Affinity Photo V2.5.7 Crashing Out on Load (Win10)

[Ian Cooper]

Is anyone able to help - been using Affinity Photo for a number of years without any loading issues at all, last used it just before Christmas a week ago when it was fine.  Came to it again this evening and the loading screen fires up, it gives the "...loading fonts" and then "...loading data" screens, but then crashes out.

Checking windows event viewer reports a  ".NET Runtime" error, specifically:

"Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: System.IO.FileNotFoundException
   at System.Runtime.Serialization.Json.DataContractJsonSerializer.Initialize(System.Type, System.Collections.Generic.IEnumerable`1<System.Type>, Int32, Boolean, System.Runtime.Serialization.IDataContractSurrogate, "

But typically doesn't say what file wasn't found.

Tried uninstalling Affinity and then downloading the MSI/EXE installer (previously used msix).  That ran and claimed to have installed correctly, but same error.  Tried uninstalling and going back to the version 2.0.0 installer - same story, still crashes out (so went back to V2.5.7 exe installer).  Have tried running as administrator - still crashes.   Have tried running with the "--no-ocl" command line - still crashes.

There's a 2.9Mb crash report in the CrashReports directory (see attached).
Win10 updates are up to date (which of course may be the problem!)

Any clues on how to get Affinity Photo running again?

Ian.

24d3877a-7b14-48d8-96bc-14a80bb3a79b.dmp

[Komatös]

Hello @Ian Cooper and welcome to the forums.

Please run Microsoft .NET Framework Repair Tool.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30135

 

[Ian Cooper]

Thank you for the suggestion - having tried this the .NET Framework repair tool wanted to reregister and restart the windows installer service.  With no obvious difference I clicked 'Next' for it to collect logs and continue further...

After a few moments this then said the tool was unable to resolve the installation issue on my computer (without telling me either that there was an installation issue discovered, or what it was).  It then listed a number of log files that would be sent to Microsoft for further anaylsis   ...obviously without any suggestion about how this may help my situation.  Looking down the list of log files nothing particularly jumped out suggesting either "Affinity" or "Serif"

Trying to load Affinity after this resulted in a proper crash - the loading screen would get to the "...loading data" screen and then properly freeze  (where previously it would pause for a few seconds and then vanish back to the desktop).  The Windows event log this time didn't report anything.

A power cycle and try everything again (including .NET repair tool) resulted in the same results, only this time everything is back to before - Affinity Photo gets to the "...loading data" message, pauses on that for about 2 seconds and then closes down again.  Windows event viewer is giving the same Event ID 1026 error, "Exception Info: System.IO.FileNotFoundException"

A further search online brought some very similar bugs concerning Affinity Photo and .NET Framework and the file not found exception.   Looking and it seems the version of .NET I have is Version 4.5 / 4.5.1 / 4.5.2,  ....however the version 4.8.1 is compatible with Win10 - so I've tried downloading and installing that...  A check on .NET versions now suggests I'm running version 4.8.1 -  However Affinity Photo is still closing down after the "...loading data" message and Win. Event Viewer is still giving the same FileNotFoundException.

...any other ideas anyone?

[Ian Cooper]

A further update - it is now working again 🙂

Having wanted to quickly resize and save a photograph before doing other things I ended up spending 6.5 hours chasing my tail down a rabbit hole last night.  Never ending sessions with DISM and SFC at the command line would report issues that couldn't be fixed. Log files pointed to SMDiagnostics.dll and System.Activities.dll being corrupt (zero file size) and not without some difficulty moving copies from another PC didn't resolve those.  Downloading an ISO of the Win10 installatioin wouldn't allow DISM to correct things so in the end at 1am I just set the PC to do a repair reinstallation of Win10...

This morning Affinity Photo now loads and runs correctly again.

[lacerto]

Hello, @Ian Cooper. 

This may be a totally separate issue, but I just experienced similar app crashes (exactly at same point) for all 2.5.7 Affinity apps on Windows 11 Pro (2024.H2 installed). I have recently played a lot with HDR photo editing (not involving Affinity apps themselves, though) and e.g. turning on and off HDR mode a lot, changing nVidia settings, etc., and noticed that at some point I could not have any of the Affinity apps loaded. I did not have any issues with other apps, though, and the system seemed to work correctly. The apps crashed so that they were not listed in Windows Task Manager, either (many apps that crash may still be visible in Task Manager).

I did not examine any logs but simply just restarted the computer (in SDR mode), and the problem was fixed.

I wanted to report this wondering if you might also have been experimenting with HDR (and possibly switching between HDR and SDR modes) when experiencing this error? 

[Ian Cooper]

Hello, @lacerto

No, I've not been doing anything HDR or making any changes to graphics card settings.   With Christmas sitting between when it worked and when it didn't  I hadn't been using the computer much at all.

 

Glad you were able to sort your problems so easily.  I tried numerous power-off cycles before finally giving up and doing a Win10 reinstall over night whilst I went to bed.  Fortunately by the morning it was all working again.

 

 

Ian.

 

[lacerto]

15 hours ago, Ian Cooper said:

No, I've not been doing anything HDR or making any changes to graphics card settings.

Ok. I was curious to find out if this could have anything to do with HDR settings, because I have been using Affinity apps for years but had not experienced earlier the kind of behavior you described. The other "new thing" for me was having just upgraded to 24H2, but as you have Windows 10, that does not explain it, either. But otherwise a kind of a similar issue, and becoming effective as if by itself (for me without having been using Affinity apps for a while).