them without it breaking things so hopefully they can make it fail more gracefully. Thanks for the help, and sorry if any of my frustration has bled through (which I have no doubt it has).

[MikeTO]

FWIW, I use Affinity on macOS and I've never had an issue using it when my internet is out. My internet cuts out regularly and I've never had Affinity beachball like you're describing. I am using Sonoma though.

[thomaso]

FWIW: A while ago I noticed delays in Affinity for several seconds, a couple of times per day and for several days. I did not get a beachball, just not reacting, and I noticed that the digital menu clock in the top right corner would freeze during these moments and its seconds did not proceed. When Affinity worked again the clock digits jumped to the current time. I never detected the culprit, I only can guess that a reboot or safe boot fixed it. Unfortunately I can't tell if it happened in other apps, too (I remember Affinity only).

[stokerg]

Hi @Armelline,

I've just installed Little Snitch and ran up Designer, then blocked access to all 3 Affinity api's, closed Affinity and started it backup without any issues.  I was then able to start a New Document and work without any beachballs.

Which version of Little Snitch are you running?  If you remove all blocks for Affinity from Little Snitch, then disconnect from the Internet and try using Designer do you still get a beachball?

I should mention, i regular use the Affinity apps without an internet connection and don't experience any of the issues you mention.

[Ron P.]

The Affinity Apps do not phone home, so no internet is needed to use them. The only time you need the internet is downloading to install them, or for updating. I realize there are some apps, like Alludo/Corel. They use PsiService to monitor for piracy. While it doesn't monitor 24/7, there are periodic times it will check. If you're not connected when it does, then you will have a problem launching the apps.

@Armelline, run a Corel app, like PSP, or CDGS, and you'll see what phone home ET is.