Jeffrey Friedl's Blog details a potentially heartbreaking bug in Adobe Lightroom 5 that could conceivably cause you to unintentionally delete master copies of your files—maybe without even realizing it. The "Silent Killer" Bug.
"Bug" is such a small, innocent word. In the auto industry, there are recalls, and there are recalls. One might be because one corner of a floor mat starts to fray on a very small number of cars. Another might be because copious numbers of the affected vehicles are spontaneously erupting in three-story-tall James-Bond-movie fireballs if you tap the wrong place with a ball-peen hammer.
Okay, I'm exaggerating. But thus with bugs: it's a range. My conception of photography is that there is an awful lot of dross and only a little gold—so the rare "hits" you get amongst all the "almosts" become precious; a lot of not-quites go into one genuine success. This bug strikes us as at least shading into the catastrophic end of the range—anything that can end up in the accidental loss of one of those rare, precious, and needed files is very bad behavior on the part of processing software indeed. BEWARE!!!
At least it's not as bad as the 2000 Multidata Systems International bug at the National Cancer Institute in Panama City, Panama, which caused software to miscalculate radiation dosages for patients undergoing radiation therapy. That bug resulted in eight deaths and severe radiation overdoses to at least 20 other patients—and led to the doctors, who were contractually bound to double-check the dosage calculations manually, being indicted for murder.
So, okay—could be worse. But still. Tell your friends.
Mike
(Thanks to Michael Tapes)
UPDATE wednesday a.m.: We heard from the Product Manager of the Adobe Lightroom Team, Sharad Mangalick, who says, "We're well aware of this particular issue and are assessing potential options, but I just want to point out a workaround: When viewing images in the Publish Service panel within the Library Module, ensure that you are selecting images using the Filmstrip. This will ensure that the correct images are selected."
Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Kenneth Tanaka: "This is unquestionably a potentially hazardous bug that Jeffrey was well justified in calling out last June. It needs to be fixed before the next official release. That said, it certainly does not merit the blanket condemnation of LR. I've always used the Export facility to send images online, and never the newer more push-button Publish facility, and have never encountered a problem."
Mike replies: I was assuming that LR users (of whom I am not one) would care to read the entire piece at the link, and was perhaps remiss in not pointing out that it continues over four pages, through several "Continued here..." links at the bottom of each page. The last update is dated August 2nd concludes that the bug is not fixed in LR 5.2 as even he originally reported.
I absolutely don't agree that this is not very serious. Maybe for you software ninjas it is not, but for ordinary schmoes like me who struggle with software and its Byzantine complexity, the idea of being innocently led into doing something serious to your own archive while a) not meaning to and b) not being aware of it after it's done is the kind of thing I live in horror of. I did it once in 2003, and the memory still stings.
The fact that it lurks in an out-of-the-way corner of the program and is seldom encountered makes it worse, not better, because it increases the chance of accident whereas a front-and-center bug would be better publicized and more widely understood. Serious indeed.
ADDENDUM from Kenneth Tanaka: "It is noteworthy that Adobe lists this as a 'top issue' onits Adobe Labs developmental site. So it has their attention."
daniel francisco valdez: "I was bit by this bug...when I deleted a virtual copy, the original file was also deleted from my hard drive! Luckily I had exported a 16-bit TIFF and I had the original unformatted SD card. I downloaded and installed his plugin so I feel confident deleting files again. Coincidentally, I have been using his Export to Zenfolio plugin since day one and have been supremely satisfied with it and with his update schedule."
Michel: "Back up! It might make an interesting article to cover backup strategies for hobby photographers. Just a thought."
Bojidar replies to Michel: "I've written such an article here. I would be very happy if Mike republishes it and if people help me extend the article and turn it into an active Internet reference.
"Same thing with the article 'Best Practices' for photographers about image security while on the road, available here."
Well, I'm glad I haven't gotten around to updating yet...
Posted by: Craig | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 10:24 AM
To err is human, but to really screw things up you need a ripping fast processor.
Posted by: Jock Elliott | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 10:29 AM
Thanks for the warning. Note that this bug is mentioned as "still in Lightroom 5", implying it has been there a while.
I don't generally use publish services, I prefer to manage what I want to publish to Flickr manually, outside of Lightroom. So I've not run ino this bug.
Posted by: Godfrey | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 10:31 AM
More detail about how the bug comes about? Is it just a missing warning dialog? Is it a serious glitch if you hold down cmd+alt+7 (I made that up - don't know if that does anything) or what?
Posted by: Mark Cotter | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 10:34 AM
I used to write software. There are no "bugs", they are defects.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 10:57 AM
When I was getting my radiation treatments, I was tempted to wear my dosimeter from work to verify the dose - though I would have had to wear it in an, uh, unusual location. But I am sure the Radiation Protection folks would not have appreciated that.
Posted by: KeithB | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 11:20 AM
If you don't have a backup strategy in place, this would be a very good time to start. IMHO, to be even moderately sane, you need AT LEAST three copies of every file.
Posted by: Bill Tyler | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 11:25 AM
I've a lot of respect for Jeffrey, but I consider he's screaming too loudly about an obscure and unlikely conjunction of events. It means people don't read his "In any case, I continue to find what's new in Lr5 indispensable, and I heartily recommend it".
Posted by: john | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 01:15 PM
"Note that this bug is mentioned as "still in Lightroom 5", implying it has been there a while." According to the August1 update note, it's "still" there from the LR 5 beta.
I never use those "publish" services, so I'm safe.
Posted by: Ed Hawco | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 01:23 PM
Photo Bug -
http://www.efn.org/~hkrieger/a443.jpg
Posted by: Herman Krieger | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 01:44 PM
Glad I'm still using LR3....
Posted by: rnewman | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 01:44 PM
This also goes along with the bug of not applying sharpening to images when exporting them if they are certain sizes. This bug has not been fixed yet either. Still staying with LR4 for this reason.
Posted by: Scott Jones | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 04:12 PM
Mike,
I think if you're going to pass on a two and a half month old item about a bug, it's incumbent on you to also pass on any news around about what is being done about the bug. In this case Adobe released a release candidate of the fix for this and a few other bugs in LR5 some weeks ago . The actual maintenance release should be coming out fairly soon since the RC has now been out for a while.
It is important that people should know that there is a bug, but it's just as important that they know what is currently happening when the info being given about the bug is as old as it is.
[Hi David, All the information is there in the link, if you follow the further links at the bottom of each page. --Mike]
Posted by: David Aiken | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 04:28 PM
Back up!
Mike, it might make an interesting article to cover backup strategies for hobby photographers. Just a thought.
Posted by: Michel | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 04:53 PM
This is one possible result of the "creeping featurism" bloat that inflates programs into realms far beyond what's reasonable. I remember Lightroom 1 came in one file of 30 or 40 MB. It was clean and fast. I'm going to stick with LR 4 for quite a while.
Posted by: Randy Cole | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 06:22 PM
Note to self: learn appropriate radiation doses if I ever get cancer... Bad enough when cancer kills you, but when the treatment does!?! My photos are backed up on two separate systems, be nice to know my oncologist was verifying radiation dosages on another program, huh? Yikes.
Posted by: Jim A. | Tuesday, 20 August 2013 at 11:53 PM
Hi Mike,
My name is Sharad Mangalick and I'm a Product Manager on the Lightroom team. We're well aware of this particular issue and are assessing potential options, but I just want to point out a workaround:
- When viewing images in the Publish Service panel within the Library Module, ensure that you are selecting images using the Filmstrip. This will ensure that the correct images are selected.
Feel free to shoot me any follow up questions by contacting me on twitter @smangalick
Thanks,
Sharad
Posted by: Sharad Mangalick (@smangalick) | Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 12:31 AM
The moral of the story? Create and manage your own filing system, and don't rely on a computer programmer you've never met to do it for you. If you are even halfway organised you'll usually find it easier to locate the older stuff that way as well.
Posted by: Barry Reid | Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 01:15 AM
I am not diminishing the due criticism for this issue, but I think it needs to be placed in proper context: it is an issue when you have selected images in one of the two possible ways, within a dedicated module of the program which may not be used at all (as others have commented already).
Lightroom has a lively and demanding body of users, and is inherently complex by its nature... after all, this has the capacity to completely handle electronic images more or less end-to-end.
So there are a lot of opportunities for problems to emerge, and a lot of extremely close and critical monitoring for these problems by end users - which is a good thing.
If you dip your cup into (for example) user forums, as with many products, in fact - then you may come away with the impression that Lightroom is riddled with problems, or even fundamentally flawed in its principles.
The thing is: the better the product, the more "let down" people feel where it misses the mark - and thus, the more passionate their complaints.
There will be users who are not affected materially by these complained-of issues... but there is much less incentive and motivation to report that online - they will tend to be under-represented. This is partly because if they do present their own experiences, they may be accused of being shills or fanboys (or whatever the currently favoured slur may be). It is mainly because, they have no reason to participate in online discussions of the product at all; they can just get on with using it.
Of course, there are also people who seize on every specific problem, in support of a view that the product is generally unsatisfactory; or merely, that it ought to be unrealistically flawless.
Posted by: richardplondon | Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 05:36 AM
I hadn't gotten around to upgrading to LR4 and think I may not for awhile. Unlikely I would encounter either of above mentioned bugs but I'm quite happy with LR4, 'open in' PS and plugins.
Posted by: Diane Fields | Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 09:46 AM
I've been using LR since it started. One of the nice things about well-designed "complex" software is that you can choose to operate it in a non-complex way.
For me, in Lightroom, that means:
View it(Library)
Develop it.
Print it.
VERY occasionally, Export a file.
Personally, I have never even opened or looked at the thing that says "Publish"
Also, it should be impossible in the described scenario to lose images, since the files are already copied to other HDDs that LR doesn't even know about....riiiight?
Should the defect be fixed? Of course. But editing with the only available copy of a file is, well, shall we say- Ill advised!
Posted by: Keith B | Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 01:39 PM
Always remember to check the contents of your Trash/Recycle Bin before emptying it.
Posted by: Andrew Webb | Wednesday, 21 August 2013 at 02:33 PM