Switching between apps causes files to become unopenable

[sweeetjd]

I was editing a document in Designer, but needed to use a filter in Photo. I selected "File > Edit in Photo..." to do this.

I made a mistake in the workflow, I expected a similar functionality to Photoshop when you finish editing a smart object, in which saving causes the file that contains the smart object to update.

This isn't the case with Affinity, so when I opened Designer again and saw that the file was only open in Photo, I went back to photo and closed the document, before attempting to open the photo in Designer again.

Designer now says that the file can't be open because it's open in Photo. This error persisted for a while, but eventually resolved itself. Quitting and logging out didn't seem to help, it just seemed to work after I left it alone for a while.

[walt.farrell]

First: From Photo, File > Edit in Designer would have transferred the file back to Designer. (It's probably safest to use File > Save or Save As before doing a File > Edit in.)

Second: There have been some bugs, somje already fixed (I think) but some not, where Closing a file did not delete its lock file. If that happens, other Affinity apps will still think the file is open in that app. But lock files are maintained while an app actually has the file open and locked. If the app or the file is closed, then the lock will no longer be maintained, and other apps should ignore the lock file as it is no longer being maintained, and will be noticed as being "stale". It sounds like that happened in your case. (Alternatively, if you know the file is really closed, you can locate and delete the lock file yourself, if you don't want to wait 5 minutes.)

There's a FAQ related to that: