Designer Won't Start

[Hephaestus]

I've posted on this before, but I haven't gotten an answer. Designer won't open on my Windows system. Designer Beta works fine. I've uninstalled Designer 1.7.1 and removed its directory and then installed 1.7.2 and it still doesn't work. Beta 1.7.2.434 keeps chugging along merrily.

The Windows Event Viewer has kindly informed me that I am receiving this .NET Runtime error:

Application: Designer.exe
Framework Version: v4.0.30319
Description: The process was terminated due to an unhandled exception.
Exception Info: System.NullReferenceException
   at Backtrace.BacktraceDatabase.LoadReports()
   at Backtrace.BacktraceDatabase.Start()
   at Serif.Affinity.Application.SetupBacktrace()
   at Serif.Affinity.Application..ctor()
   at Designer.Application.Main(System.String[])

I would be most pleased to assist in debugging this.

Edited September 18, 2019 by Hephaestus

[DWright]

Please use the link below to download and install the latest .NET Framework 4.8 from Microsoft

https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download/thank-you/net48-offline

If you are still having this issue after .NET 4.8 has been installed please let me know

 

[Hephaestus]

Well, I downloaded .NET 4.8 and this is what the installation provided:

[Bad_Wolf]

An "Unhandled Exception" means that inside the programming, there was an error which was not caught by the code. This is nothing a user can solve, only the Affinity programmers can do the magic for you.

I am sure the Affinity team will do their best to solve this problem. However, it can take a while. Also, take into account that the cause can be on your computer. If more people experience the same error, it is probably in Designer itself but when you are the only one, chances are that the cause is on your computer.

At my laptop, Affinity runs fine without any problems. Yesterday Designer crashed but I cannot remember when it crashed before that.

I hope your problem gets fixed soon.

Chris

 

[Alfred]

2 hours ago, Bad_Wolf said:

Yesterday Designer crashed but I cannot remember when it crashed before that.

As you’re probably aware, you should be able to find out from the operating system’s error log if you particularly need or want to know.

[Hephaestus]

I appreciate the comments from the community, but I would like assistance from Affinity staff.

I am a developer myself. Most people who supply a stack trace from Windows Event Log are. I also included relevant information about trying the basic steps, such as reinstalling as cleanly as possible and running the .NET troubleshooting tool.

As I noted, the beta versions run perfectly well. I'll add that so do Affinity Photo and Affinity Publisher. Clearly there is something dark and evil stashed in a hidden folder or in the registry that is defying detection. I would suspect that someone on the development and/or QA teams have seen this problem before.

Cheers.

[walt.farrell]

12 minutes ago, Hephaestus said:

but I would like assistance from Affinity staff.

As I mentioned in another of your threads, you are getting assistance from Serif staff. DWright, above, for example, in this one.

[DWright]

Can you please navigate to the following location from the Run Dialog. In this folder you will find Crash Reports generated by Designer. Please send us the .dmp file with the latest Created/Modified Date.

 

%APPDATA%\Affinity\Designer\1.0\CrashReports

[Mark Ingram]

I'm going to reply to the other thread, so in order to not end up with duplicates, I'm going to lock this post.

Please see the discussion here: