Crashes as I paste to a master page

[Stephen_H]

I copy a collection of simple text boxes, circles and a few arrows (I've drawn an organogram) from my page. 

I go to my master page.

I paste. Publisher crashes immediately.

I did this a few times in a row to confirm that it happens consistently.

 

If I manually select the items, it works just fine. It only crashes if I have selected the items by using the command "Select all", then copy and paste. Clearly, I'm picking up something extra that's not a physical object on the page. That invisible something is causing the crash.

[JFisher]

Hi Stephen_H,

Thanks for your post,

Would it be possible to provide a file that you're using? If you could save the file before the point you paste i can test this. I'm having some trouble replicating the issue at the moment. 

[Stephen_H]

Here you go.

Select All.

Go to Master page.

Paste.

(All done as keyboard commands)

Full spectrum outlined.afpub

[Stephen_H]

Here's a screencast of my experience. It's still happening every single time.

(surprising really... problems usually disappear the moment someone else is trying to fix it)

[rusty5]

Open the file and go to the layers menu. Check to see if anywhere inside layers is a "Master A" layer. I've noticed that a Master A is created as a layer in new files. If you find a Master A layer, delete that layer. Save the file and try the steps again, select all, copy and paste and see what happens. I'm wondering if a Master layer in a selected group might somehow conflict when pasting back into itself.

[Stephen_H]

No. There is no "Master A" layer... just the objects in my layout. The master page also doesn't have a layer waiting for me. Creating one before pasting makes no difference.

I"ve just tried selecting every object manually and then Copy-n-paste them across in smaller batches. No crashes when I do this.

I've tried doing this with all the text only, then the arrows, then the shapes... again no crashes. I am able to get everything onto the master page, I just can't do it all at once.

 

It only crashes when I take everything across at once. I suspect there might just be clipboard limit at play here.

[Stephen_H]

Oh, wait. rusty5, you are a genius. I've just done a more careful search and I did infect find that layer. I noticed when doing a "Select All" command, I seemed to be selecting something that looked like the page's margins.

Now, if I select everything except that layer/object, it works perfectly.

Thank you.

 

Perhaps I should list this "Master A" as a bug of its own???

[fde101]

The "Master A" layer is part of the implementation of how master pages work - removing it is the equivalent of disassociating the page/spread with the master.

That layer contains the objects that are on the master page, it is not a bug.

 

I just tried an assortment of methods of doing "Select All", with the master page in different modes (Edit Detached, Edit Linked, etc.) and in all cases the master layer is NOT selected when I do "Select All" on a page.  Even if I choose one of the "Edit Detached" or "Edit Linked" options and drag a box around the objects on the page, the layers inside the master layer are selected but the master layer itself is not.

Pasting into the master page with or without the objects in the master does not cause a problem for me.

 

However, if I directly select the master layer in the layers panel, copy, then go to the master page and paste, I do get the crash.  Clearly that is a bug, but what puzzles me is that you seem to be somehow getting the master layer selected when doing a select all on the page - that is something I cannot reproduce.  I am on .238 on MacOS 10.12.6.

[fde101]

Note that I can also explicitly copy the master layer and paste it into another page that already has the same master layer, then I see the master layer twice on the same page.  This is very likely an undesirable behavior.

 

Publisher does prevent me from creating circular references between two masters - if I apply Master A to Master B I cannot then turn around and apply Master B to Master A.

 

Copying the Master A layer from Master B then pasting into Master A crashes the program same as if copied from a page.

 

I also tried applying Master A to Master B then working with the various edit modes when editing Master B and doing a Select All still did not select the Master A layer.

[Stephen_H]

Master A layer was sitting in the middle of a group of layers. The moment I selected the group, I would automatically get that master layer.

I thing the true bug is that we can select & group the master layer with other object-layers. If they make it non-selectable and always at the bottom, bellow all the other layers, this wouldn't happen.

[fde101]

That explains it.  Moving the master layer into a group was enough for me to reproduce the bug as reported.

No, it makes sense to be able to select that layer, and I would go so far as to say that pasting it into a page effectively applies the master.  There are also plenty of use cases for moving that layer to the top, to have common objects that appear above the page-specific objects, so keeping it at the bottom of the list doesn't really work either.

I do agree it should not be possible to move it into a group with other layers, and attempts to paste it in such a way that would create a circular reference or result in the same master layer being duplicated on a page should almost certainly be blocked/ignored.

I suspect the circular reference is what is causing the crash.

[Pauls]

I've logged that crash issue with pasting onto the master page