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macOS : Selecting .AFDESIGN file in Finder opens Photo?!?


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I have both Affinity Designer and Photo on my iMac.  I have one annoying thing that happens that I cannot fix.  When I double click an .afdesign file in Finder, it almost always opens Affinity Photo instead of Designer for anything located in the "Affinity Designer" iCloud Drive folder.  The only way for me to get it to open in the right program is to specifically select it using "Open With" or by opening it from inside Designer.  How do I fix this? 

Things of note:

- In Finder the files all do say they are the "Affinity Designer Document" type. 

- As I mentioned, this appears to mostly occur for files stored in iCloud Drive in the Affinity Designer folder.  If they are on my computer or in the documents folder (I do have that being stored on iCloud so I can access it from my iMac or MacBook), the files tend to consistently open in Affinity Designer.

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Open Finder

Right-Click any Affinity Design File ( file extension .afdesign)

Click "Open With"

Click Other >This opens the Applications Folder

Click Affinity Designer.app

Check-mark "Always open With" at the bottom

Click "Open".

Now Afdesign files will always open with Aff Design.

Same procedure for Aff Photo files, as well as any other file that you want to open with a specific application.

:)

 

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Thanks for your reply.  I forgot to mention I had done that a few times and also tried doing GET INFO on one of the files and adjusting it from there.  My bad.  :S 

When doing GET INFO on the files in iCloud Drive, it does say it opens with Affinity Photo.  When I do that for any files not in that mystical iCloud Drive folder (App Library), it does say AD is the application of choice.  No matter what I do, it just keeps defaulting back to Affinity Photo only for files in the Affinity Designer iCloud Drive folder.  I noticed that the folder in iCloud Drive for Affinity Designer is showing the icon for Affinity Photo (purple) instead of the one for Designer (blue).  So, whenever I pick stuff in that folder I'm guessing it will always launch Photo for these items.  

I backed up the files in the Designer folder and completely deleted it and it disappeared from all devices as expected.  I then tried going into Affinity Designer and saving a file directly to the cloud.  AD created the directory, but it still had the wrong icon on the folder on the Mac, it was fine on the iPad when I looked at it in Files (on my iPhone I noticed icon was wrong in files, just like on the Mac).  So, I'm guessing the top level folder (aka App Library) in iCloud defines which app should launch for any files in that particular folder and something is amiss with it.  As another test, I deleted the folder again and then saved a file to iCloud from the iPad edition and the folder and file appeared on my Mac, however the darn icon was still the Photo one.  Going to try deleting it again, dumping the trash and rebooting to see what happens and if that works will post the results.

I'd love to see if there is a way to fix this so that folder (App Library) behaves as it should again.

I moved my files to my Documents folder for now, so they open correctly.

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Something specific to iCloud Drive then, or so it seems.

Sorry, but I don't use iCloud, so can't help you there. 

Maybe an internet search would turn up something useful, but I'm pretty sure there's someone

here on the forum who can help you. Furthermore : you mention "Directory" as well as "Folder".

Have you used / switched the files from Windows to OSX or viceversa at any time ?

If so, there might be a problem in that regard ??

Anyway : Good Luck. I'd be interested in the solution :)

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I figured out how to resolve it.  The fix is on the macOS side.  It looks like information about the folders is cached and somewhere along the way Affinity probably misconfigured the folders (after looking through the forums, it looks like these folders at some point would both go to Affinity Photo, but that was resolved later by the developers).  Since I have been using both Affinity programs since the day they were launched, I probably had some remnants of this somewhere that was hosing my iMac and MacBook.

Steps I followed (use at your own risk):

- Go into iCloud settings and turn off Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo in the iCloud Drive settings.  This DOES NOT delete your files from iCloud.

- Go to ~/Application Support/CloudDocs/session and then delete these files and folders to the trash:

6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner (folder)

iCloud.com.seriflabs.affinityphoto (folder)

6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner.plist (file)

iCloud.com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist (file)

This DOES NOT delete your files from iCloud or impact the Affinity software or settings, it only gets rid of details related to icons and application references for the special App Library folder on your macOS.

- Reboot.

- Go into iCloud settings and turn both Affinity Designer and Photo back on.

- Launch Designer and Photo.

- Check the iCloud Drive folder and the directories should be correctly setup.

Hope this helps anyone else who has this bizarre problem.

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 8/25/2018 at 12:53 PM, GrinningShark said:

I figured out how to resolve it.  The fix is on the macOS side.  It looks like information about the folders is cached and somewhere along the way Affinity probably misconfigured the folders (after looking through the forums, it looks like these folders at some point would both go to Affinity Photo, but that was resolved later by the developers).  Since I have been using both Affinity programs since the day they were launched, I probably had some remnants of this somewhere that was hosing my iMac and MacBook.

Steps I followed (use at your own risk):

- Go into iCloud settings and turn off Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo in the iCloud Drive settings.  This DOES NOT delete your files from iCloud.

- Go to ~/Application Support/CloudDocs/session and then delete these files and folders to the trash:

6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner (folder)

iCloud.com.seriflabs.affinityphoto (folder)

6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner.plist (file)

iCloud.com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist (file)

This DOES NOT delete your files from iCloud or impact the Affinity software or settings, it only gets rid of details related to icons and application references for the special App Library folder on your macOS.

- Reboot.

- Go into iCloud settings and turn both Affinity Designer and Photo back on.

- Launch Designer and Photo.

- Check the iCloud Drive folder and the directories should be correctly setup.

Hope this helps anyone else who has this bizarre problem.

I do not have this problem but was struggling with being unable to Sort iCloud Drive Folders into Name Order.

Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo topped the listing but Affinity Publisher [Beta] was way down below, see ScreenShot below.

Normally working in Finder Column View and wishing to make some progress I switched to List View and found that Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo and several other Folders are listed under Kind as App Library.

Unable to find anything useful by 'googling' and the fact that two out of three Folders containing Affinity App Files, all created by saving files direct from each App into an appropriately Named Folder in iCloud Drive, it was time for me to hopefully 'get lucky' and visit this forum. The Post above is the first mention I have found regarding App Library Folders.

Perhaps Affinity Publisher Designers can throw some more light on the App Library situation, is the fact that Affinity Publisher is Beta status the reason why it has created a Standard Folder rather than an App Library Folder?

May we assume that when Affinity Publisher is released that it will be capable of creating an App Library Folder?

Lastly is it possible to prevent these Affinity Apps from creating App Library Folders?

Thanks for your time, best wishes,

 

Screen Shot 2018-09-18 at 07.35.49.png

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  • 2 months later...
  • 5 months later...
On 8/25/2018 at 1:53 PM, GrinningShark said:

Steps I followed (use at your own risk):

- Go into iCloud settings and turn off Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo in the iCloud Drive settings.  This DOES NOT delete your files from iCloud.

- Go to ~/Application Support/CloudDocs/session and then delete these files and folders to the trash:

6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner (folder)

iCloud.com.seriflabs.affinityphoto (folder)

6LVTQB9699.com.seriflabs.affinitydesigner.plist (file)

iCloud.com.seriflabs.affinityphoto.plist (file)

This DOES NOT delete your files from iCloud or impact the Affinity software or settings, it only gets rid of details related to icons and application references for the special App Library folder on your macOS.

- Reboot.

- Go into iCloud settings and turn both Affinity Designer and Photo back on.

- Launch Designer and Photo.

- Check the iCloud Drive folder and the directories should be correctly setup.

Hi!

If someone is also still looking for this problem and thinks about trying it. Following these steps still helped to fix the problem with:

  • macOS 10.14.4
  • Affinity Designer v1.6.1 + Affinity Photo v1.6.7

I tried it today. Thanks! 

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  • 1 month later...
On 8/25/2018 at 6:53 AM, GrinningShark said:

- Go to ~/Application Support/CloudDocs/session and then delete these files and folders to the trash:

I have not had any 'wrong app' problems like this, but at least on my Mac running High Sierra the file path to these items is a bit different than above:

~/Library/Application Support/CloudDocs/session/containers

BTW, for those curious about that 6LVTQB9699 prefix for the Designer items, it is the Apple Developer ID for Serif (Europe) Ltd. I am not sure why it is not used for the Photo items as well.

All 3 1.10.8, & all 3 V2.4.1 Mac apps; 2020 iMac 27"; 3.8GHz i7, Radeon Pro 5700, 32GB RAM; macOS 10.15.7
Affinity Photo 
1.10.8; Affinity Designer 1.108; & all 3 V2 apps for iPad; 6th Generation iPad 32 GB; Apple Pencil; iPadOS 15.7

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  • 2 months later...

Thanks for the solution. It really worked and solved the problem on my MBP.

But I have another question, how do I solve the problem with having the same icon on the Affinity Designer and the Affinity Photo on the iCloud when I use my iPad Air 3 (the same visual problem regarding the icons while looking in the iCloud folder on my iPhone 7)? I have three Affinity folders on iCloud Drive, but both the Designer and the Photo folders have the icon of the Affinity Photo.

When I'm looking from my MBP, there are three different icon (Designer, Photo and Publisher), but looking at the same folder from my iPad Designer and Photo got the same Photo icon on their folders and Publisher got its own correct icon on its folder.

icloud.thumb.png.33d98f55744900e0c50f0db5bdb4c86b.png

 

2020 MacBook Pro 13” M1 | Affinity Designer 2 | Affinity Photo 2 | Affinity Publisher 2

2019 iPad Air 3 10.5” | Affinity Designer for iPad 2 | Affinity Photo for iPad 2 | Affinity Publisher for iPad 2

»A determined man can do more with a rusty screwdriver than a lazy man with a whole toolbox»

 

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  • 4 months later...

Hi @edwardsson,

Were you able to find a solution to this problem in regards to iOS or iPadOS? I have the exact same issue. I also have Publisher but it doesn't seem to populate across iCloud Drive at all... it's only on my Mac (don't have my Mac with me right now so no screenshot, sry).

Cheers

iPadOS:

IMG_FB79923FE0C0-1.jpeg.003ad91725f3eaa3ef58242cf7b80034.jpeg

Safari:

1443228355_ScreenShot2020-02-27at1_02_29pm.png.1976b46a59e89d7cdbdf58b567025869.png

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Hi @JMS 

Nope, no solution yet. I hoped it would have been fixed with the Affinity 1.8 update, but it didn't. 

2020 MacBook Pro 13” M1 | Affinity Designer 2 | Affinity Photo 2 | Affinity Publisher 2

2019 iPad Air 3 10.5” | Affinity Designer for iPad 2 | Affinity Photo for iPad 2 | Affinity Publisher for iPad 2

»A determined man can do more with a rusty screwdriver than a lazy man with a whole toolbox»

 

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Hey @edwardsson

Thx for your reply. I also was hoping 1.8 might address it... or even 1.8.1 but nope.

 

I've done some further tests now. I've clean installed my MacBook Pro, iPhone and iPad. Set everything back up and it still isn't doing it for iOS or iPadOS. So there must be some sort of bug still in there. Not sure how  I can make a Serif person aware of this post though.

I've attached some screen dumps which show that the MacBook is now doing it right, iCloud is doing it right but iOS and iPadOS are not. The filenames correlate to the device it came from. All is up to date to the newest software.

Cheers

MacBook Pro.jpg

iPhone.jpeg

iPad.jpeg

iCloud.png

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My icons for abr brushes are faintly visible.

Cecil 

iMac Retina 5K, 27”, 2019. 3.6 GHz Intel Core 9, 40 GB Memory DDR4, Radeon Pro 580X 8 GB, macOS,iPad Pro iPadOS

 

Continuous improvement is better than delayed perfection 

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  • 3 months later...
On 8/25/2018 at 11:53 PM, GrinningShark said:

I figured out how to resolve it...

Thank you for this [GrinningShark], I have had this problem with Mojave (my Catalina seems fine).

I have versions v1.8.3 for Photo and Designer. I have not had this problem ever since using the original betas, but recently it has occurred. I use an iPad that saves to iCloud.

I am reporting this in case the developers like to know if it still occurs. The fix has fixed it.

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