Affinity Photo 2 completely crashing my pc

[Randymarsh]

Over the last month and a half I've been experiencing an issue only when using Affinity Photo 2, It's not happening with any other software or even computer games.

A short while after I start using Affinity Photo 2, my computer massively slows down, I can only move my mouse though it moves really slow, and If I try to click anything or using keys, even ctrl+alt+del or alt+f4, the computer will completely freeze and there is no way out but to shut it down by pressing the power button until it is forcebly powered off. I've tried waiting about half an hour to see if it unfreezes or if something changes, but nothing happens. When this happens everything stops, even the music, if I'm playing something.

This occurs usually 15 minutes or more after I start using the software. The time of occurence is not fixed, so some times it will crash at 15 minutes of use, some times at 40 minutes, and so on. Also, it always happens when I am doing something on the software, for example, when I try to export something, save a project, to render, or blend layers, etc. It never happens if I'm idle and the software is open, even if there's a heavy project opened. (One time it even corrupted a project because it crashed when I gave the save project command, I had to start from zero).

Extra info: Some weeks ago I had a pop up about an update, I though this would solve it, but it didn't. Even after the update, my computer is still freezing. Also, My windows is fully up to date. This happens even if I'm just starting my pc.

Computer information:

Processor    12th Gen Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-12600K   3.70 GHz
Installed RAM    16.0 GB (15.8 GB usable)
Device ID    FD231876-B990-4C13-AEBC-9958A6FC9FB6
Product ID    00330-80000-00000-AA051
System type    64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
Pen and touch    No pen or touch input is available for this display
Edition    Windows 11 Pro
Version    24H2
Installed on    ‎12/‎12/‎2024
OS build    26100.3476
Experience    Windows Feature Experience Pack 1000.26100.54.0

 

Affinity Photo 2 version:

 

Is there something I can do to solve this? How could I completely remove Affinity Photo 2 from my computer in order to do a clean re install? Removing all hidden files, temp files, registry entries, etc
 

Edited March 18 by Randymarsh
Adding more info

[RolandF]

This seems to be a widespread issue with Windows 24H2 & Affinity Photo, I'm experiencing it as well.  Except in my case, the entire system locks hard, requiring a forced power down.  The temporary fix seems to be disabling Hardware Acceleration in Settings/Performance.  You'll take a performance hit (a large one on some functions), but it should fix the crashing.  It's a major annoyance for me, as I have a ton of photos to run through postprocessing atm, and it's slowing down my workflow.

 

I'm not entirely convinced this is purely a Windows issue either, as I use two other applications which use OpenCL hardware acceleration for some functions, and neither of them experience any crashes since the 24H2 update, only Affinity Photo...

[Klababa]

I have a very similar experience with photo 2, the latest update to 2.6. In addition, it happened to me twice that I just couldn't turn on the computer. It took about fifteen minutes for the computer to start. Unfortunately, it happened to me again a while ago and the computer hasn't started yet. It seems like someone is really serious about this software...

[Jorge Reyes]

What's happening with the Affinity team? No official announcement about this issue? I blocked the Windows 11 updates and downgraded the Affinity apps version while we have a solution or response. Windows updates only can be paused for a few weeks, in April it will resume the update and this issue will happen again? This is something URGENT!!!

[Randymarsh]

It's good to know this is a known issue, so it may be fixed some day. But it sucks knowing that this bug has been known for a while and it still around, specially when it's a bug that will completely crash your computer and potentially corrupt your projects. This sounds pretty serious to me.

 

14 hours ago, RolandF said:

This seems to be a widespread issue with Windows 24H2 & Affinity Photo, I'm experiencing it as well.  Except in my case, the entire system locks hard, requiring a forced power down.  The temporary fix seems to be disabling Hardware Acceleration in Settings/Performance.  You'll take a performance hit (a large one on some functions), but it should fix the crashing.  It's a major annoyance for me, as I have a ton of photos to run through postprocessing atm, and it's slowing down my workflow.

 

I'm not entirely convinced this is purely a Windows issue either, as I use two other applications which use OpenCL hardware acceleration for some functions, and neither of them experience any crashes since the 24H2 update, only Affinity Photo...

I will definetely give this a try. It's a really good tip, thanks!

[RolandF]

Quote

4 hours ago, Randymarsh said:

It's good to know this is a known issue, so it may be fixed some day. But it sucks knowing that this bug has been known for a while and it still around, specially when it's a bug that will completely crash your computer and potentially corrupt your projects. This sounds pretty serious to me.

 

I will definetely give this a try. It's a really good tip, thanks!

 

Yes, it's a serious annoyance which has been occurring for weeks now, and needs to get fixed, whether it's Microsoft or Affinity that has the problem.  Like I said... there are many other Windows apps which use OpenCL (which is what seems to be the problem), two of which I use.  But I'm not seeing any reports of widespread whole system lock-ups with those apps, only while using Affinity Photo.  

[Don-Michel]

i installed the new Beta Version 2.6.2.3.... yesterday. it has the same issues as the stable release. I open up Affinity -> load a photo -> mouse stutters and PC is not working/responding any more. 
Had to hard reset the mashine. If i switch off Open CL support there is no such behavior.

just to let you know.

[Nick XN]

Does anyone with NVIDIA pre-RTX or AMD hardware and Win24H2 experiecing this issue?

This is an icompatibility with NVIDIA's open CL implementation in their new (as of autumn) drivers. 

Blaming Windows for everything is nonsence. Especialy when there was a similir issue on older Radeon hardware that never got resolved.

 

 

[RolandF]

I do use a 12gb RTX 4070, and don't have an alternative card to try.  It's using the latest NVidia Studio driver, which gets updated whenever an update is available; had another one this morning in fact. As mentioned earlier, here or on one of the several other threads about this issue, I'm quite sure that this isn't a Windows 24H2 issue, or at least not that alone.  On this same workstation, which can no longer use OpenCL acceleration in Affinity, I can edit for hours in Davinci Resolve (another application using NVidia OpenCL hardware acceleration), with zero lockups. 

 

This morning I checked with an associate working in commercial drafting who uses 3D architectural software which renders using OpenCL, and confirmed his workstation is running Win11 24H2.  Said he uses rendering pretty much constantly for double-digit hours per day, with an RTX 4070 (though with different specs, memory & manufacturer than mine).... and his software doesn't crash or lockup.  He's running the latest NVidia game-ready drivers (which I've tried, and still experienced the crashing) instead of the studio version.

 

For me at least, this problem began much more recently than autumn - just days after moving from the beta version of Photo 2.6 (which I'd been using for months, and only experienced two crashes, & it was only Affinity Photo which crashed, not the entire system), to the full public release, which was done via a clean install.  I'm suspecting some sort of incompatibility between Affinity's OpenCL usage & that 24H2 update, which was installed Feb 21 on my system.  I installed the Mar 12 24H2 Windows update, too, which didn't eliminate the crashing. 

 

I'm simply going without OpenCL for the time being, and dealing with the slower editing process, as on the last system lockup while using hardware acceleration, the Affinity .INI file corrupted, losing my settings; in addition, it also corrupted a camera manufacturer RAW library containing info & edits on thousands of my photos which had been open at the time.  Not risking that again.

 

So, for me at least, this issue is with Affinity... not NVidia, not Windows.  Someone at Serif should get on this.

[Randymarsh]

So, do we have a way to know if the staff is aware of this problem and if they're planning on launching a fix in a near future? Or should we just hope they will without us having any certainty?

I mean, a moderator approved this post, so I would asume they now know about this, right?

[Don-Michel]

13 hours ago, Don-Michel said:

i installed the new Beta Version 2.6.2.3.... yesterday. it has the same issues as the stable release. I open up Affinity -> load a photo -> mouse stutters and PC is not working/responding any more. 
Had to hard reset the mashine. If i switch off Open CL support there is no such behavior.

just to let you know.

Just for the record: this programm runs on the same PC. it is not crashing

[RolandF]

8 hours ago, Randymarsh said:

So, do we have a way to know if the staff is aware of this problem and if they're planning on launching a fix in a near future? Or should we just hope they will without us having any certainty?

I mean, a moderator approved this post, so I would asume they now know about this, right?

I don't know.  In the other thread, which dealt primarily with crashes while using the new AI selection tools (which seem to work fine for me, although I honestly don't use them especially frequently), a member labelled "Staff" said he was logging the issue with the developers, but that's the only 'official' mention I've seen anywhere.  Considering these are the official Serif forums, and the "Bug" section... I'd certainly hope it's being monitored, as it seems to be the only mechanism for reporting issues that I've seen, but I've only been a user since November. 

 

We've now got reports of several other apps using OpenCL on Windows 11 24H2 without issue, so this certainly seems to be an Affinity-specific issue.

 

Suggestions to devs:  Add a "Report Problem / Issue / Bug..." function on the Affinity help menu perhaps.  

[NathanC]

Please see my post below concerning 'System Wide' freezes and two potential solutions:

 

[RolandF]

30 minutes ago, NathanC said:

Please see my post below concerning 'System Wide' freezes and two potential solutions:

 

On 3/19/2025 at 7:13 PM, Randymarsh said:

So, do we have a way to know if the staff is aware of this problem and if they're planning on launching a fix in a near future? Or should we just hope they will without us having any certainty?

I mean, a moderator approved this post, so I would asume they now know about this, right?

 

Thanks Nathan; I tried your second suggestion a few days ago, and experienced a complete system lockup not long afterwards while using Affinity Photo, so no change on that one.  Your first suggestion is the one we've all been discussing, and while it seems to work for everyone, as discussed here and on other threads, it results in a big performance hit on many functions.

 

Some actual Serif feedback on this issue would be nice, rather than a bunch of us end-users simply trying workarounds and guessing at things.  

 

[BR22]

I've had similar issues with AP on Windows 11 Pro for more than a year. The crash happens in an Nvidia library, and the devs here think it is an Nvidia issue, but it is far more likely that they are sending invalid parameters to the library function. I had three graphic devices in my PC. I've managed to get AP to be pretty stable with hardware acceleration enabled by disabling two of the graphics devices in Device Manager, leaving only my RTX 4090. This is with the latest Windows 24H2 update. If your motherboard has onboard graphics, it might be worth trying disabling that device. It would be great if Affinity let us select which graphic devices we want to use for acceleration, rather than it being all or nothing.

[RolandF]

9 hours ago, BR22 said:

I've had similar issues with AP on Windows 11 Pro for more than a year. The crash happens in an Nvidia library, and the devs here think it is an Nvidia issue, but it is far more likely that they are sending invalid parameters to the library function. I had three graphic devices in my PC. I've managed to get AP to be pretty stable with hardware acceleration enabled by disabling two of the graphics devices in Device Manager, leaving only my RTX 4090. This is with the latest Windows 24H2 update. If your motherboard has onboard graphics, it might be worth trying disabling that device. It would be great if Affinity let us select which graphic devices we want to use for acceleration, rather than it being all or nothing.

Only a single device in my system, an RTX 4070, with no onboard video on the motherboard.  Also... AP does allow you to choose the explicit device.  On the Performance page in Settings there's a dropdown selection to choose the rendering hardware.

[BR22]

10 hours ago, RolandF said:

Only a single device in my system, an RTX 4070, with no onboard video on the motherboard.  Also... AP does allow you to choose the explicit device.  On the Performance page in Settings there's a dropdown selection to choose the rendering hardware.

The dropdown only allows you to select which device renders to the screen. You cannot select a subset of devices for hardware acceleration.

[PCcrashingSoIAmHere]

i am having the same problem, First my Mouse slows down and then i cant use anything just freezes . i dont like this 

[Don-Michel]

im wondering if it only an Nvidia related problem or is AMD also having this issue?
Maybe team RED can give an answer.

[Komatös]

A request to everyone here whose computer crashes when using Affinity programs. This makes it easier for Serif supporters to narrow down sources of error.  Please post any crash reports here. If there are no crash reports, you can assume that 97% of the time it is due to the GPU drivers in combination with other drivers or processes running in the background.

Click here for information on where to find the crash reports.

 

 

[RolandF]

24 minutes ago, Komatös said:

A request to everyone here whose computer crashes when using Affinity programs. This makes it easier for Serif supporters to narrow down sources of error.  Please post any crash reports here. If there are no crash reports, you can assume that 97% of the time it is due to the GPU drivers in combination with other drivers or processes running in the background.

Click here for information on where to find the crash reports.

 

 

Nobody from Serif that I can tell has offered input on this issue in the several threads which have arisen in the past month or two.  When the entire system locks up (as in, not even having mouse control), there won't be a crash report generated.  In addition to using several other apps which are GPU-heavy, and gaming, my system.... just doesn't crash.  And NEVER entirely locks up. 

 

Except when using Affinity Photo with OpenCL enabled.  Seriously, that's it.  It's in use for about 14 hours per day, of which about 6 are using AP, and the rest in other applications.

 

I'd chalk that up to an incompatibility between Affinity Photo and something else, whether it's Windows or the NVidia drivers (which are always up-to-date).

 

[Don-Michel]

i checked my Crash report folder: nothing in. the PC is not able to generat one. Sorry, but if there is one i would share it.

[AiDon]

15 hours ago, RolandF said:

In addition to using several other apps which are GPU-heavy, and gaming, my system.... just doesn't crash. 

Do you have the Game Ready or Studio driver installed? If you have the game ready driver installed, try installing the Studio driver to see if that makes a difference.

[EggyToast]

I'm using an NVIDIA graphics card on an AMD machine. I had the problem about a month ago and did a graphics card driver update. It seemed to solve it enough for me to finish the particular work I was doing at the time. After a while of not using Affinity Photo 2.6, today I hit it again. Just suddenly, while applying a filter, system complete froze and needed a hard restart.

I've disabled OpenCL but seriously, out of every program around, a tool that explicitly deals with graphics would have a conflict with a graphics card? And require exactly specific drivers to avoid a complete system freeze? C'mon Serif...

[RolandF]

6 hours ago, AiDon said:

Do you have the Game Ready or Studio driver installed? If you have the game ready driver installed, try installing the Studio driver to see if that makes a difference.

Currently on the latest Studio driver, as I was all through the 2.6 beta period as well (with no crashes).  After the crashes started, and users were posting about it being an NVidia issue, I tried the Game-Ready drivers, which made no difference, so I switched back to Studio again.