Help! Upgraded Affinity 2 won't open yesterday's file

[John Morrish]

Affinity  has been nagging me to upgrade since I got a new Mac Mini (which barely works). The upgrade has never installed itself or opened until today when, without thinking, I let it do its stuff. Now it won't open the file I saved yesterday. Instead the program hangs. 

[John Morrish]

It's version 2.5.3. Here's the problem report. I have no idea what any of this means. I am 67 years old and a creator of books. This one has to be at the printer in 24 hours and I've barely started. 

 

 

[John Morrish]

Well, apparently I can't upload either the 'problem report' or the offending file. 

How do I reverse the upgrade? 

Thanks!

[carl123]

6 minutes ago, John Morrish said:

Well, apparently I can't upload either the 'problem report' or the offending file. 

What happens when you try?

Or can you upload it online somewhere and post the link?

[John Morrish]

'It says 'an unknown server error occurred when uploading this file'. But I can't get it to upload to/from iCloud either. Finder says it's a 9.3MB file but I have no idea where it physically resides. 

Meanwhile, I'm going to get a coffee somewhere and write my book longhand on paper. I'll do the computering in the small hours. It's the least of my worries. 

[carl123]

OK, good luck with the book

[John Morrish]

ICloud won't upload it via the browser because it says it's a folder, not a file. Duh? 

And it won't open in any of my numerous old-skool text editors. So where is it? I was working on it last night. 

I hate Apple, despite being a sworn Mac bigot since 1988. 

[John Morrish]

Finder finds it. The Mac won't do anything with it. 

Steve Jobs is revolving in his grave so fast that time is going backwards. 

[John Morrish]

I may have to do the book on a papyrus scroll.

 

[walt.farrell]

You haven't said which of the Affinity applications you own, and which one in particular you're having a problem with. Also, what release of macOS are you running?

[John Morrish]

All that is true. Sorry. I've had to take my old MacBook to the local library to even get online. I'm there now. This is what comes of believing you can do everything via the iPhone and 4G, if wired broadband is not available. 

It's Affinity Publisher 2. I've upgraded it last night to (from memory) 2.5.3.  The Mac is a Mac Mini running whatever grisly parody of the Mac OS is the current version. Sonoma? 

The good news is that I've written 595 words about the poet and composer Ivor Gurney, subject of my little booklet. Available in a week, if I get it to the printers within the next  22 hours or so. 

When I go home I can try again to upload the 'problem report'. But the original file seems to be unreachable. 

[John Morrish]

752 words. Good in part, like the Curate's Egg. 

[walt.farrell]

51 minutes ago, John Morrish said:

But the original file seems to be unreachable. 

Unreachable is vague. Do you mean you cannot find the file at all?

Or perhaps you can find it but something happens when you try to Open it? If that's it, where (exactly) is it located. And what (exactly) happens when you try to open it?

In any case, you could try to revert to an earlier version. First, uninstall what you have now. Then, visit https://affinity.store/update/macos/publisher/2 and select the the latest 2.4 release, download, install, and see if it helps.

(Note: install will mean:

• Opening the downloaded DMG file
• Dragging the Publisher icon onto the Applications icon
• Closing the DMG file.)

[John Morrish]

Thanks Walt,

I think I will end up doing that. But the odd thing is that I can't actually get at the file to do anything. It's on the desktop, which is in the iCloud drive folder. When I store things on the desktop like that, does the computer not hold a copy? I can see it in Finder, but can't actually open it in anything. Could I get to it in Terminal? Many years since I was fluent in that. 

I'm guessing you're in the States. My grandfather was called Walter. And Walt Whitman plays a key part in this story. Gurney was very influenced by him. He also had a peripheral connection with Robert Frost, who revolutionised poetry in English with the help of Edward Thomas while living a precarious existence on a terrible farm in Gloucestershire. 

Gurney was put in an asylum at the end of his life, convinced he was being controlled by wireless and electrical power. Every generation's psychoses reflect the prevailing new technology and fads of the era. For earlier victorians it was magnetism and hypnosis. 

I'm struggling with my hatred of the internet. It was such a lovely thing before the Web turned into a shopping mall. My first book, about Fender guitar amps, depended on it and it was a joy. Amazing to be able to find the phone number of the guy who designed the Bassman and ring him up in his nursing home. Ed Jahns. He was surprised and delighted that anyone cared. 

John

 

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, John Morrish said:

but can't actually open it in anything.

If it's an Affinity file, you can only Open it in an Affinity application.

What happens when you try to Open it in Publisher? What message do you get?

Can you Copy it in Finder and put it into a folder that is truly on your Mac, and not managed by iCloud?

[John Morrish]

I agree I can only get it to do something if I open it in Publisher, but I've usually managed to peek at binaries in a text editor just to see if there is actually anything there. It works with M$ files, for instance. If the file is blank, not good. If there are a lot of incomprehensible squiggles, copy and paste them into another file and try again. It has been known to work. 

I don't get any message, unfortunately. The app hangs: the beachball of death. 

The idea of moving it is a good one, though. I'll do that when I'm back home. Currently eating faux-Mexican food in a faux-American diner. Not bad. 

[walt.farrell]

Yes, opening it in a text editor to peek at it should work. If that is also failing, it suggests that you might be experiencing an iCloud-on-Sonoma issue where it takes a long time to synchronize files. If that's the issue, just leave it alone and eventually it should finish synchronizing, and then it will open properly.

[John Morrish]

Thanks Walt, sound advice. Maybe I shouldn't have panicked.

And I need to do something about my broadband. Our broadband companies are idle and rapacious. I gather the Internet Public Library has a scheme for rolling out low-cost broadband to beleaguered communities. Perhaps they might like to try a bit of benign imperialism. I'll ask them.

Going home now to try again. 

[John Morrish]

Get Info says this about the file: 9,336,378 bytes (Zero bytes on disk)

If I try to drag it or copy it, the tool tip on the pointer tells me it's two files. Bizarre.

I'm not getting a reliable enough connection for anything at all to sync. Maybe when it's dark or there's an R in the month. 

On another note, every Mac I have ever owned has been able to use a M$-layout keyboard. The keyboard preference pane gave you the option to reconfigure the three or four important keys command-alt-@-poundsign etc. Not this one. No such option.

It was suggested I install a third-party app that would allow me to reconfigure the entire keyboard, right in the guts of the OS. A keylogger... that phones home. Right!

 

[walt.farrell]

2 hours ago, John Morrish said:

Zero bytes on disk

That seems to mean that you have your Mac and/or iCloud configured to minimize the amount of space used on your system and migrate everything off into the cloud. That means it will take time and am available network connection to work with the file.

There should be a way to change that configuration, but I don't know enough to suggest what you should do. Sorry. 

 

[John Morrish]

I believe you are right. My paranoia about backing up means I have multiple copies of some files, many of advanced age, spread liberally around. Naturally, I can never find the ones I actually want. And every new hard drive or computer I get immediately fills itself up. 

[John Morrish]

I would like to sort it out, one day, but the day when I have that much leisure never arrives. Like doing my tax return.