For the millionth billionth time AFFINITY DESIGN V2 CRASHES WHEN EXPORTING

[iuhoiuh]

Okay, this is getting very old... There are a seemingly endless amount of complaints about "crashing while exporting" going back to the dawn of time. So, what gives??? 

I've tried the usual font bugs, startup reset, re-boot, re-download, re-whatever, jelly doughnut and repeat. Lost several days with no pay....very frustrating.  I'm working on a contract job for a gov. client and because of this I cannot share the file. But here is the crash report. Have fun and let me know when I can get my file out of "Affinity jail". 

crash-230991.txt

[MikeTO]

Hi @iuhoiuh and welcome to the forums.

1. Does it crash when generating the preview or after clicking Export in the Export window?
2. Which file format and preset have you selected?
3. Does it crash when exporting to a raster format such as JPG or PNG or just when exporting to a vector format? If that works, try a vector format again with Export > Advanced > Rasterize set to Everything.
4. Is Settings > Performance > Enable Metal Compute Acceleration selected? If so, try it with it off.
5. Is Settings > Performance > Display set to Metal? if so, try it with it set to OpenGL.

Good luck.

[Kiwibonds]

I've had export crashes constantly today too, when trying to export digital small size, "spreads".   I can export "pages" fine.....! Weird. 

file/export, ignore preflight spelling errors etc, ignore and continue. If spreads is preselected from last time, it crashes almost immediately. If you are quick and set it to pages its fine. seems to crash on pdf small size, and pdf high quality, but not on the 'full size' press export that I send to the publishers.

 

Affinity publisher 2.6.2, Macbook Air M2, Sonoma 14.7.3

 

[MikeTO]

1 hour ago, Kiwibonds said:

I've had export crashes constantly today too, when trying to export digital small size, "spreads".   I can export "pages" fine.....! Weird. 

file/export, ignore preflight spelling errors etc, ignore and continue. If spreads is preselected from last time, it crashes almost immediately. If you are quick and set it to pages its fine. seems to crash on pdf small size, and pdf high quality, but not on the 'full size' press export that I send to the publishers.

Could you please answer the questions I asked of the OP? The answers might prove helpful in tracking this down.

[NotMyFault]

And please don’t paste long crash reports plain into a post.

either attach a txt file, or use the „code“ block of forum to spare readers from scrolling over the post every time.

[iuhoiuh]

Thanks for the input!

I'm pretty much a tech cave man, so please excuse the full-length crash report, and general lack of knowledge about these things.

Interestingly, only two of the files I’m working on for this project are crashing…  They both had some missing fonts to begin with, which have since been replaced (and the language/spelling settings are set to "None"), but we’re still crashing.

1. Does it crash when generating the preview or after clicking Export in the Export window?  When selecting File-> Export, it crashes instantly. But when using Export Persona it kindly waits until the task bar pops-up and then crashes about one second later.
2. Which file format and preset have you selected? Well, I’m trying to Export as a 400 DPI "print ready" PDF. Realizing this may be taxing the system, I have also tried various other "lower quality" options with the same result.
3. Does it crash when exporting to a raster format such as JPG or PNG or just when exporting to a vector format? If that works, try a vector format again with Export > Advanced > Rasterize set to Everything. Tried PSD, PNG, and JPG just for fun…but I still experienced an instant crash in each case. 
4. Is Settings > Performance > Enable Metal Compute Acceleration selected? If so, try it with it off. Yep, tried that as per someone’s earlier post, but no luck
5. Is Settings > Performance > Display set to Metal? if so, try it with it set to OpenGL. It was already set to OpenGL... 

[NotMyFault]

4 hours ago, iuhoiuh said:

Interestingly, only two of the files I’m working on for this project are crashing…  They both had some missing fonts to begin with, which have since been replaced (and the language/spelling settings are set to "None"), but we’re still crashing.

We’ll, that is something worth to investigate. Please elaborate a bit about these files, how were they created / edited, how did the missing font occur?
Any chance you can upload a file leading to crash?
 

can you try to make a copy of the file, and reduce it (delete pages) to the minimum, while still getting a crash? That is the file we need.

[Hangman]

Hi @iuhoiuh,

Based on your description, there will be something in the file itself, most likely a vector graphic, that is causing the file to crash when exporting to PDF...

As suggested by @NotMyFault we would need to see the file along with any linked graphics to ascertain the cause of the crash.

[Hangman]

Hi @Kiwibonds,

When exporting your file to PDF (digital - small size) or PDF (digital - high quality) as spreads, does the file still crash when you untick Tagged PDF in the Advanced section of the PDF Export window?

If it does, can you save your Publisher file using File → Save as Package to an empty folder, zip the contents (minus the fonts folder) and upload the zip file so we can take a look.

[iuhoiuh]

TEST copy.afdesign

My next move was going to be rebuilding the file from scratch. But following your advice I was able to identify the problem layer on the second try.

It was a 74MB HEIF image used as a background pic in both of the problem files. I converted the image to a PDF, replaced it, and it now the .afdesign file exports fine with no more issues!

Here's the isolated file in hopes it helps to identify the root cause.

Thanks!

[NotMyFault]

Thank you for providing the file. On iPad, publisher crashes a few seconds after opening the file, without any use input. Just wait an see it crash.

[iuhoiuh]

Yes, I also noticed the layer will cause Affinity to crash when trying to open it separately. However it opens fine in Preview and other APPS like Pixelmator. The file started out as an iPhone photo that was then color adjusted using Affinity...which seems to have "introduced" a bug.

It seems this sort of thing keeps happening and I hope you guys can get it sorted out. Take care.

[NathanC]

Welcome to the forums @iuhoiuh,

Have you got the original HEIF file prior to embedding it in the .afdesign file? I'm only able to open the file for a few seconds before it crashes out so I can't collect it via resource manager- would certainly help in logging this to have access to the original HEIF.

Many thanks

[carl123]

Attached

 

1945 - Aug.25 Ikego Sketch NIDS No.6, 12 .heic

[NathanC]

Thanks Carl, I've now logged this.

 

[Kiwibonds]

On 4/22/2025 at 6:32 PM, Hangman said:

Hi @Kiwibonds,

When exporting your file to PDF (digital - small size) or PDF (digital - high quality) as spreads, does the file still crash when you untick Tagged PDF in the Advanced section of the PDF Export window?

If it does, can you save your Publisher file using File → Save as Package to an empty folder, zip the contents (minus the fonts folder) and upload the zip file so we can take a look.

Thank you @Hangman, I had to move super quickly before it crashes (click 'pages' rather than spreads, then you can take your time unticking "Tagged PDF" and then save a new preset for next time. Took be about ten goes to get in before it crashed!

But your workaround (unticking "Tagged PDF") has solved this. THANK YOU! 

Darryl

 

 

[Hangman]

Hi @Kiwibonds,

No problem, I'm glad that worked...

The trick to give you time to uncheck the Tagged PDF option on Mac is to create a new blank document, go to the export window and untick the option and then export your main file. The export settings from the blank document will be remembered, so you won't need to quickly scroll to uncheck the Tagged PDF option.

Equally, you can save the option with Tagged PDF unticked as a Preset, which again will be remembered between document exports in the same session...