Image file loaded into Affinity can't be opened with another app.

[EMC UAV]

Since the update, If I have an image loaded in Affinity I can't do anything with that image outside of Affinity. I get that error message if I double click on it to open it with Preview. Before I could do anything I wanted with it. If the file is deleted from the desktop a message popup says "The document file has been moved to the Trash. The document must now be closed" Affinity removes the image when you click OK. Before the update I could delete them and had it no effect on Affinity

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, EMC UAV said:

Since the update, If I have an image loaded in Affinity I can't do anything with that image outside of Affinity. I get that error message if I double click on it to open it with Preview. Before I could do anything I wanted with it.

I am not sure what you mean but only the Affinity apps can open files saved in the native Affinity file format. This has been true from the beginning & has not changed.

[markw]

I only get that message if in AP;  File > Open… has been used to open a standard image type; jpeg, png, tiff, etc… .
Then the opened image file is “locked”, for want of a better term, from being acted on by other apps.
In AP if you now use ‘Save As …’  to AP’s .afphoto format, the image file will be released and can once again be acted on by other apps.

If you have a preexisting AP file open you can add images by using the Place Image command, drag/drop or cop/paste.
In these scenarios the target image files are not locked and can still be acted on by other apps.

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, markw said:

I only get that message if in AP;  File > Open… has been used to open a standard image type; jpeg, png, tiff, etc… .
Then the opened image file is “locked”, for want of a better term, from being acted on by other apps.
In AP if you now use ‘Save As …’  to AP’s .afphoto format, the image file will be released and can once again be acted on by other apps.

If you mean some other app cannot open & make changes to a file that is currently open in Affinity Photo, that is normal, nor is it confined to the Affinity apps. That's because only one app at a time can write to a file -- otherwise there is no way to prevent either of them trying to overwrite data the other is currently trying to write to it, which would almost certainly result in a corrupted, unusable file.

This is nothing new.

[markw]

Absolutely R C-R!
I probably could have explained better why sometimes the OP could  have an image in AP and yet still do things to it in another app and at other times not.

[EMC UAV]

No dude it does not write to the image file at all. Unless you save as the same thing and replace it. 

Before the update I could open the image file with another program.

Now it sucks because I can't open the original file on a second display to reference it.

I don't want to do something different. I want it the same as it was before the update.

No other image editing software locks the image file from being used elsewhere.

It's a bug hence the error message.

 

 

 

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, EMC UAV said:

No other image editing software locks the image file from being used elsewhere.

I don't know what to tell you other than that only one app at a time can open a file with write privileges to it. It has always been this way.

[Ron P.]

38 minutes ago, R C-R said:

I don't know what to tell you other than that only one app at a time can open a file with write privileges to it. It has always been this way.

@R C-R, Yes you can open the same image file in multiple editors at the same time, on Windows. Currently I have the same image open in Affinity Photo, PSP, and Photo Paint.

[R C-R]

43 minutes ago, Ron P. said:

@R C-R, Yes you can open the same image file in multiple editors at the same time, on Windows. Currently I have the same image open in Affinity Photo, PSP, and Photo Paint.

I can do that on my Mac, too. But what I can't do is open the same file in two or more apps & save changes to it in two or more of them -- the Mac OS will not allow that. Only one app at a time can assert write privileges to an open file.

What seems to be different now with Affinity Photo & Apple's Preview app is Preview used to open files already open in AP & update changes made in AP on the fly, but that no longer works, instead showing the 'external update error' message. That is probably a good thing because among other things Preview has always been bad about not always releasing files after closing them like it should, & that can cause conflicts with other apps like Affinity.

[v_kyr]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

But what I can't do is open the same file in two or more apps & save changes to it in two or more of them -- the Mac OS will not allow that.

This depends more on the way how software handles opened files here, certain software recognizes changes made concurrently and saved on the same file in another app.

A bunch of software recognizes if an opened file is changed outside of it due to file handles and either tells you to reload/update loaded contents since the file has been already changed elsewhere, or it handles a sort of autoreload in such cases (see above screencast, where in the text to should have been instead two).

 

[R C-R]

24 minutes ago, v_kyr said:

A bunch of software recognizes if an opened file is changed outside of it due to file handles and either tells you to reload/update loaded contents since the file has been already changed elsewhere, or it handles a sort of autoreload in such cases (see above screencast, where in the text to should have been instead two).

Yes, this 'auto-reload' is what Apple's Preview does. But it is done 'lazily' -- the update only occurs when the app is brought frontmost. So it is entirely possible to have two out-of-sync versions of the same file visible at the same time, just like in your recording.

If that is what is wanted, it is easy enough to do that in the 1.7 version of Affinity Photo -- just open the file first in Preview & then open it in AP. But I don't recommend doing that with large files saved to slow drives or any other time the write process might take more than a few seconds or be delayed because I have had problems with file corruption when doing that.

[Ron P.]

I don't think it's possible to have a 2nd copy open and have it show your progress, ie; immediate and constant refreshing. That would involve the app being used to work on the file to constantly save it. IDK, little confused now on what OP is really after. It's possible to work on the same file in different editors, making totally different edits at the same time. When saving it's not a simultaneous save, and you would have to over-write the original. Still the first one saved would over-write the original and then the next would over-write it. I don't make it a practice to over write any way, always save as a derivative.

[v_kyr]

I believe the OP's shown error message (update error 1) is more based due to the file location, since Error 1 from the OS usually means that something can't be performed in its current location. Also the "External update error..." suggerates some problem here like those seen with external drives over network storage devices.

[EMC UAV]

1 hour ago, v_kyr said:

I believe the OP's shown error message (update error 1) is more based due to the file location, since Error 1 from the OS usually means that something can't be performed in its current location. Also the "External update error..." suggerates some problem here like those seen with external drives over network storage devices.

I just tested it to see if it was only happening from the desktop. It does the same thing from the Pictures folder. The same thing happens from my main internal and an external.

Has anybody else with a Mac tried it?

[markw]

I reinstalled AP1.6 and yes something has changed in the Affinity 1.7 apps which now prevents Preview and some other graphics app from opening any image that’s already open in the Affinity apps.
Whether this is now intended behaviour or a bug I don’t know. We would need someone from Serif to comment on this.
I confess I am rather surprised that two editing apps should be allowed to make changes to the same file at the same time, but there we go.
With Pixelmator + Preview for example, as you switch between them each apps window live updates to reflect the changes made in the other app.

[R C-R]

5 hours ago, EMC UAV said:

Has anybody else with a Mac tried it?

Yes, I tested it with several different JPEG & PNG files & got the same 'error 1' message that you did. It did not matter if the file had been saved to the desktop or to one of the folders in my user account where I know any app that can open those file types can open those files.

But like I said, if you want to open a JPEG (or PNG) in both Preview & Affinity Photo at the same time, you can do that with the 1.7 version of AP if you open it first in Preview & then in AP.

Just like with the 1.6 version, if that is done, any edits saved in AP will 'auto-reload' in Preview if & when Preview is brought to the front afterwards (the 'lazy' update). But it does not work (& has never worked) going the other way: any edits saved in Preview while the file is also open in AP will not 'auto-reload' in AP.

So like @Ron P. said, if the file is open in both apps any edits made & saved in Preview will be overwritten if the file is then edited & saved in AP. As long as users are aware of that, it won't usually cause any problems. However, since writes can be executed in any order or delayed, I believe this could potentially cause problems that lead to file corruption or app instabilities, so I do not recommend opening documents in both apps at the same time.

[R C-R]

28 minutes ago, markw said:

I reinstalled AP1.6 and yes something has changed in the Affinity 1.7 apps which now prevents Preview and some other graphics app from opening any image that’s already open in the Affinity apps.

FWIW, I did a few tests on another Mac that still has Affinity Photo 1.6.7 installed on it, & can confirm the change vs. version 1.7.1 (& the Mac 1.7.2 beta as well).

But as I have mentioned several times, it is still possible to open files in Preview first & then in AP 1.7 (retail or beta). I just don't think that is a good idea.