Affinity Photo 2 Filling up my storage and running at a crawl.

[grandpa2390]

M3Pro MBP here. File is 600MB. lots of layers, but I've never had this issue until yesterday. All of a sudden Affinity Photo 2 is slowing to a crawl. and I think the reason is that this file: Personalbackstore.dat is ballooning in size. Right now it is 122.83GB WHY HOW???? I searched and this seems to be some sort of swap file but my memory pressure is green and I'm using 0 Swap. How does a 600MB file need 122.83GB??? Something must be wrong here. I've been working in this program for 3 years my file has always been about this size with about this many layers. I've never had this issue. 

In the meantime, I have no choice but to use Photoshop. Please help me. 

[Ron P.]

Welcome to the forums @grandpa2390 

I've also researched this issue. I can not find any post by Serif staff that provides any real answers.

• It is an backup image file of a project(s)
• Is only used when there isn't enough memory for it to load images or other assets
• Should be cleared when you restart the app.

I think you already discovered the above information. You stated that your memory pressure is green. I'm not a Mac user, and not seen that term related towards Windows machines.

• How much RAM do you have?
• What other apps do you have running while working in AP?

[R C-R]

58 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

You stated that your memory pressure is green. I'm not a Mac user, and not seen that term related towards Windows machines.

There is a memory pressure graph in the Mac Activity Monitor when set to monitor Memory usage. When the area under the curve is green it indicates there is more than enough available RAM for the current user's activities. As the 'pressure' on the RAM increases it turns yellow & then to red when the system is reaching its limits & performance may degrade.

[walt.farrell]

@grandpa2390: Can you show us a screenshot of the Performance section of your Photo Settings, please? And, as Ron asked, how much RAM do you have installed?

[grandpa2390]

8 hours ago, Ron P. said:

Welcome to the forums @grandpa2390 

I've also researched this issue. I can not find any post by Serif staff that provides any real answers.

• It is an backup image file of a project(s)
• Is only used when there isn't enough memory for it to load images or other assets
• Should be cleared when you restart the app.

I think you already discovered the above information. You stated that your memory pressure is green. I'm not a Mac user, and not seen that term related towards Windows machines.

• How much RAM do you have?
• What other apps do you have running while working in AP?

18 GB of RAM. No other apps open. 

That file does get set to 0 when I close the app. but within a few minutes of opening AP2 again, it quickly expands to fill all of my remaining storage.

I posted this question on the subreddit, and someone asked me if I was sure it was not using up all of the RAM. I suppose it's possible that my RAM is available, but the app is having trouble getting it??? so it just uses this file. But even so, how does a 600MB file need 140GB of RAM. And I reinstalled Photoshop today in the meantime. I exported the file to psd (took forever), and I'm having no issue with this file in Photoshop.  I'm not saying Photoshop good, AP2 bad. Just that I think there must be some sort of bug. Memory leak or something. 

[grandpa2390]

12 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

@grandpa2390: Can you show us a screenshot of the Performance section of your Photo Settings, please? And, as Ron asked, how much RAM do you have installed?

18GB of RAM. Is this it?

[walt.farrell]

Are you using a lot of Placed files in your project? You say there are a lot of layers, but what kind?

[grandpa2390]

11 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Are you using a lot of Placed files in your project? You say there are a lot of layers, but what kind?

What's a placed file? I have lots of images, text, and shapes.  I have many layers, but they're not all showing. just 1-3 at a time or so. If that makes a difference. 99% of my layers are hidden until I need to print this or that. 

I'm using Affinity Photo 2 to create and organize resources for my classroom. Labels, Flashcards, etc. It's a 600MB file. it's not.... complex. 

Elephant in the living room in case someone is going to ask. Why am I using Photo and not Publisher? I came over from Photoshop. I tried using the other Adobe program that was supposed to be better for this sort of thing, but it was missing features that I needed. I don't remember specifically what they were, photo editing features perhaps, but photoshop worked well enough on its own that I didn't want to have to deal with using two apps instead of one. 

As I said before. this is a new issue. my file has changed very little since a couple months ago when I last used it. And I didn't have this issue then. This is something new.

Edited August 21 by grandpa2390

[R C-R]

7 minutes ago, grandpa2390 said:

What's a placed file?

A file you either add to your document via drag & drop or from File > Place.

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Media/placeImages.html

[grandpa2390]

4 minutes ago, R C-R said:

A file you either add to your document via drag & drop or from File > Place.

https://affinity.help/photo2/en-US.lproj/pages/Media/placeImages.html

I'm still unsure. Is this images that haven't been rasterized? There are probably a quite a few unrasterized images. I do have to rasterize them pretty frequently though or it won't let me edit them. So I tend to open images in their own tab though, and then cut out the parts I want and paste into the my file. 

 

Edited August 21 by grandpa2390

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, grandpa2390 said:

Is this images that haven't been rasterized?

Placed files can be of any kind from other Affinity documents to JPEGs & so on.

EDIT: so you should know if you used File > Place or drag & drop to add an existing file to your project.

Edited August 21 by R C-R

[grandpa2390]

8 minutes ago, R C-R said:

Placed files can be of any kind from other Affinity documents to JPEGs & so on.

I suppose. but I don't save these other documents. I delete them the moment I have what I want from them. open the image, cut out the portrait of my student, and then don't save changes. 

OK so I have 846 layers in 62 groups. the vast majority of these layers have placed content that has been merged with text and/or rectangles. the file is 725 MB (I was saying 600 before, I just checked and it's 725). How does a 725MB file need 130GB to be worked with? And I believe it is only 130GB because that's all the storage I have left. At first it was at a 100GB. Then I uninstalled a 30GB video game to try and free up 5-10% of my SSD.  But the file just grew to 130GB.   I believe if I had 512GB of my drive free, that file would fill 512GB. I don't believe there's a way I could test that, but that's how it seems.

Just a reminder, I'm currently switched to Photoshop and I don't have this issue in Photoshop. I didn't have this issue before in Affinity Photo 2. Which I have been using it and AP1 for a few years now.

Edited August 21 by grandpa2390

[grandpa2390]

actually, I'd say 99% of these layers are placed content merged with text and/or rectangles. if it's not photos of my students then it's clipart from the internet.

[R C-R]

2 minutes ago, grandpa2390 said:

actually, I'd say 99% of these layers are placed content merged with text and/or rectangles.

Do you mean they are now raster (pixel) layers no longer containing editable text, rectangles, or other shape objects?

[grandpa2390]

Just now, R C-R said:

Do you mean they are now raster (pixel) layers no longer containing editable text, rectangles, or other shape objects?

Yeah, that's what I was saying before. that most of them have been rasterized. I think Affinity Photo won't let me merge layers unless I rasterize them first. So I have to rasterize them quite frequently. there are still probably a few unrasterized placed content floating around the file though. Images that are their own layer. 

[GaryLearnTech]

12 hours ago, grandpa2390 said:

18GB of RAM. Is this it?

If you're simply reading 18GB off your screenshot, then no, sorry, that is not the installed RAM.  It will almost certainly be a multiple of 8: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 48GB, etc.

That 18GB (18432MB) is an Affinity Photo setting for memory management.  Unfortunately, the Help page, while explaining what it is, doesn't provide any guidance on choosing a suitable setting.

To find the actual RAM (memory) installed on your Mac, the easiest method is probably to go to the  menu in the top left corner of your screen and select About This Mac.

As you can see from my screenshot below, I have 16GB RAM installed.  However, the RAM Usage Limit setting can still go up to 65536MB (64GB).

 

[grandpa2390]

1 minute ago, GaryLearnTech said:

If you're simply reading 18GB off your screenshot, then no, sorry, that is not the installed RAM.  It will almost certainly be a multiple of 8: 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 48GB, etc.

That 18GB (18432MB) is an Affinity Photo setting for memory management.  Unfortunately, the Help page, while explaining what it is, doesn't provide any guidance on choosing a suitable setting.

To find the actual RAM (memory) installed on your Mac, the easiest method is probably to go to the  menu in the top left corner of your screen and select About This Mac.

As you can see from my screenshot below, I have 16GB RAM installed.  However, the RAM Usage Limit setting can still go up to 65536MB (64GB).

 

I have 18GB of RAM. I have the base model M3Pro. I only found that place, took a screenshot and posted it because I was asked to. 3 Channel memory (6*3) instead of 4 (4*4). So it's 18GB instead of 16GB. 

[Ron P.]

@grandpa2390, you might have a read about Embedded vs Linking

Using Linked images means smaller file size. Embedded Images will increase the file size.

[NotMyFault]

On 8/21/2024 at 2:50 AM, grandpa2390 said:

How does a 600MB file need 122.83GB??? Something must be wrong here.

You may have linked or embedded resources which can use compressed formats like jpg, tiff, png which require 1000x RAM when stored decompressed in RAM compared to file size on HDD.

Even with regular pixel layers, they are store more efficiently on disk vs. Inside RAM.

If you e.g. rotate a pixel layer or mask layer and paint on it, this can lead to excessive layer size due to old unfixed bugs in photo.

 

[GaryLearnTech]

10 hours ago, grandpa2390 said:

I have 18GB of RAM. I have the base model M3Pro. I only found that place, took a screenshot and posted it because I was asked to. 3 Channel memory (6*3) instead of 4 (4*4). So it's 18GB instead of 16GB. 

My apologies, @grandpa2390, you're right.

[grandpa2390]

I don't know. There doesn't seem to be a solution except to reinstall Photo in a month or 2 and see if it starts working again.

Thanks everyone for trying

[thomaso]

Two other things you can look at:

• Is the option “Save History With Document” enabled for the file? (menu 'File')

• What size is the "assets.propcol" file in your user library folder?