Paint brush now paints with any colour except the one I chose - now fixed

[Bassthang]

I'm working on a pencil sketch, adding colour. It should be easy, but Affinity Photo v2.6.0 suddenly decided to pull the rug from under me.
I wanted to paint with red. I selected a red shade from the colour picker, using RGB values. When I painted, it came out as a mottled blue-green, with brush-width circles showing along the path. If I chose the colour-replacement brush tool instead, it came out as solid red, which is what I wanted, but there were weird artefacts that I didn't want. I've never used the colour-replacement brush before and I don't want to learn how to use it right now to remove those artefacts, I just want to add some red to my drawing! It's almost as though the two brush types have somehow got swapped in Photo. I'm sure the last time I used the Paint brush, it worked OK.
I got the same result regardless of what colour space I use on the document. The example is a new document I created in CMYK just to test out the problem. I get the same thing in RGB, and with different colour profiles.
I'd assume that a bug has crept in. I've recently moved over to a Win11 PC from Win10, so this may be a contributing factor.

In the example the blotchy blue/green line is done in Paint Brush, while the solid red line is done in colour-replacement brush.

This is the sort of curve-ball that Affinity tends to throw at me every now and then. I want to get on with my work, and instead end up spending hours doing tests and searching on the web. . .

While I was looking into the problem and writing this post, I took up the offer to update to 2.6.2. This fixed the problem. If anyone else has this problem, I suggest doing the update.

[Bassthang]

Update: NOT FIXED!

It's started doing it again! It must be a bug, and maybe updating flushed out the bug for a while.
So it looks like if I want to add new lines to my drawing, I'll need to ditch Affinity and use something like Paint. I'm not happy.

Has anyone else seen this problem?

[GarryP]

It should be easier for people to see if they can replicate the problem if they have:

• a copy of the document, and;
• a full-screen video which shows the problem happening.

In the video, make sure that we can see the Context Toolbar, the Colour Panel, the Layers Panel, and show us where you choose the Brush which you are using from the Brushes Panel.

[Bassthang]

I've applied the update again. For some reason Affinity was still prompting me to install the update every time I started, after applying the update yesterday. It's almost as though the update hadn't really gone through, even though Photo was now reporting "2.6.2" instead of "2.6.0" or whatever it was on before.
That has, once again, fixed the paint brush problem. Let's see how long it lasts this time. . .

[GarryP]

It sounds like you might now have two different installations of 2.6.x – one MSIX and one MSI/EXE.

Launching the application one way could be launching one version while launching another way could be launching the other.

This often happens when someone chooses the wrong installation type from the download page, which is easily done.

[Bassthang]

GarryP: The problem has gone again, following another update attempt. If it happens again, I'll do as you ask.
But - if you have the problem - it's not that hard to reproduce! Open a new, blank document. Choose any colour profile. I tried a few and it didn't make any difference.
Choose the Paint brush from the tools on the left hand side: the standard, simple paint brush, the one that's displayed by default. Pick any colour. Try applying a brushstroke. If it comes out the colour that was selected, OK. You don't have the problem.
If it looks like the example I've supplied, then you have the same problem. I don't mess about with any settings and there are no add-ons as I'm still not too familiar with Affinity, so everything is as installed.

[Bassthang]

1 hour ago, GarryP said:

It sounds like you might now have two different installations of 2.6.x – one MSIX and one MSI/EXE.

Launching the application one way could be launching one version while launching another way could be launching the other.

This often happens when someone chooses the wrong installation type from the download page, which is easily done.

GarryP: Thanks for this. I went with the suggestion on the download page. I'll check to see if I have two different ones.

[Bassthang]

Yes! There's the answer: I have two installations now: one 2.6.0, the other 2.6.2. Thank you!
The info on the download page is not clear on which to use.

And the problem is still there on the 2.6.0 version, which explains a lot.
I'll do a video so you can see it in action. . .

[GarryP]

10 minutes ago, Bassthang said:

Choose the Paint brush from the tools on the left hand side: the standard, simple paint brush, the one that's displayed by default. Pick any colour. Try applying a brushstroke.

I asked which Brush you were using, not which Brush Tool (although which Brush Tool is also important).

There are different types of Brushes and different Brushes sometimes work differently with the different Brush Tools, or with the same Brush Tool.

We need to know both which Brush Tool you are using and which Brush (from the Bushes Panel) you are using with it.

[Bassthang]

No idea. All I did was select the brush tool. I didn't go as far as choosing a brush. (I don't think I have EVER done that yet!) So I have to assume that it's using the default settings, as when installed. (This has only been installed a few weeks, as I've just moved over to a new Win11 PC.)
But if I do the exact same thing in 2.6.2. It's fine. Now it could be that something had affected the brush type since it was installed, but I have no idea what. I mostly use Photo for retouching pencilled originals and so my needs are simple. If I had messed around with brush settings, I certainly hadn't done it recently, and I think the brush tool was working fine a few days ago (I was doing more of the retouching I was trying to do when the problem came up), so something other than user error is indicated, unless it's some hot-key combination that I've accidentally triggered.

I've just uninstalled the 2.6.0 version, so as to not to accidentally use it again. I should have done some more detective work first, but when I could only find the 2.6.2 installation location from the shortcuts, I looked in the app settings (which still didn't tell me the location - thanks, Microsoft. . .) and when I saw the option to uninstall it from there, I took it without thinking about doing more tests. If I get time, I'll re-install 2.6.0 to a known location and do some more tests.

Thanks for your help, though!

[thomaso]

6 hours ago, Bassthang said:

It must be a bug, and maybe updating flushed out the bug for a while.
So it looks like if I want to add new lines to my drawing, I'll need to ditch Affinity and use something like Paint. I'm not happy.

3 hours ago, Bassthang said:

I didn't go as far as choosing a brush. (I don't think I have EVER done that yet!)

It is helpful to get familiar or at least take notice of the available brush options (settings) and various tabs (sections). They may appear complex in the beginning but this should not be a reason to ignore them or to suspect a bug or judge the app as unusable. - Here for instance a basic solid brush with just two parameters modified: