Adobe Issues Lightroom Update and Apology to Address Crash Issues

Adobe Issues Lightroom Update and Apology to Address Crash Issues

After Monday's release of Lightroom, many users were upset to find the release had seen changes that removed features and worse, had a tendency to crash, rendering it essentially unusable. Today, Adobe has released an update that corrects the crash issue, as well as an apology.The recent changes to Lightroom included a simplification of the "Import" dialog that saw the loss of several features that seasoned users relied on, including the ability to automatically eject a memory card after an import was finished and to move photos to a new directory when importing from a hard drive. On the other hand, many Mac users found their work sidelined when the program became unresponsive and crashed, sometimes after less than a minute of usage. 

Today, Adobe issued an update, version 2015.2.1/6.2.1, which should eliminate the crash issue for those who were experiencing instability. Fstoppers tried the new version today, putting it through the normal paces of importing and editing photos and found it to be stable. Comments on Adobe's blog seem to support that stability has indeed been restored. The missing features were not reinstated in this version, however.

Adobe also issued an apology to its users, indicating that the bug was a result of the changes to the import process, but because the bug was not readily reproducible, its scope was not understood before the release. They also addressed the changes to the import process, indicating that they were done with the intention of improving user experience, but that by not communicating well with customers, there had been a breakdown:

Lightroom was created in 2006 via a 14 month public beta in a dialog with the photography community. In making these changes without a broader dialog I’ve failed the original core values of the product and the team. The team will continue to work hard to earn your trust back in subsequent releases and I look forward to reigniting the type of dialog we started in 2006.

I spoke with Adobe today and found them to be both forthright about this week's issues and strongly determined to fix and improve the product as quickly as possible. Certainly, reestablishing Lightroom's stability is a step in the right direction.

Download the update here: Mac | Windows

[via Adobe]

Alex Cooke's picture

Alex Cooke is a Cleveland-based portrait, events, and landscape photographer. He holds an M.S. in Applied Mathematics and a doctorate in Music Composition. He is also an avid equestrian.

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14 Comments

When will software companies realize that removing features is seldom a good idea?

I must say that I am not one little bit impressed with Adobe's response or their subtle attempt to look honorable here. This wasn't some sort of oversight on their part. This was a conceded effort to change the look, functionality and feel of the import function of Lightroom. This was intentional and with purpose. The only thing they messed up on was the fact that so many people would be pissed. But that isn't something to applaud and think that somehow Adobe realizes their mistake. They have no idea of the mistake, only that people are mad. There is a difference....and Adobe doesn't really seem to get it. Hopefully, or at least I am trying to be positive here, Adobe gets there act together and start producing what we all know they are capable of.

Majority of the crashes occurred with Macs using OSX El Capitan. The program would crash during Exporting, when merging photo in Panorama and basically after a minute or so of opening the program. It was THAT bad.

As a software developer myself, my clients sometimes want to remove or drastically change a feature. I often make the change as a configurable option, or via an undocumented series of keystrokes. At the very least I keep the old feature around so that it can be re-implemented later. It's saved me more than once. Sometimes I use the software myself on a regular basis in the old mode.

Is it also available for the CC as the update does not show up in the CC menu on Mac

Yes it's available for Macs. You can access the update from LR itself or from the Creative Cloud App. Otherwise, try restarting your Mac. The update on mine didn't appeared until I restarted my Mini.

or just waive the next monthly CC subscription fee.

if only there's a better alternative to their programs then people won't be whining over the crashes and the changes Adobe made.

you haven't done the update so I don't see why you keep rambling about a topic you didn't experienced first hand. and the issues didn't occur only to the rented software, it happened also to the standalone version. kindly read other forums regarding this before dissing out other people's comment about the issue so you can be updated first before you even open your mouth (or type on your keyboard).

Unsolicited advice? which part of that was unsolitcited? I mentioned it was THAT bad for OSX El Capitan versions because I was one of those who initially thought that the update will bring better perfomance to their 6.1 version of LR. If you haven't heard, LR is lagging behind its other competitors so any new updates provides some hope that whatever amount I'm paying Adobe gets justified.

Of course, "it" didn't happen to you since you didn't updated your version yourself. And to spare you the frustration and breaking your computing environment, 6.2 update also gave THE SAME issues to Windows users.

You keep on blabbering about these shit and keep on giving opinions about something you haven't really experienced first hand? IMO, that shit's ain't funny. Whatever you're snorting, stop it so you can actually start giving a well thought out comment. Please do everyone in this community a big favor and for once, comment something that actually makes sense. Everyone's sick and tired of your sarcasm in this community.

Ok... This particular sub-thread is done. No more comments.

Adobe apologized for the crashes and not communicating well (really not communicating AT ALL) that they were removing functions, but made NO indication that they were putting those back. At least some indication that they would look into or strongly consider that option would have been helpful. We are still left wondering what heck happened to our ability to import for our needs and if we will ever get that back. The only option right now is to go back to the old version and wait and see what and if Adobe does anything further and how long it will take.

I feel bad for anyone that inadvertently became a beta tester for this update. I've worked for a software company (just down the road from Adobe) for almost ten years, and would never be the first to install any update.

Guess Adobe never heard about New Coke.