A recent bug with Adobe Lightroom for iPhone and iPad caused photos and other settings to be erased upon updating. Those that installed the flawed version noticed the lost photos immediately. Naturally, complaints and requests for help were made to Adobe and hit social media quickly. Some users lost a significant amount of work due to the glitch and Adobe has made an official announcement about the event.
Adobe Lightroom, most known for Photoshop, is among the most popular professional photo enhancement apps, allowing non-destructive editing of images and specializing in working with RAW format photos. Lightroom was initially only available on desktop computers, but became available for iOS in 2015. The iOS and iPadOS apps are free, but have in-app purchases to unlock the full features and allow storing data in Lightroom Cloud. Lightroom Cloud prices are based on the amount of storage used. Most cloud services offer free storage of several gigabytes, before beginning to charge extra.
Adobe's statement came from an official representative who explained that "customers who updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing photos and presets that were not synced to the Lightroom cloud." Meaning any data that had already been synced is still there and can be retrieved after updating to the new version 5.4.1 that removes the bug. This does not, however, restore any data that had not been uploaded to Lightroom cloud yet. This was followed by, "We know that some customers have photos and presets that are not recoverable. We sincerely apologize to any customers who have been affected by this issue." Those that don't subscribe to Lightroom Cloud, or that had not synced recently, will be most affected by the problem.
How Adobe Customers Responded
Many professional photographers are loath to trust their work to the cloud and store one or more backup copies on physical drives or other storage media. IT experts, in fact, recommend one local backup and an additional off-site copy of any important files to prevent data loss due to fire or other unpredictable events. Some photographers, using this method, restored from physical backup storage and tried opening the flawed update again only to have photos cleared as before. So the bug seemed to be related to the app starting rather than a one time clean-up process that sometimes is necessary with app updates.
Whether the majority of Adobe customers will be satisfied and accept this as a forgivable offense isn't clear yet. Some take it upon themselves to backup data. At least a few have pursued the matter with Adobe customer service and received some token compensation in the form of extending the user’s subscription by seven days. It is recommended that anyone with Adobe Lightroom on their iPhone or iPad update to the latest 5.4.1 version before opening the app, as the latest version has been confirmed to be safe.
Source: Adobe