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"Open With" Defaults to Wrong Progam


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Mac OS 10.14.5, Affinity Designer and Photo 1.7

When on my MacBook Pro, I double-click an .afdesign document within my iCloud drive, but it opens the Affinity Photo application, and loads the document there.  I open the "Get Info" utility on the document, and see that it's "Open With" assignment is Affinity Photo.  I attempt to change it, and see that all three apps (including beta Publisher) are options, and that AfDesign is displayed with the additional text "(default)".  But Affinity Photo is indicated as the currently operable load-app, and has a checkmark next to it.  After selecting Designer in this panel, it blinks for re-display and--changes nothing.  It can't be changed!

There is a lock icon at the bottom of the "Get Info" display, which I believe is applicable only to the Sharing/Permission options.  Nevertheless, I have toggled it to "unlock" and attempted to make Designer the functional default, but it will not change.

I can open the document with a right-click and select Designer, which is also displayed here as the default.  When selected it open appropriately.

Final point: *None* of these irritations occur when double-clicking documents on my desktop or in the documents folder on my Mac--only when I've opened my iCloud folder and attempt to load any of these.

Strange!  

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My best guess is that at some point you changed that one file to open with Photo. That is what the check means, the (default) shows the Application which will open the .afdesign files by default, meaning double click and Designer will open all .afdesign files unless you have changed the "Open with:" Application for one or more of them.

This will remain with that file forever unless you change it.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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Hey, Old Bruce:

I've never opened any of these files with Photo before.  I understand what the check means as I indicated above.  The most significant thing in my previous post is that *it cannot be changed*.  I can't say why but, again, *none of the files on the icloud drive* will accept changes and *none of the files* on my MacBook have this issue.  Quite an oddity.

Another fun fact: The icon in display is Affinity Designer, despite loading as if it were Photo.

Perhaps a visual will help...

 -- Gerry

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  • Long click or right-click on the afdesign file and select Get Info.  
  • Under the section Open with: use the dropdown selector to pick Affinity Designer as the default app. 
  • Click on the Change all... button just below.
  • Close the Get Info window. 

Your afdesign files should open with Affinity Designer. 

iMac 27" 2019 Somona 14.3.1, iMac 27" Affinity Designer, Photo & Publisher V1 & V2, Adobe, Inkscape, Vectorstyler, Blender, C4D, Sketchup + more... XP-Pen Artist-22E, - iPad Pro 12.9  
B| (Please refrain from licking the screen while using this forum)

Affinity Help - Affinity Desktop Tutorials - Feedback - FAQ - most asked questions

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There have been other reports of this same issue in the past, for example here. They are usually related to saving Designer files to iCloud Drive from the iPad app, but regardless in that topic this reply by moderator @GabrielM links to this topic started by user @GrinningShark.

About half way down that topic in this reply he offers a 'try at your own risk' fix, but since Gab linked to it, I assume it is reasonably safe to try. The reply by @AK21 saying that it helps fix the issue on macOS 10.14.4 is also encouraging.

FWIW, the first step in the fix is to temporarily turn off storing Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo documents in iCloud. To do this, in System Preferences > iCloud, click the "Options" button next to iCloud Drive. In the dropdown sheet that appears, I had to scroll down almost to the bottom of the Documents list to see those apps, where I discovered that even though I had never stored anything from the beta apps I have installed on my Mac to my iCloud Drive, that option was enabled for them as well.

2042621543_iCloudPrefs.jpg.ca96f70a9dec43e58d553e6d6eba8ba7.jpg

This suggests that you don't have to open any files with Photo for the icon & app references in  ~/Application Support/CloudDocs/session to be created, so if they have somehow become corrupted on your Mac, maybe deleting them as described in the fix will work for you.

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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Many thanks, R C-R, for two things: 1) Actually reading my post past the first sentence!  And 2) curing my ills.  This does, indeed, solve my problem.  I assume the "use at your own risk" disclaimer is wise, since the way all this processing takes place, it could change on the Mac or Affinity side at any time, and not to the user's advantage.

The assurance, well-bolded, that this does not delete your files from iCloud was read and duly disregarded as I did a back-up of the 20 files or so that I had.  It does *appear* to remove the files, but they all come back to life again at the end. How? I have no idea.

Thanks again!

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59 minutes ago, GScottMoore said:

The assurance, well-bolded, that this does not delete your files from iCloud was read and duly disregarded as I did a back-up of the 20 files or so that I had.  It does *appear* to remove the files, but they all come back to life again at the end.

I am glad this fix worked for you ... & impressed that you took the time to backup your files 'just in case.' :)

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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1 hour ago, GScottMoore said:

I did a back-up of the 20 files or so that I had.  It does *appear* to remove the files, but they all come back to life again at the end. How? I have no idea.

Back-up is smart and may have led to them all coming back to life again in the cloud depending on the settings. I only use the cloud for the email and check and delete regularly.

24812944_ScreenShot2019-06-16at11_33_17AM.thumb.png.26e23ef59aed6a7e03da514045331f00.png

Don't know what the 200 bytes were and don't care.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) Mac OS 12.7.4 
Affinity Designer 2.4.0 | Affinity Photo 2.4.0 | Affinity Publisher 2.4.0 | Beta versions as they appear.

I have never mastered color management, period, so I cannot help with that.

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