Affinity Publisher 2.0 Crash/Quit After Menu Export

[drik]

Admittedly, it is a big file with over 500 pages with anchors and hyperlinks. After Menu -> Export, nothing seems to happen for about 10 seconds or so. Then Affinity Publisher 2.0 (Windows 11) just quit or crash. Not even the export screen will appear.

The file has many anchors/hyperlinks at first few pages. The main file has pages added from other smaller Affinity Publisher files. I don't think exporting these other smaller files and merging them together will work because of these links, am I right?

CrashReport folder is empty. Task manager memory usage hovers around 70% at that time of Menu Export.

Then again, what can be a way around to solve this?

Thank you 🙂

 

 

[MikeTO]

Which version of Publisher are you using? You wrote 2.0 but that was a few years ago, are you using 2.5.7? 2.6.0?

What language is your user interface set to and what language do you use for spell checking in Publisher?

Do you have Settings > Performance > Hardware Acceleration enabled? If so, try it with it off.

Good luck

[drik]

10 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Which version of Publisher are you using? You wrote 2.0 but that was a few years ago, are you using 2.5.7? 2.6.0?

What language is your user interface set to and what language do you use for spell checking in Publisher?

Do you have Settings > Performance > Hardware Acceleration enabled? If so, try it with it off.

Good luck

Oh, it's 2.6, my mistake. Upgraded only about last week or so.

English. Never played/set spell checking settings before.

Hard Acceleration enabled by default, turned off, restarted.

Still crash quitted.

Guess have to do some more testing to see what triggered that. 

Thanks anyway.

[drik]

For the benefit of anyone reading:

Okay. I managed to export to PDF finally.

I reduced the number of pages from more than 500 to around 350 380 406. 

So I am guessing that is how many pages Affinity Publisher can manage to start export for now (with the preflight errors or whatnots).

 

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, drik said:

For the benefit of anyone reading:

Okay. I managed to export to PDF finally.

I reduced the number of pages from more than 500 to less than 350. 

So I am guessing that is how many pages Affinity Publisher can manage to start export for now (with the preflight errors or whatnots).

The number of pages isn't important, I have longer books that export without issues.

First I recommend trying it with the 2.6.2 beta - two PDF export bugs were fixed in the beta and while you've ruled out the one related to language, the other might be your issue:

• Object Nested Inside a Table Layer Will Error When Tagged PDF is Enabled    [AF-5982]

I suggest disabling the Tagged PDF export option and seeing if that allows your whole document to be exported.

If not, divide the file in half. Test each half and if one half doesn't work then divide it in half an repeat until you narrow it down to a page. Perhaps you'll be able to find that it's a single object causing the problem.

Good luck

[drik]

 

As for Tagged PDF export option, Menu -> export will hang for a while before quitting AP without even the Export window showing up. 

Hmmm... Enrolled in the beta program but the latest version listed on the download page is 2.6.0. Maybe there's another page for it?

🙂 

 

2 hours ago, MikeTO said:

First I recommend trying it with the 2.6.2 beta - two PDF export bugs were fixed in the beta and while you've ruled out the one related to language, the other might be your issue:

 

[MikeTO]

9 hours ago, drik said:

Hmmm... Enrolled in the beta program but the latest version listed on the download page is 2.6.0. Maybe there's another page for it? 

Try downloading it anyway, I think it is the 2.6.2 beta installer and the link is just named incorrectly.

[R C-R]

4 hours ago, MikeTO said:

Try downloading it anyway, I think it is the 2.6.2 beta installer and the link is just named incorrectly.

What is the link for that download? For some reason no matter how I search for it I can't find any topic about it. My store account  Downloads & product keys has buttons to download all the betas, but all are saying they are for 2.6.2, which is what they download.

[Old Bruce]

6 minutes ago, R C-R said:

... My store account  Downloads & product keys has buttons to download all the betas, but all are saying they are for 2.6.2, which is what they download.

Same here, although that was a couple of days ago.

[MikeTO]

You can download the beta from: https://store.serif.com/account/downloads

It looks like Serif has now updated the link to read 2.6.2 which should clear up the confusion.

[R C-R]

20 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

It looks like Serif has now updated the link to read 2.6.2 which should clear up the confusion.

I am fairly sure it has been showing 2.6.2 for at least 3 or so days, but I can't be certain because I downloaded those betas from the 'new version available' prompts in my existing 2.6 betas.

[MikeTO]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

I am fairly sure it has been showing 2.6.2 for at least 3 or so days, but I can't be certain because I downloaded those betas from the 'new version available' prompts in my existing 2.6 betas.

It definitely read 2.6.0 earlier today.

[R C-R]

6 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

It definitely read 2.6.0 earlier today.

Weird. Very shortly after I read your earlier post 8 hours ago about the beta being misnamed, I checked my account & it was definitely showing 2.6.2 then.

[drik]

On 3/11/2025 at 10:40 AM, MikeTO said:

First I recommend trying it with the 2.6.2 beta - two PDF export bugs were fixed in the beta and while you've ruled out the one related to language, the other might be your issue:

• Object Nested Inside a Table Layer Will Error When Tagged PDF is Enabled    [AF-5982]

I suggest disabling the Tagged PDF export option and seeing if that allows your whole document to be exported.

If not, divide the file in half. Test each half and if one half doesn't work then divide it in half an repeat until you narrow it down to a page. Perhaps you'll be able to find that it's a single object causing the problem.

Downloaded and tested 2.6.2 Beta. Same problem - cannot even get to the export screen, so no, not the Tagged PDF issue either.

Interestingly, first time installed it was able to export this first big file then but with blurry images - maybe some files were not linked properly. Then I kind of redo to have a second big file that should have images linked, but alas same export problem.

I also tested to increase Settings -> Performance RAM and disabled Hardware acceleration but nope (System 16GB Ram).

For file splitting into 2 parts, it was successful as long the number of pages is within the limit of perhaps around 406 pages, does not seem to matter what pages is omitted. So I am guessing it is not a single page issue.

Basically, back to square one with the export Crash/Quit problem.

Not sure what else is left to test to solve this limitation....

🙂

 

[MikeTO]

@drik Could you please share a crash report?

 

[drik]

On 3/10/2025 at 1:23 PM, drik said:

CrashReport folder is empty.

 

55 minutes ago, MikeTO said:

@drik Could you please share a crash report?

 

Checked again. No file in that folder. Can it be anything else other than crashing if Publisher just quit (after some seconds) upon export...

[MikeTO]

Just to rule out certain problems, try this.

1. Start Publisher
2. Create a new document
3. Choose Export - does it crash?
4. If not, change the export format from PDF to PNG and click Cancel
5. Open your real document
6. Choose Export - does it crash with the dialog defaulting to PNG?
7. If not, click Cancel and switch back to the blank document
8. Choose Export and change the export format from PNG to PDF. Change the preset for PDF (for Print) and click Cancel
9. Switch back to the real document
10. Choose Export - does it crash?