Affinity Publisher won`t start and shuts down during use

[EVAV]

Hello,

I use Affinity Publisher on daily basis and am very happy with it. But in last two weeks two major problems occur constantly:

1. With latest verison 1.7.0.192 there is a problem opening the program - it won`t start at all - I have to restart computer and it helps.

2. It crashes during use (not every time, but quite a lot).

 

Is there already a solution to both problems? I use Windows 10.

Regards, 

Eva

[huubjonkers]

I'm experiencing the same two problems. For the crashing part i started a topic and uploaded an example file.

[Jon P]

Hi Eva,

Does the program only run after you have restarted your computer?

Do you notice any specific patterns behind the crashing, does it happen after some extended use, etc?

How much memory do you have available on the system you are using Publisher on?

 

[Steps]

Using Win10 64-bit build 1809 (with all updates) on a Core i5 with 16 GB there were in over 10 hours of usage no crashes on my site.

But I can force it to crash by updating 90 images in resource manager all at once.

[EVAV]

Hello!

I find out Publisher sometimes still runs after I close it -  I have to shut it down in Task Manager. That is the only solution for problem No. 1.

But the second problem (crash during use) occures mainly when using high quality pictures. I have 16GB memory with about 50% use - Publisher uses about 30%. 

[Steps]

49 minutes ago, EVAV said:

But the second problem (crash during use) occures mainly when using high quality pictures. I have 16GB memory with about 50% use - Publisher uses about 30%. 

I can not quite confirm that (with one expection, see below). Can you give more detail to your use case?

I designed a 14 page photobook with about 100 photos in it. I scaled them all to 4500x3000 pixels and optimized them before usage making each of them 2.5 MB in size on average.

If Publisher is open and I scroll trough the document 630 MB of RAM are used. This is acceptable.

Only exporting the document to an PDF takes a lot of RAM. It peaks to 7 GB in my case.

I think they build the whole document in memory rather than streaming parts of it into the file system.

The problem I see is this: After the export it does not release memory until I close the whole application. Even closing the document does not release memory.

So can you check how much memory Publisher takes if you only open the document and how that changes after doing an export? I think the problem may be located there.

 

[Steps]

@Jon P

To give a update on this: Yes, I now see the problem. I reached what Publisher is capable of right now.

My project has 30 pages with many images and Publisher is really unstable now.
It shuts down randomly short after opening a project and scrolling a bit trough it.

It's clear to me that it will not possible to support infinite big projects. For my use case Publisher should be optimized so that it can manage up to 65 pages of this kind. This is the usual maximum you can order at a photobook print service.

@jmwellborn mentioned that she is working on a 300 page document. So this problem may not relate to the absolute page count and more to the heavy use of images. Maybe if I create one single page and put all content I have on that one Publisher gets instable with even one page.

The shut-downs need to be fixed anyway: Give user a warning prompt that garbage collections happens in the background and they need to wait right before the performance limit is reached. Or shut it down with a warning and do a autosave before that. I'm not sure how to achieve this.

See attached an example of one page of my project.
Most images have a resolution of 4500x3000.

[Jon P]

Hi again,

@Steps Is it possible for you to attach the file that is crashing when you open/scroll through it here? Or upload it via dropbox if it's too large or personal (https://www.dropbox.com/request/yl8WlVWrUHydQMlbOQLP)

The program shouldn't be crashing handling large files (within reason), so I'd like to see if I can reproduce the crash with your file locally or on a resource limited VM.

[Steps]

@Jon P As requested I uploaded the problematic file. Please let me know if you find something out and if I can do more things to help you further.

[EVAV]

@Steps  @Jon P

Thank you for researching. Please check the PrntScr below - I took it after I shut down Publisher - in this case it doesn`t want to release memory. But this is not always the case...

However, like it was mentioned priviously in posts, yes, I mostly see the problem when working with high quality jpg and not necessary when creating large number of pages.

 

 

[Jon P]

@Steps Thanks for sending the file, I've not had any luck reproducing a crash using this file but am still looking into it. We actually have quite similar specs for our local machines. Do you find you have the crashes happen after a long period of use?

@EVAV It looks like the main issue here is the program failing to exit correctly (which in turn will likely prevent the next run up until you restart). Are you able to attach your file to the above dropbox link so I can see if something is in your file that is causing this to happen? 

 

Regarding the memory issues that have been mentioned (such as memory not being released after export) this is how we handle memory. Instead of actively freeing the memory we make it available to your operating systems garbage collection, so if something else was to need the memory it would then be freed. So memory usage staying high after an export is to be expected.

[Steps]

1 hour ago, Jon P said:

@Steps Thanks for sending the file, I've not had any luck reproducing a crash using this file but am still looking into it. We actually have quite similar specs for our local machines. Do you find you have the crashes happen after a long period of use?

No, it happens rather fast with the file provided.

Scroll fast trough the document, grab a image, move it, grab another, move it... i work pretty fast on the document. Maybe you give Publisher more time to recover between actions.

I notice that it starts to stutter, feezes and finally crashes.

If that does not help do a PDF export first to get a low memory situation.

[Guenter Diel]

Hello,

I have similar experiences. If I scroll fast through a document with many pictures Affinity Publisher (1.7.206 and before) crashed.

Especially when I scroll immediately after the doc is loaded.

Regards, Günter

 

[EVAV]

Hello, sorry for very late response - all the previous toubles stooped, like you said, itwas still working in the backrgound.

@Steps  @Jon P Thank you so much for help!:)

Now I have a new problem - I cannot start the new update 1.7.0.227. Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I also tried to uninstall and install again, but nothing happens...

[Jon P]

We had a slight issue with the installer where it is failing on machines using a high DPI setting.

If you change windows scaling and sign out/in of your computer it should fix it (assuming it's the same issue), more info in the below thread.

 

[EVAV]

@Jon P Thank you! I tworks, I followed your suggestion and is OK now.

@Steps  @Jon P  I have to say that I am very happy with support here -  is above average. Keep the good job guys! Thank you.

 

Regards,

Eva

[BettyA]

11 hours ago, EVAV said:

Now I have a new problem - I cannot start the new update 1.7.0.227. Does anyone else have a problem with that?

I also tried to uninstall and install again, but nothing happens...

I had the same issue, trying to update removes the older version. You have to restart your computer then install the updated one. worked for me. Now to get a pdf...

[EVAV]

@BettyA That didn`t work for me - I had to change DPI first, than restart and install new version.

Thans for advice though!