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Layers not responding/ crashing of Affinity / more


Dnn

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I found several bugs in Affinity photo that unfortunately make this nice programm impossible to work with.
 
I use the 1.7.2 version for Mac.
I use it with OS 10.14.5 Mojave on an iMac with 3,2 Ghz Intel Core i5 with 8 Gb of 1867 Mhz memory.
 
 
1. layers stop responding
 
I open one photo in 150 or 300 dpi. 
Or: I open a compressed picture from an iPhone that only is 245 Kb in size with 1136 x 1078 px.
 
When I add a layer and do noise reduction: this works.
But when I add a second layer with clarity or high pass or whatever; the effect stops after a while.
 
Not always; but most of the time.
And sometimes (not always) this also causes the first layer stop doing his job.
 
I only use two to four layers by the way. The more you use; the bigger the problems get.
 
Sometimes I can 'solve' this strange bug by changing the sequence of the layers.
But most of the time I have to delete the layers and start all over again…
Or I have to stop Affinity Photo and start again.
 
It happens with all photo’s. Big or small. Color or black/ white.
 
One of the forum users suggest to add a layer with a pixel to solve the layers from non responding,
but this does not help...
 
I had read on the internet by the way that likewise problems already happened two years ago with previous versions.
 
 
2. saving bigger photo’s takes a lot of time and sometimes causes AP to freeze and crash 
Also saving bigger pictures (800 Mb to 1 Gb) takes a lot of time. 
Sometimes it cost more than 10 minutes.
 
And sometimes this causes Affinity Photo to freeze or crash.
 
 
3. memory consuming
 
When using Affinity photo with a (1) larger photo file (up to 1 Gb), the programm is memory and hard disc consuming.
It is even impossible to use other programm’s at the same time.
 
Hard (real) Memory consuming by Affinity Photo can be up to 5 Gb (while this test iMac 'only' has 8 Gb). 
At the same time; Affinity uses the hard disc as a virtual memory cache for up to 2 Gb.
That makes 7 Gb and it slows down the whole computer.
 
I realise that adding more memory 16 Gb or 32 Gb might help; but I can not imagine that Affinity photo could not 
do his job with standard memory of 8 Gb found in many desk and laptops.
 
While rendering or saving images in Affinity;  I sometimes even have to force quitte other programm’s
since they are not responding anymore because Affinity Photo sucks up all the memory.
It sometimes even effects the Apple Finder stop responding.
 

4. Crashing
 
Last but not least bug:
Affinity Photo crashed and freezes several times while testing it in multiple ways.
1.7.1 and 1.7.2 unfortunately are not stable.
 
 
5. progress bar idea
 
There is a progress bar for monitoring saving. It would be great to see a progress bar while rendering.
Free of cost graphic programm’s like GIMP do have this and it is very handy.
This might be a good idea to build in next versions of Affinity photo.
 
 
Thanks !
 

Hanging and crashing.png

Edited by Dnn
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  • Staff

Hey Dnn,

1. There's a newly introduced bug in 1.7.2 that can stop some layers working correctly. The empty pixel layer is a workaround but doesn't work in all cases. I think this is the issue you are facing and the developers are working towards a fix. It would help if we could see an example, just to confirm or find a temporary workaround for you.

2. The app will try and use whatever resources are available to it. However, at no point should you be crashing because you're simply trying to save something. Do you tend to save to a network or locally?

3. Try limiting the app to using less RAM. You can do this from Preferences > Performance. I have a 2017 iMac with 24GB RAM and don't usually encounter this. I'm not suggesting you need to go out and buy more RAM—but it will help. Try limiting the app to 4GB and see if it helps. This will leave plenty of RAM for anything else running.

4. Sample files will help us with a recipe of what you're doing. Also, grab a bunch of crash reports and attach them here when you get the crash. We might find a link and can then look at preventing the crash.

5. Fair point. Progress bars are usually way off but at least you can see that something is still happening. It's worth passing on :) 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello Chris !

Thanks for your mail. 

1. hope an update for the multiple crashing problems comes soon.

2. Everything is saved locally on the local HD.

3. Affinity photo 1.7.2 responds quicker than Apple Photo 4.0. But editing in Affinity Photo on a normal harddisc @ 7200 RPM and with 'normal' Ram 8 Gb is slow and buggy; comparing with GIMP 2.10 and Pixelmator Pro 1.4.2.

We did some additional testing here. This time with the same iMac and OS spec's, but now with a high speed internal SSD and 24 Gb Ram. Responding of AP is much quicker.

From this point, I would advise to change minimal system requirements into 16 Gb + an advise of AP that AP will work better with SSD or Fusion Drive when using larger files of +100MB.

Also with the SSD and 24 Gb of RAM, AP still sometimes crashes (randomly) while editing/ tuning a layer. Also: layers are (randomly) sometimes not responding and need to be deleted and added again. 

4. Already several people have send files and crash reports to AP.  I am sure that the AP engineers have been able to simulate the crashes in their R&D lab themselves. Let's see what is cooking in the lab's.

5. :-)

Thanks and greetings from your neighbours in The Netherlands.

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  • Staff

1. The fix for the mask/layer issue is available in the Windows beta. We're still waiting for macOS. No idea when this will go live.

2. Thanks. We've started seeing a few more reports of very slow saving. I believe we changed something recently and we've already contacted the developers to see what's up.

3. We've already discussed increasing the min requirements. More RAM and a proper SSD will always be recommended.

4. Maybe so, but even the smallest difference between machines can cause different crash report results. It's your choice though.

Thanks! 

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