control of the lock file

[MaxineD]

Been having major issues with saving documents...  anyone know what this means. Can't save to a new file - it says the document can't be written to. 

[GarryP]

The software creates a lock file which it uses to make sure that only one user can open the document at any time.

The lock file has the same name as the actual file but the file type is given a “~lock~” suffix, e.g. mydocument.afdesign~lock~ .

If there is a reason why the software cannot ‘see’ this lock file any more (it has ‘lost control’ of it) the software will assume that something has gone wrong with the file itself – one example would be if the file was on an external storage device (e.g. cloud storage, network, thumb-drive, etc.) which is no longer available.

In these situations you can, as the pop-up suggests, create a new file (Save As) which should, in most cases, fix the problem and you should be able to continue working with the new file (unless something much worse has happened).

[MaxineD]

And when I 'save as' it says the file cannot be written to...  think I've lost it

My computer is full, so the file is on an external drive (as everyone has been telling me to do) - so your explanation might be the reason. 

thanks

[PaulEC]

3 minutes ago, MaxineD said:

My computer is full, so the file is on an external drive

The best thing to do is save your file locally, then move it to your external storage. Also move or copy files from the external storage to a local location before opening them in your Affinity app. It might seem a bit of a faff but it is better than risking your files being corrupted. Hopefully Affinity will find a better solution for people who need to use external storage, things have improved, but it can still be problematical. 

[MaxineD]

oh no 😮‍💨

Wish I'd known that before - thanks

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, MaxineD said:

oh no 😮‍💨

Wish I'd known that before - thanks

It has been mentioned more than once but the app really should tell you about the possible problems of working on a document not saved to the internal drive.

That said, the developers seem to be trying to fix this issue, but not with a lot of success.