Designer Brushes disappeared

[momsthewordus]

The brushes that come with the Affinity Designer program have disappeared. I haven't tried to use them in a very long time, so I don't know how long they have been gone (maybe since the latest update?). The brushes I created are there, but all of the categories are completely empty in pixel mode and design mode. I was able to import brushes from Photoshop, but how can I get the affinity brushes back? 

[Dan C]

Hi momsthewordus

Sorry to hear this! Are you using Windows or Mac please? Was the app purchased directly from the Affinity Store, or from an external store such as the Mac App Store?

I'd like a copy of your brushes file that Affinity is reading but the location of this will differ depending on your OS and where the app was purchased.

[walt.farrell]

32 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Sorry to hear this! Are you using Windows or Mac please? Was the app purchased directly from the Affinity Store, or from an external store such as the Mac App Store?

I'd like a copy of your brushes file that Affinity is reading but the location of this will differ depending on your OS and where the app was purchased.

Isn't this simply the problem that Serif deleted some brushes (and styles) shipped with 1.6 from the 1.7 release?
See, for example, this topic and Callum's responses in it:

 

[PaulEC]

3 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Isn't this simply the problem that Serif deleted some brushes (and styles) shipped with 1.6 from the 1.7 release?

Hopefully they may put them back in 1.8 ?

[Murfee]

5 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Hopefully they may put them back in 1.8 ?

They are available in the quoted post above where Callum provides a Dropbox link to all of the 1.6 brushes & styles

[walt.farrell]

8 minutes ago, PaulEC said:

Hopefully they may put them back in 1.8 ?

If they were going to come back I would hope they'd come back sooner than 1.8, like in 1.7.2, or 1.7.3, or ...

[Dan C]

48 minutes ago, walt.farrell said:

Isn't this simply the problem that Serif deleted some brushes (and styles) shipped with 1.6 from the 1.7 release?

We did change certain brushes/styles with 1.7 - I wasn't certain if OP was referring to this or an issue that some users experienced when upgrading that caused all brushes to be missing/not visible within the app. Perhaps I should have started with a question rather than an assumption, my apologies!

@momsthewordus Are you referring to the categories that were changed/removed? (PIXEL BRUSHES - Texture, Drawing, Assorted etc?)

15 hours ago, momsthewordus said:

all of the categories are completely empty in pixel mode and design mode

Or do you have no brushes showing, as per the above?

[momsthewordus]

Hi. I'm using Windows 10, and I purchased the program directly from the Affinity store. All of my brush categories are available, but they are empty. There is one solid brush in the assorted category.

[momsthewordus]

I just used the link included from the other thread to download and import the missing brushes, but they imported as new categories instead of repopulating the old ones. I still have a bunch of empty categories at the top of my brushes list, but the brushes are there with new labels that end in 1.6. Is that what I was supposed to do?

 

[momsthewordus]

I imported them into the pixel persona, but none of them come up in the designer persona. There are still just blank categories there. Do I need to import them separately into each persona?

[walt.farrell]

1 hour ago, momsthewordus said:

I imported them into the pixel persona, but none of them come up in the designer persona. There are still just blank categories there. Do I need to import them separately into each persona?

I don't think it should matter which persona you used for the import. The important point is that Callum provided two files, one with vector brushes and one with raster brushes. The vector brushes will be visible only in the Designer persona after import and the raster brushes will be visible only in the Pixel persona.

[momsthewordus]

Thank you, Walt. It looks like I forgot to import the vector brushes. I still have blank categories from the old sets, but at least I have all of them now. 

Thanks for your help, everyone.

[walt.farrell]

But it sounds like you somehow lost all the brushes that you should have had by default (the ones in those blank categories). Serif (Dan) might still be interested in figuring out how you lost them

[Mikeymcg]

Spoiler

Hi all brushes have been lost except one solid one since updating to Affinity 2.0? I have tried to 'import brushes' but there are none there. Any help?

 

[walt.farrell]

@Mikeymcg: If you are missing the various brush categories you'll probably need to Reset your brushes, which will set them back to their "factory" state. Any brushes you've added yourself will then need to be re-added manually, or recreated.

1. Make sure that none of the V2 applications are running.
2. Start one of them while holding the Ctrl key. Release Ctrl when you get the Clear User Data dialog (on Windows, you might need to click the application icon in the Taskbar to get that dialog to show up).
3. Uncheck the first 3 items in the list. Check Reset Brushes. Press Reset. This will reset the brushes for all the Affinity V2 applications.

[Mikeymcg]

Hi thanks for the quick reply. I have done this but don't have any brushes back. It has now deleted the brush categories that were there before?

[walt.farrell]

What categories do you currently have? Can you provide a screenshot of the Brushes panel, with the category pulldown expanded?

[Mikeymcg]

Previously I had the headings like acrylic, inks, watercolour, etc but no brushes to select when you click on them. Now I have what’s in the attached picture.

[walt.farrell]

That's odd. Usually a Reset of the Brushes takes care of that. You might try doing a Reset again via the Ctrl key, but in addition to Reset Brushes leave the first three items checked.

[Mikeymcg]

Hi that didn’t seem to change anything. I have attached a picture of the dialogue box. The only difference might be it says ‘clear’ instead of ‘reset’?

[walt.farrell]

Sorry; Clear is right for that dialog; I misremembered.

I see that in your screenshots you don't seem to have any documents open. Does this also happen when you have a document open?

Does this also happen in the Pixel Persona (no brushes) or is it only in the Designer Persona?

Did you install using the default MSIX-version of the installer, or did you download the EXE/MSI version?

 

[Mikeymcg]

If an affinity document is open the dialogue box does not appear.

it is the same for the pixel persona.

I don’t install anything, I am a teacher and the IT department installs all software, I don’t have access to it. They don’t know anything about the software however.

thanks

[Mikeymcg]

I will add if I try to import brushes there are no folders containing them I can see (I have attached a screenshot). Also with the update all the preset new documents disappeared as well I had to make new ones.

[walt.farrell]

10 minutes ago, Mikeymcg said:

I will add if I try to import brushes there are no folders containing them

You would not have brushes to import unless you have downloaded them; none are supplied for importing with the programs. Everything that is supplied are installed automatically, or must be downloaded.

15 minutes ago, Mikeymcg said:

I don’t install anything, I am a teacher and the IT department installs all software, I don’t have access to it. They don’t know anything about the software however.

 

OK.

Try this, please: 

1. Start the Affinity application.
2. Start Windows Task Manager.
3. Find the entry for the application in the Task Manager listing.
4. Expand that entry by clicking the > at the front of it.
5. Right-click the second line of the entry, and choose Open File Location.
6. You will get a File Explorer window. Is it for a directory within "Program Files" or within "WindowsApps"? If you're not sure, you may be able to right-click in the location bar at the top of the window and choose Copy As Text (or something like that), and give us the info that way.

[Mikeymcg]

Hi it is in program files