How to Fix Affinity Photo Crashing Issue?

Affinity Photo crashes can often be accredited to the OpenCL hardware acceleration feature used by the app to boost the performance of the application. This helps the processor sideload some of the tasks to the GPU processor, allowing it to free up critical processing time on the CPU and ultimately boost the overall processing speed.

In addition to the hardware acceleration feature, the graphics editor can also crash due to the video card drivers on your system. This happens due to a software issue with the graphics drivers, in which case you need to reinstall them.

To help you resolve the issue, we are going to mention various solutions in addition to their potential causes so you have an idea of why the problem is arising in the first place.

How to stop Affinity Photo from crashing?

Numerous components can factor into the crashes that you are experiencing on the application. From the video drivers to the Windows update, the root cause can vary in each respective case. Therefore, let us go through the list of solutions that should accommodate you in every scenario. 

1. Disable OpenCL Hardware Acceleration: The first troubleshooting step when encountering Affinity Photo crashes is to disable hardware acceleration on the program. Hardware acceleration is a neat feature that can allow you to increase the performance of the app by utilizing more resources of the GPU on your system. However, this can often run into inconsistencies which can cause the program to crash. As such, you will need to disable OpenCL hardware acceleration in Affinity Photo. 
2. Install Available Windows Updates: The build of Windows installed on your PC can also interfere with the functionality of the app and cause it to crash. There have been Windows updates recently that have caused the program to crash due to an issue with the .NET framework associated with the update. If you are running one of the problematic builds on your system, the issue will occur. Update your Windows to resolve the problem in such an instance.
3. Reinstall GPU Drivers: The graphics driver is another factor that can result in crashes with the Affinity Photo application. The GPU drivers are important for an application like Affinity Photo since the graphics card is often required for graphics-related tasks. The program access the graphics card via the GPU driver, which is why you will need to ensure there are no problems with it. In addition, certain AMD video drivers have broken the functionality of the app. These issues have been fixed in later versions, which is why you will need to install newer graphics drivers.
4. Clean Boot Windows: The programs running in the background on your Windows system can also cause Affinity Photo to crash. This happens when these processes intervene with the Affinity Photo program on your computer. In such a state, you can perform a clean boot. Doing so will boot up your system with only the required Windows services running. If Affinity Photo works fine in a clean boot, you can locate the culprit by enabling the services one by one.

1. Disable OpenCL Hardware Acceleration

1. First, open the Affinity Photo app on your PC.
2. After that, navigate to Edit > Preferences. 
3. On the Preferences window, switch to the Performance tab.

   

4. There, uncheck the Enable OpenCL compute acceleration option.

   

5. Restart Affinity Photo and see if the issue persists.

2. Install Available Windows Updates

1. Start by opening the Settings app on your computer via the Windows key + I shortcut.
2. After that, click on the Windows Update option.

   

3. Then, click the Check for updates button to look for any available Windows updates.

   

4. Wait for the updates to be downloaded and installed. 
5. Restart your computer to complete the installation of the updates. 
6. Open Affinity Photo and see if it crashes. 

3. Reinstall GPU Drivers

1. First of all, use the official website to download the Display Driver Uninstaller utility by clicking here. 
2. Then, uncompress the downloaded file to a location and open the Display Driver Uninstaller.exe executable.
3. When DDU starts up, click the Continue option on the Options screen.

   

4. After that, you need to pick GPU from the Select device type menu.

   

5. Then, pick the brand of your GPU manufacturer from the Select device menu.

   

6. Once you do that, click Clean and restart.

   

7. This will uninstall your drivers and reboot your PC.
8. After that, open the website of your GPU manufacturer and download the latest video drivers.
9. Install the new drivers and see if the issue still occurs.

4. Clean Boot Windows

1. Start by pressing the Win key + R shortcut to open Run.
2. Then, in the Run box, type in msconfig and press Enter.

   

3. After that, go to the Services tab.
4. Check the Hide all Microsoft services option.

   

5. Then, click the Disable all button to disable unofficial services on startup. Click Apply.

   

6. After that, go to the Startup tab. Select the Open Task Manager link.

   

7. In the Task Manager app, select the third-party apps one by one and click Disable.

   

8. After doing that, restart your computer. 

You should be able to navigate the crashes with Affinity Photo with these solutions. It is important to ensure that you have the latest Windows updates installed and your GPU drivers are up to date in order to prevent these issues from occurring in the future.