Cant create new layer no matter what I do

Plan on getting into digital art (complete art beginner) and decided to get to know krita since its the app i tried using in my last attempt at self studying art. Got a laptop with a dedicated touchscreen and installed krita fresh. The very first file I ever worked with had a layer and let me draw just fine. Any new file I try to create wont let me make new layers and won’t let me draw. I’ve looked into this already and can’t seem to find a fix. Anyone know whats going on?

After I make this post, I’ll retry making a new file to see if I just got unlucky the first few times.

Welcome, @Lasagna

What method are you using to create a new layer? Are you clicking on the plus sign ( + ) at the bottom of the layers docker?

Yes. Clicking it does nothing. The dropdown next to it shows all potential layer options as greyed out and unclickable

Going from the layer tab at the top and through the “new” dropdown shows the same thing: Every layer option just greyed out.

I would also like to add that my attempt at making a new file didn’t work. Switching the background layer type didn’t work.

It was there I noticed that krita also wasn’t even generating any layers. Not sure if a background layer generates by default, so I figured I would mention that.

I have a feeling you may not be inside a Krita document when you are clicking the plus sign.

Please provide a screenshot of the entire workspace including the top and bottom status bars and have the layers docker open.

Hmm. When you created this document, did you change the default content tab (the default is 2 layers).

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I did not. Just made another test file that had its content tab untouched just to be sure, and still no dice.

Can you show us a screenshot of this portion of the “create new document” window?

Krita I think just crashed, so I reloaded the program and tried making a new file. Everything works now, even on subsequent file creations

:person_shrugging: yeah idk either

Thanks for the help though, ill send over the screenshot in case it helps you figure out what went wrong

That is a head scratcher.

From what I can gather, it seems like there was a problem with the layers generating on file creation. No clue if thats a bug or if theres something in file setup that can cause that.

Weird, I’ve never seen a layerless document. Nonetheless the radio button “raster layer” should be selected, not canvas background.

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I have seen a layerless document. I’m unsure if it’s the same bug as this or not. I could never reproduce it, so I didn’t report it, but I’ve encountered it three or four times, from last November to just this Tuesday.

The fact that the layers docker is greyed-out in your screenshot may actually be a result of a different bug, where no layer is selected in some circumstances.

In my case, it always seemed to happen after I’d been working on a document for a while. I decide to make a new layer and nothing happens.
That is, nothing happens in the Layers Docker; but the Undo History shows that the new layer actually was created. But whatever I do, adding or moving a layer in the stack does not affect the Layers docker; even reopening the same or a new document shows no layers. The docker behaves fine otherwise.
Krita might crash when interacting with the empty layers docker, but it will also just crash on normal exit. Restarting Krita, everything is fine again.

This is the crash from simply closing Krita, apparently crashing while trying to clear a popup menu:

Thread 0 Crashed::  Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0   QtWidgets                     	       0x108c040f0 QWidget::actions() const + 20
1   QtWidgets                     	       0x108d34440 QMenu::clear() + 36
2   libkritaui.20.0.0.dylib       	       0x1061dff0c KisPopupWidgetAction::end(QEvent*)::$_0::operator()() const + 160 (KisPopupWidgetAction.cpp:73) [inlined]
3   libkritaui.20.0.0.dylib       	       0x1061dff0c QtPrivate::FunctorCall<QtPrivate::IndexesList<>, QtPrivate::List<>, void, KisPopupWidgetAction::end(QEvent*)::$_0>::call(KisPopupWidgetAction::end(QEvent*)::$_0&, void**) + 160 (qobjectdefs_impl.h:146) [inlined]
4   libkritaui.20.0.0.dylib       	       0x1061dff0c void QtPrivate::Functor<KisPopupWidgetAction::end(QEvent*)::$_0, 0>::call<QtPrivate::List<>, void>(KisPopupWidgetAction::end(QEvent*)::$_0&, void*, void**) + 160 (qobjectdefs_impl.h:256) [inlined]
5   libkritaui.20.0.0.dylib       	       0x1061dff0c QtPrivate::QFunctorSlotObject<KisPopupWidgetAction::end(QEvent*)::$_0, 0, QtPrivate::List<>, void>::impl(int, QtPrivate::QSlotObjectBase*, QObject*, void**, bool*) + 232 (qobjectdefs_impl.h:443)
6   QtCore                        	       0x109885ab0 QObject::event(QEvent*) + 596
7   QtWidgets                     	       0x108bd650c QApplicationPrivate::notify_helper(QObject*, QEvent*) + 292

It may be that a popup menu not getting closed correctly is the cause of the layers docker not working, I’m not sure. One of the times this happened, I realized the Script Error window was open, and closing that fixed the layers docker, but that’s unlikely to have been present the other times.

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For me, subsequent restarts initially didnt fix the bug. It was only when krita randomly whitescreened by itself and i restarted did the layer docker then start working normally.
Again, not a clue what happened and it seems to be gone now. Seems to be extremely random and extremely unlikely to happen, so unless it rears its head more in the future for anyone else it probably wont be a major issue for now.

Not like we could fix it since neither of us seem to know how we got it lol.

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