On Tuesday, Adobe apologized to users of its iOS Lightroom software after a recent update resulted in the permanent deletion of some presets and photos. The company says it’s issued a fix for the problem.
The bug was first flagged by PetaPixel on Thursday after it received complaints from readers about their photos disappearing. Numerous testimonials appeared on Adobe’s feedback forum describing the same situation. And Adobe soon confirmed that an update issued for Lightroom on iPhone and iPad was nuking irreplaceable photos and pricey professional presets for some users.
In a statement, Adobe wrote:
Some customers who updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing photos and/or presets. This affected customers using Lightroom mobile without a subscription to the Adobe cloud. It also affected Lightroom cloud customers with photos and presets that had not yet synced to the Adobe cloud.
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Installing version 5.4.1 will not restore missing photos or presets for customers affected by the problem introduced in 5.4.0.
Some customers affected by this issue might be able to use iPhone and iPad backups to recover photos and presets.
The company acknowledged that the loss of users’ digital property is upsetting and referred anyone with further questions to a forum FAQ.
It’s another reminder that digital goods can and will disappear, back it all up.