Affinity Photo 2 on Windows 11 24H2 - PC freezes in Noise Reduction Menu

[StenHertel]

Hello, my name is Sten and I am using Affinity Photo 2 since this week for editing Astro Photos and I have a problem with it. The PC freezes (two times since first use), as I loaded the noise reducing menu.

Firstly choose the correct Bugs forum, according to the Operating System you are using. In that forum state the following

1. What Application are you using? Photo 2 on Windows 11 24H2. I never used it with 23H2 or before. Maybe it is aslo related with the new Windows 11 24H2?!
2. Are you using the latest release version? 2.5.5
3. Can you reproduce it? Sometimes, two times it happened this week.
4. Does it happen for a new document? Yes, after beginning a new project, independant from format (it happens with RAW file and TIF File). Means I open a file, do some threshold for bright/dark measure point and do some gradiation curves. After doing them, I will finalize the picture by using the noise reducer. And in two times (but everytime with a new project) it loads the noise reducer menu, the system load goes up and it starts to stucking and finally freezing the whole PC. Because of this I dont have any entries in event viewer, reliability report or other standard windows crash dump. If there are any application logfiles, maybe you can assist me, where I can them find them.
5. If you cannot provide a sample document then please give an accurate description of the problem for example it should include most of the following:

•    What is your operating system and version (Windows 11, OSX Ventura, iOS 16 etc)? Windows 11 24H2, Build 26100.1882
•    Is hardware acceleration (in Preferences > Performance) ON or OFF ? On, but other setting I don't tested until now, but I ill do it parallely.
•    Crash / System freeze after opening the noise reducing menu. When you open it, I experience a large system load occuring and then it hangs. Today I had it also in an existing project, but there was the app able to continue and the load decreases after a few seconds.
•    Provide a recipe for creating the problem (step-by-step what you did). Please see point 4 and the attached image.
•    Screenshots (very handy) or a screen capture/video. Please see attachment.
•    Any unusual hardware (like tablets or external monitors or drives that may affect things) or relevant other applications like font managers or display managers. Nothing special. The PC is an i7 11700K with 32GB RAM and a Geforce RTX4080 Video Card. NVidia Driver is the 565.90 WHQL.
•    Did this same thing used to work and if so have you changed anything recently? (software or hardware). No.

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Edited October 7, 2024 by StenHertel
Version Name was wrong and some spelling mistakes.

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, StenHertel said:

Screenshots (very handy) or a screen capture/video. Please see attachment.

Welcome to the Affinity forums.

I have no answer to your question yet, but a suggestion to help us all: please use the Windows Snipping Tool, or another function provided by your OS, to provide screenshots. That will let you easily save a PNG or JPG file that you can then paste or insert into a post. And please include the complete applicatiion window.

3 hours ago, StenHertel said:

Is hardware acceleration (in Preferences > Performance) ON or OFF ? On, but other setting I don't tested until now, but I ill do it parallely.

Please let us know if that helps.

[StenHertel]

Please erase this answer. It was doubled and I merged it in the one below.

Edited October 8, 2024 by StenHertel

[StenHertel]

10 hours ago, walt.farrell said:

Please let us know if that helps.

Definitively. Yesterday I tested it with a new project, did the same and the noise reducing menu loads normal. But this was only one try, I will try it today with another file again. Yesterday I tested it with an DSS stacked TIF file, today I will try another RAW file.

Because of the bad Photo:

I know the Systems Snipping Tool, but I couldn‘t use it, because the System was freezed. The picture is also only a hint and shows you, what I did on the right side.

Edited October 8, 2024 by StenHertel

[walt.farrell]

3 hours ago, StenHertel said:

I know the Systems Snipping Tool, but I couldn‘t use it, because the System was freezed.

Thanks. I didn't understand the entire PC was frozen, not just the application. That suggests a possible issue with your GPU drivers. If I'm interpreting the NVIDIA website info correctly, I think you're running a "Game-Ready" driver. You might consider installing the Studio driver instead, and see if it behaves better.

[StenHertel]

I think also, that it is maybe a Problem with the driver or the combination with the newest Windows 11 24H2.  The reason of the GR driver use is, that I am mainly do Gaming with this PC, but I using it also for other things like the postprocessing or stacking of photos. So the GR Driver have to be to stay on the PC. But thank you very much for your hint.

Maybe there are also Application own Logs anywhere? So I can also take a Look on them or upload the file.

Finally: My Intention of the thread was also to report, that I got an Issue with the Noise Reduction Function and report it here in the Bug section of the Serif Forum. Currently I try the workaround without using the GPU acceleration.

Edited October 8, 2024 by StenHertel

[walt.farrell]

Reporting it here is fine, but often issues with Hardware Acceleration are (I think) issues in the drivers, not issues in Affinity itself.

There is a Log.txt file, but I doubt it would be relevant for this problem. You'll find it in either %appdata%\affinity\<application name>\2.0 (for MSI/EXE installations) or %userprofile%\.affinity\<application-name>\2.0 for MSIX installations. (You can copy/paste those locations (substituting, e.g., photo for <application name> into the File Explorer address bar or into the Run box that you'll get using the Windows key + R.)

The Windows Event Log might show something.

 

[StenHertel]

Thanks for the hint to the Logfile. I will take a look on them.

Issues with HW Acc are often driver relevant, thats right. But for an Application developer like Serif it should be a kind of interest, if there is an issue with a new Windows version or a Driver. When no one tells about them, no one will try to fix them. ;-)

[Freymar]

I've upgraded my computer from 23H2 to 24H2 and I'm experiencing the same issue.

Ever since the 24h2 upgrade, Affinity Photo 2 has been randomly crashing my computer (complete freeze). I'm going to try disabling the hardware acceleration and see if that helps.

[StenHertel]

Okay, thanks for sharing the information. So I am not the only one with the Problem. Currently I deactivated the GPU acceleration and do save and exit after all pre-steps before loading the project again and going in the denoising menu.

[3WaD]

I recently reinstalled Windows 10 to the latest Windows 11 and GR drivers and can confirm it started happening on performance-intensive tasks like RAW photo import, adding noise on a big picture etc. It's very annoying because you have to force shut down the whole PC with the hardware button because the system is completely frozen. I was using GR drivers the whole time on Win10, the latest version of Affinity, and GPU accel without problems, so it seems more of a Windows version compatibility issue.

[MoisesFontana]

Hello folks!

Just wanna let you know that I'm facing the same issue. The PC freezes, randomly, while doing some task, not a specific one, in Affinity Photo. The last one, a few minutes ago, I was resizing an recently openned image, it was a small image and I didn't had applied any adjustment so far.

After a few freezes last night I did a clean install of nVidia drivers, was using Game Ready and switched to Studio version, didn't solved the problem.

• Running AP 2.5.5 on Windows 11 24H2 Compilation 26100.2161
• Intel Core i5-9400F
• nVidia RTX 2060
• Drivers nVidia Studio 565.90

[Freymar]

23 minutes ago, MoisesFontana said:

Hello folks!

Just wanna let you know that I'm facing the same issue. The PC freezes, randomly, while doing some task, not a specific one, in Affinity Photo. The last one, a few minutes ago, I was resizing an recently openned image, it was a small image and I didn't had applied any adjustment so far.

After a few freezes last night I did a clean install of nVidia drivers, was using Game Ready and switched to Studio version, didn't solved the problem.

• Running AP 2.5.5 on Windows 11 24H2 Compilation 26100.2161
• Intel Core i5-9400F
• nVidia RTX 2060
• Drivers nVidia Studio 565.90

Exact same behavior as mine, the only workaround that worked for me so far was to disable HW acceleration.

[MoisesFontana]

5 hours ago, Freymar said:

Exact same behavior as mine, the only workaround that worked for me so far was to disable HW acceleration.

 

Looks like this worked. I made a lot of adjustments on an image and no freezes so far. Thank you for the hint.
Edit > Settings > Performance uncheck *Hardware Acceleration:

Edited November 3, 2024 by MoisesFontana

[StenHertel]

Thank you also your replies and sharings. Thought my PC was going mad, but so I am not the only one. Since the last crash a few weeks ago, I run also without the GPU acceleration. But menus like the denoising function, are generating really a high load. When you open them, all fans of my case are raising up their speed.

[Eledrith]

I have the exact same issue. It's random, from when resizing objects or documents to using the liquify tool. Happens both on beta and release versions of Photo. I'll try reinstalling the display driver with DDU to see if that helps, if not disabling the hardware acceleration it is for the time being.

If it helps I'm on Windows 11 Enterprise build 26100.2161 and the version of NVIDIA display driver is 566.03.

[e-hahn]

Ich habe das gleiche Problem mit Windows 11 24h2 und Affinity Photo, manchmal reicht es aus, nur ein Foto zuzuschneiden und das gesamte System friert ein.
Ich werde jetzt die Hardwarebeschleunigung deaktivieren, vielleicht hilft das.
Ich hoffe, dass die Entwickler das Problem lösen können.

[StenHertel]

Bei mir hat es zumindest geholfen (die Deaktivierung der Hardwarebeschleunigung), wobei ich zur Zeit zur Sicherheit alles soweit fertig bearbeite (zB Stretching mit Gratifikationskurven) und dann das Programm beende, dann neu lade und dann erst ins Entrauschen Menü gehe. Ich vermute mal, dass MS bei 24H2 etwas am Treibermodell geändert hat, was jetzt Affinity Foto 2.5.5 zum Freeze bringt.

[e-hahn]

Das das gesamte System einfriert ist aber schon extrem ungewöhnlich, könnte auch mal böse enden. Noch werden eher wenige schon Windows 11 24h2 nutzen, aber es werden natürlich immer mehr werden ...

Hoffe das dieser Bug schnellstmöglich gefixt wird ...

Edited November 26, 2024 by e-hahn

[StenHertel]

Ja und ich hoffe, dass sich jemand dem ganzen bei Affinity annimmt. Echt unschön.

[e-hahn]

Ich gehe mal davon aus dass der Designer das gleiche Problem hat, hab da die Hardwarebeschleunigung vorsichtshalber auch mal deaktiviert ...

[e-hahn]

Wurde der Bug nun in v2.5.6 behoben?
In den Release-Notes steht dazu nichts ...

Ich hab das auf zwei weiteren aktuellen Systemen mit Windows 11 24h2 testen können, auch hier das gleiche Problem, einen schlimmeren Bug kann eine Software gar nicht haben ...

[StenHertel]

Ich weiß ja nicht einmal, ob ein Entwickler hier im Forum unterwegs ist und sich deshalb der Sache angenommen hat.

For the rest:

Does anyone knows, that developers or supporters are here in the Forum to read anything about these errors?

[e-hahn]

Problem besteht mit v2.5.6 leider immer noch, eben ausprobiert ...

[NotMyFault]

According to a simple google search it is probably Microsoft who messed up the 24H2 update