** Important Designer Mac 1.5.2 Update Notice **

[TonyB]

UPDATE: Affinity Designer 1.5.3 is now available on the Mac App Store and fixes the problems described in this thread.

 

*** PLEASE NOTE *** We have just noticed a problem with the latest Mac AppStore Designer update (ver 1.5.2) and are working to resolve it have resolved it.

 

Running this update will reset any brushes, styles, text styles, swatches, keyboard shortcut customization and workspace layout you may have added.

 

We are extremely sorry about this and will have a fix available within the next 24 hours.

 

If you have installed the new update and have customised any settings then please don't run Designer until we have deployed a replacement update (Designer ver 1.5.3). 

 

Alternatively we have a workaround available to save the presets for those users that have updated but haven't opened the app yet.

 

Again, we are very sorry and will make sure this never happens again.

 

 

UPDATE: Affinity Designer 1.5.3 is now available on the Mac App Store and fixes the problems described in this thread.

Edited November 15, 2016 by Patrick Connor
Updated for 1.5.3

[BatteriesInc]

App store - Preferences.  

 

Either untick "Install app updates" or go for the whole hog and untick "Download newly available updates in the background".

Not sure if you'd also untick "Automatically download apps purchased on other Macs" if you have multiple machines, but the above is presently worth doing.

 

Again, we are very sorry and will make sure this never happens again.

 

Hey, normal human beings make mistakes, it happens.  Just don't aspire to Microsoft levels of patching  :P.

 

(BTW, thanks to your warning I caught it in time)

[Lee D]

If you have already downloaded the latest update to Designer (1.5.2) from the App Store but have yet to open the app you have some options available to you.

 

1, Don't open the app and just bear with us, we are in the process of resolving the issue and releasing a new version.

 

2, If the app hasn't been opened download the PresetsFix.dmg from here and follow the steps below.

 

Once downloaded double click on the file PresetsFix.dmg

 

A Finder window will appear, drag the Defaults.plist into the Resources folder. 

 

You may get a prompt asking to Authenticate, click the Authenticate button. 

 

You will then get another prompt stating the file Defaults.plist already exists and if you want to replace it, click Replace.

 

You may receive a prompt to enter your User Name and Password (OS X Login) enter and click OK.

Now you can close the Finder window, you can also drag the Source icon to the Trash.

[R C-R]

(BTW, thanks to your warning I caught it in time)

 

Unfortunately, it came too late for me. I downloaded 1.5.2 about 45 minutes before I saw the notice, launched it, & discovered all my customizations were gone. My Assets were preserved, which is fortunate because that is just about the only thing I did not export to a folder I maintain as a "just in case" precaution against anything that might wipe out my custom settings. I also save my keyboard shortcuts to that folder, so that much was easy to fix. I also took a screenshot of my customized main toolbar layout, which helped me restore that.

 

I have also (I think) imported all my custom stuff that I exported, so things are more or less OK, but I am considering restoring v 1.5.1 & the entire ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner folder from my Time Machine backups, which I think will "undo" all the problems. (Staff: do you see any problems with doing this?)

[MattP]

I have also (I think) imported all my custom stuff that I exported, so things are more or less OK, but I am considering restoring v 1.5.1 & the entire ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner folder from my Time Machine backups, which I think will "undo" all the problems. (Staff: do you see any problems with doing this?)

Time-machining the contents of that folder should work just fine - the reset was accidental on our part, so manually restoring the contents will return you back to where you should have been :)

[R C-R]

Time-machining the contents of that folder should work just fine - the reset was accidental on our part, so manually restoring the contents will return you back to where you should have been :)

Thanks for the quick reply & the good news. As part of my "just in case" paranoia precautions, I am allowing Time Machine to back up the current 1.5.2 & Designer containers folder before doing this, so if something goes wrong I can restore that & try again, but of course the first thing I will try is restoring from the previous 1.5.1 TM backups.

 

For the Mac users among us, this is a good example of why implementing an incremental backup system like Time Machine is well worth the effort, not just for Affinity but for problems with any & all your apps & documents.

 

EDIT: Happy to report that restoring from my last Time Machine backup before downloading & launching the flawed 1.5.2 version worked perfectly. I had an anxious moment or two because TM took some time to do anything visible after I clicked the Restore button, with the spinning 'wait' cursor showing for 15-20 seconds before the replace/cancel/keep both dialog appeared, but once it did & I clicked the "Replace" button, the restore went quickly.

Edited November 15, 2016 by R C-R

[CartoonMike]

I don't think this'll matter, but "just to be sure" :

 

Does it make a difference if the workaround is installed prior to d/l the update, or will waiting 'till tomorrow be best? Asking because I've been using the beta, which still seems to be working. I'm in the middle of two jobs (both are comic related and has flexible deadlines, so one day or so won't really crunch my time at all).

[will1960]

Unfortunately, it came too late for me. I downloaded 1.5.2 about 45 minutes before I saw the notice, launched it, & discovered all my customizations were gone. My Assets were preserved, which is fortunate because that is just about the only thing I did not export to a folder I maintain as a "just in case" precaution against anything that might wipe out my custom settings. I also save my keyboard shortcuts to that folder, so that much was easy to fix. I also took a screenshot of my customized main toolbar layout, which helped me restore that.

 

I have also (I think) imported all my custom stuff that I exported, so things are more or less OK, but I am considering restoring v 1.5.1 & the entire ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner folder from my Time Machine backups, which I think will "undo" all the problems. (Staff: do you see any problems with doing this?)

Didn't work for me......  :angry: 

 

How can I restore me Presets? 

[TonyB]

Didn't work for me......  :angry: 

 

How can I restore me Presets? 

 

 

If your presets are gone then the only way to get them back would be through any backups you have previously made. We are so very sorry that this has happened and we submitted a fixed version to the Mac AppStore as soon as we found the problem. The only thing we can say is it will never happen again but I completely understand why you are angry.

 

Hopefully the new version will be in the App Store soon so other people can avoid the problem.

 

. 

[TonyB]

Affinity Designer 1.5.3 is now available on the Mac App Store. This is fixed and no longer causes any settings to be reset. 

 

If you ran Affinity Designer 1.5.2 and lost any settings then again we can only apologise and assure everyone that it will never happen again.

[R C-R]

Didn't work for me......  :angry: 

 

How can I restore me Presets? 

If you mean the Time Machine restore method I mentioned, you must restore the two items (the AD 1.5.1 app & the entire ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner folder) separately, making sure you chose a TM backup with a timestamp date that is before you downloaded the flawed 1.5.2 version. Do both restores while AD is not running, & make sure you choose the "Replace" option in the dialog that appears after you click the Restore button in the TM list of files.

 

Note that "~" is an abbreviation for your home folder, so if your startup drive is still named Macintosh HD & your user account short name is Will, the full path to the containers folder would be Macintosh HD/Users/Will//Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner/. Don't confuse the home folder's Library folder with the other folders also named "Library" -- each one is different but only the home folder one contains your user presets like those in the Containers folder for the various Affinity apps. There may also be other folders in Containers for other Affinity apps, each beginning with the "com.seriflabssffinity." prefix, like for the betas, Affinity Photo, or the Photo plugins. It is imperative that you choose the one for Affinity Designer with exactly the same name mentioned in bold above. If you don't see that, you are in the wrong folder.

 

Hope this helps.

[eejits]

Not seeing the 1.5.3 update on the Mac App Store.

 

George

[TonyB]

Not seeing the 1.5.3 update on the Mac App Store.

 

George

 

Have you tried refreshing by pressing CMD + R in the App Store?

 

The update has been active for over 24 hours now so I would expect it to be visible. 

[R C-R]

Not seeing the 1.5.3 update on the Mac App Store.

For what little it is worth, I read TonyB's earlier reply above announcing the 1.5.3 update yesterday, a few minutes after he posted it. When I opened the MAS app to the Updates tab a few minutes later, it appeared quickly & I had no problems installing it.

 

If TonyB's suggestion of refreshing MAS doesn't work for you, signing out of MAS & back in again might do it.

[IamJaGold]

Really weird, I have 1.5.1 installed and there's no update option for 1.5.3... 

 

I've refreshed the app store, but it still just shows the "Open" button under the icon. Maybe there is a regional release time difference? Im on the west coast of the USA.

[p10n]

For me (Austrian App-Store), the update to 1.5.3 was displayed and installed as usual.

After that, I restored the ~/Library/Containers/com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner folder from a week earlier using Time Machine, and all settings are back.

Happy again! :-)

(No need to restore the app itself, as someone suggested earlier.)

[eejits]

Nope not seeing it... I'll keep trying though.

 

Okay.... it was showing as INSTALL in the app store rather than OPEN so I re-downloaded AD. Everything's fine now. Up and running on V1.5.3

 

Cheers guys.

 

George

[R C-R]

(No need to restore the app itself, as someone suggested earlier.)

To be clear about that, I was suggesting restoring the 1.5.1 version of the app before the 1.5.3 version was released, as a way to recover from the loss of presets for those (like me) who installed & launched the 1.5.2 version. Until the 1.5.3 version was available from MAS, the backed up 1.5.1 version was the only alternative to the flawed 1.5.2 version for those of us who had already launched it & could not use the workaround TonyB mentioned in the first post of this topic.

 

In general, I do not recommend restoring an app's container folder without also restoring the corresponding app version because that can cause some problems with mismatched files, but it is good to know that in this instance users do not have to worry about that.

[Willy5454]

I updated to 1.5.3 and it crashes every time I try to export ... ???? anyone else having that problem? 

[TonyB]

The 1.5.4 RC beta fixes the problem. You can work around the problem by making sure you have a selection before going to the export panel and then selecting "Whole Document"

 

We are very sorry we introduced this bug and an App Store Build is about to be passes so you shouldn't need to use the workaround anymore.