Adobe has released a new version of its Lightroom app for iOS this week, and it has unfortunately caused some users to permanently lose their photos and presets. An update has been released since fixing the issue, but Adobe says there is no way to help those already affected by the error recover lost images and data.
Update: Adobe has released an official statement on the matter and suggests that some users can restore photos and presets in Lightroom by restoring an iPhone / iPad backup.
Some customers affected by this issue may be able to use iPhone and iPad backups to restore photos and presets. If you are affected by this issue, please refer to the information in our forum.
Users started seeing the issues with Lightroom on iPhone and iPad after updating to version 5.4 (now pulled and replaced with 5.4.1) on Tuesday this week (via PetaPixel).
One user flagged the issue on Adobe’s Photoshop forums:
Yesterday when I used the Lightroom Mobile, it was fine. I still have my presets and images stored in the apps, but today, August 18, 2020, after updating the apps in Apps Store, all my images and presets are gone. I really need this to be repaired as soon as possible. Please help me I really need all those photos and presets.
An Adobe rep acknowledged the bug and that version 5.4.1 fixed the issue. But unfortunately, they also said that lost images and presets “could not be repaired.” The problematic update ended up deleting content that was not synced with the Lightroom cloud.
We are aware that some customers who have updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing photos and presets that were not synced with the Lightroom cloud.
A new version of Lightroom mobile (5.4.1) for iOS and iPadOS has now been released which prevents this issue from affecting additional customers.
Installing version 5.4.1 will affect missing photos as preset reset for customers affected by the issue introduced in 5.4.0.
We know some customers have photos and presets that they cannot recover. We sincerely apologize to all customers affected by this issue.
Unfortunately, another affected customer shared on Reddit that they “lost 2+ years of photo editing.”
“I have spent the past 2 days with 4 services over 4 hours talking to and customer and they told me that the issue has no solution and that these lost photos are not recoverable,” the user wrote. “Adobe is sometimes unbelievable. All I got was a ‘we sincerely sorry’ and nothing else. 2+ years of photo editing are just gone by Adobe and all they give is a sorry, lmao. ”
FTC: We use revenue-generating links for auto-affiliate. More.
Check out 9to5Mac on YouTube for more Apple news:
