Adobe has allowed a recent update of its popular Lightroom photo editing app for iOS devices to permanently delete user photos and custom preset filters if they do not pay for a subscription to sync their files to the Adobe cloud.
As detected by PetaPixel, Lightroom users with iPhones and iPads started complaining about lost photos and custom preset filters on the Photoshop feedback forum this week, after affected users installed the Lightroom 5.4 update for iOS.
An Adobe representative responded to the complaints and confirmed that after updating the app, “photos and presets that are out of sync with the Lightroom cloud may be missing”.
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In other words, if customers did not sync their photos and presets with the Adobe cloud before installing the app update, they would probably lose a large portion of photo memories simply by installing the software update.
Adobe representative Rikk Flohr also confirms the worst fears of users, and notifies them on the forum that they will never get their unsynchronized photos again.
“We know some customers have photos and presets that cannot be recovered. We apologize to all customers affected by this issue,” Flohr wrote.
He confirmed that everything stored in Adobe’s Cloudroom is completely secure and intact. However, the Lightroom app for Android, Lightroom desktop on macOS and Windows, and Lightroom Classic were not affected by Adobe’s bug.
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In addition to the botched update, the main issue is whether users have paid for a Lightroom subscription. One poor Lightroom user claimed on Reddit that they had lost two years of editing photos. As a non-professional photographer, Reddit user Extraccount-13 decided against buying a paid Lightroom subscription that includes cloud synchronization and storage.
“I do photography as a hobby, so I never saw a need to take photos and I never paid for the subscription (which would include cloud storage) because I did not use any tools that came with the subscription,” wrote Extraccount -13.
“I’ve been talking to customer service 4+ hours for the past two days and just a minute ago they told me that the problem has not been repaired and that these lost photos cannot be returned.”
Unfortunately for non-paying Lightroom mobile users who are cautious enough to make their digital assets, Adobe has not provided backup functionality offline in the mobile app. Lightroom mobile users have complained to the Photoshop forum about the lack of an offline backup option.
In all likelihood, Adobe would prefer that users opt for a paid subscription to enable cloud synchronization instead of giving users a way to take photos for a local storage device.
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Anyone who did not install the photo-wiping update now has a secure version for iOS, 5.4.1, which does not delete photos and users pre-set filters.
However, installing the Lightroom mobile 5.4.1 will not cause the deleted photos and presets caused by the previous update.
ZDNet has asked Adobe for comment and will update this article if it receives a response.
