can't drag the crop marquee (Mac) up or down

[drmajorbob]

Solution(?): I turned off the "Force Click and Haptic Feedback" option in system Settings, screenshot attached, and the problem seemed to go away. Crossed fingers!

I randomly decided to look at those settings and recalled that I may have turned it on, not knowing what it actually does.

CLARIFICATION ADDED: I can move a marquee left and right, sometimes, but never up or down, and I can drag an edge left and right (after choosing Unconstrained for the aspect ration) but not up or down.

ORIGINAL POST: The crop marquee is stuck in dead center, and I can't figure out how to drag it to an edge of the canvas. It worked very well on my M1 Mac Mini, but I can't get it to work on my M4 Mac Mini. The relevant settings must exist, but they're VERY well hidden.

[R C-R]

Are you asking about the Affinity Photo Crop Tool or something else?

[drmajorbob]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

Are you asking about the Affinity Photo Crop Tool or something else?

I mean the Affinity Photo crop tool, yes.

[street79]

1 hour ago, drmajorbob said:

I mean the Affinity Photo crop tool, yes.

The instrument mode must be "Unconstrained"

[drmajorbob]

10 hours ago, street79 said:

The instrument mode must be "Unconstrained"

No. "Unconstrained" means I can size the marquee any way I want, but that doesn't help with MOVING the marquee — unless I want to move the edges manually and screw up the aspect ratio. I've moved these marquees a million times on my M1, but now I can't do it on the new machine.

[street79]

48 minutes ago, drmajorbob said:

No. "Unconstrained" means I can size the marquee any way I want, but that doesn't help with MOVING the marquee — unless I want to move the edges manually and screw up the aspect ratio. I've moved these marquees a million times on my M1, but now I can't do it on the new machine.

Sorry, then I was the one who didn't understand the real problem, said like that it seems to have to do with the new system;
surely there will be someone who can help you.

[drmajorbob]

2 minutes ago, street79 said:

Sorry, then I was the one who didn't understand the real problem, said like that it seems to have to do with the new system;
surely there will be someone who can help you.

Same operating system, same Photo main version, but something in Settings I suppose. Thanks for trying!

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, drmajorbob said:

Same operating system, same Photo main version, but something in Settings I suppose.

Of very little if any help for you but it seems to be working normally for me, & I cannot find any setting that would prevent it from doing that.

the only odd thing I see is when I first select that tool, I sometimes get a crosshair cursor so if I drag it creates a new crop rectangle, but if I then click anywhere in the document window it changes to the 4-way arrow cursor & I can move the crop rectangle anywhere.

So if possible, can you post a video of what you get on that Mac so we can maybe see something that might explain this?

[drmajorbob]

8 hours ago, R C-R said:

Of very little if any help for you but it seems to be working normally for me, & I cannot find any setting that would prevent it from doing that.

the only odd thing I see is when I first select that tool, I sometimes get a crosshair cursor so if I drag it creates a new crop rectangle, but if I then click anywhere in the document window it changes to the 4-way arrow cursor & I can move the crop rectangle anywhere.

So if possible, can you post a video of what you get on that Mac so we can maybe see something that might explain this?

Yes. Now that I've recorded a video, I see it's a more complicated problem than I had thought — and it's DEFINITELY a bug. Dragging files on my desktop works just fine, so it's not a simple "trackpad doesn't work" situation.

[R C-R]

If it is a bug then others running the same version & macOS version should see the same thing. Perhaps one of them can verify this?

[drmajorbob]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

If it is a bug then others running the same version & macOS version should see the same thing. Perhaps one of them can verify this?

I hope so. Is this in the Bugs category on the forum now? I'll go back and describe the up-down situation in the original post if I can.

[R C-R]

Just to confirm, when you get the 4 way arrow cursor you are holding down on your trackpad when you try to drag?

[drmajorbob]

5 hours ago, R C-R said:

Just to confirm, when you get the 4 way arrow cursor you are holding down on your trackpad when you try to drag?

Yes, exactly the way I did it on my previous Mac Mini, and it still works for moving the marquee left or right, but not up or down. Moving left or right isn't smooth or predictable, though. It jumps a third of the screen at a time, or something like that, as if there's a "snap to grid" issue going on.

[R C-R]

38 minutes ago, drmajorbob said:

... and it still works for moving the marquee left or right, but not up or down.

Wait. Are you talking about moving the crop box selection without changing its dimensions or resizing it by dragging on one of the handles? The 4-way arrow should allow you to do the move but to do resizing you need to hover over one of the handles until the cursor changes to a 2 way arrow.

So is what you mean that the 2 way vertical arrow cursor won't work but the others do?

EDIT: Just as a test, if you select the Pen Tool can you draw curves with it so some nodes are higher up the document than others? This should confirm if the issue is confined to the Crop Tool or not.

[nickbatz]

Just to confirm, I'm unable to repeat that here, using Unconstrained or setting a custom ratio, any of the snapping choices. It lets me move the crop selection in any direction.

If you can get it to misbehave with multiple files, my first suggestion would be to try restoring all the defaults. 

M1 Max Mac Studio, macOS Sequoia 15.4, Affinity Photo beta 2.6.2 (3228).

Same result on an M4 Pro MacBook Pro, same versions. I used a Magic Mouse on the Mac Studio and the built-in trackpad on the MBP.

[drmajorbob]

12 hours ago, R C-R said:

Wait. Are you talking about moving the crop box selection without changing its dimensions or resizing it by dragging on one of the handles? The 4-way arrow should allow you to do the move but to do resizing you need to hover over one of the handles until the cursor changes to a 2 way arrow.

So is what you mean that the 2 way vertical arrow cursor won't work but the others do?

EDIT: Just as a test, if you select the Pen Tool can you draw curves with it so some nodes are higher up the document than others? This should confirm if the issue is confined to the Crop Tool or not.

I'm talking about moving the crop box via the 4-way arrow, without changing it in any other way. Moving left and right works either way — 4-way or 2-way — but moving up or down doesn't work either way. Diagonal moves also fail (4-way).

The pen tool seems to work normally, but I'm not terribly adept with it, so I can't easily put it through all its paces.

[drmajorbob]

12 hours ago, nickbatz said:

If you can get it to misbehave with multiple files, my first suggestion would be to try restoring all the defaults. 

It does fail with multiple files, and I doubt restoring defaults will help, since I only installed the program on this machine two days ago. I'm aware all this should work, since it did work on my M1 mini a couple months ago.

M4 mini, Sequoia 15.3.2

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, drmajorbob said:

I'm talking about moving the crop box via the 4-way arrow, without changing it in any other way. Moving left and right works either way — 4-way or 2-way 

I asked because your video does not show the 4 way arrow cursor moving the crop box in any direction. Also, a 2 way arrow cursor does not move it, it resizes it (like the History panel will show), so I am still a bit uncertain about what you mean.

[drmajorbob]

38 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I asked because your video does not show the 4 way arrow cursor moving the crop box in any direction. Also, a 2 way arrow cursor does not move it, it resizes it (like the History panel will show), so I am still a bit uncertain about what you mean.

It shows the 4-way cursor moving, trying to move the crop but failing to do so. Attempts at that point were up/down or diagonal, I suppose, and it's hard or impossible, maybe, to drag precisely left/right with no up/down component. Later I did other tests and found I could move left and right, and couldn't move up or down by any method (other than 2-way drags that change the dimensions and aspect ratio).

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, drmajorbob said:

It shows the 4-way cursor moving, trying to move the crop but failing to do so.

OK, but then I do not understand what you meant when you said above "Moving left and right works either way — 4-way or 2-way."

2 hours ago, drmajorbob said:

Later I did other tests and found I could move left and right, and couldn't move up or down by any method (other than 2-way drags that change the dimensions and aspect ratio).

In your first video, you show the crop box moving up/down in small increments using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Are you now saying that does not work either?

Since it seems erratic, perhaps doing a factory reset will help, even though it seems unlikely.

[nickbatz]

6 hours ago, drmajorbob said:

It does fail with multiple files, and I doubt restoring defaults will help, since I only installed the program on this machine two days ago. I'm aware all this should work, since it did work on my M1 mini a couple months ago.

M4 mini, Sequoia 15.3.2

Then maybe try reinstalling Affinity Photo, because - based on my not being able to reproduce the problem on either of my Sequoia M-series Macs - it seems likely that something is corrupted.

Obviously, I'd also suggest contacting tech support.

Meanwhile, I appreciate your having had this issue, because it led me to discovering that you can constrain the crop to an aspect ratio.

Good luck with it!

[drmajorbob]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

OK, but then I do not understand what you meant when you said above "Moving left and right works either way — 4-way or 2-way."

It is possible to move the marquee left and right at least (4-way) — if I somehow avoid moving diagonally — but it's impossible to move up/down. Dragging edges (2-way) on the other hand, is clear-cut: left and right work perfectly, but up/down doesn't work at all.

28 minutes ago, nickbatz said:

Then maybe try reinstalling Affinity Photo, because - based on my not being able to reproduce the problem on either of my Sequoia M-series Macs - it seems likely that something is corrupted.

I'll do that, and then I'll try tech support. I sincerely hope it's not due to a corrupted OS

[drmajorbob]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

n your first video, you show the crop box moving up/down in small increments using the arrow keys on the keyboard. Are you now saying that does not work either?

No, that works just fine — but it's slow.

[R C-R]

23 minutes ago, nickbatz said:

Then maybe try reinstalling Affinity Photo, because - based on my not being able to reproduce the problem on either of my Sequoia M-series Macs - it seems likely that something is corrupted.

In my experience, reinstalling an Affinity app rarely fixes anything because it does not replace preferences & other per-user support files. That's what the factory reset is for.

[nickbatz]

2 hours ago, R C-R said:

In my experience, reinstalling an Affinity app rarely fixes anything because it does not replace preferences & other per-user support files. That's what the factory reset is for.

Absolutely, you have to delete the prefs and so on. That's part of the Mac Dance we all know and love.

But I didn't know that the factory reset deleted them. Good to know.

2 hours ago, drmajorbob said:

I sincerely hope it's not due to a corrupted OS

To me that seems lower on the list of suspects - not because OSes can't get corrupted just like any other software, but because this is an unlikely symptom.

2 hours ago, drmajorbob said:

No, that works just fine — but it's slow.

I think that's by design, i.e. it's for small increments.