P: Book Module – Unfinished book vanishes

There is still a glitch somewhere that causes the loss of book work, now in LR 5.6 (Mac with OS 10.9.5)
I can only generally retrace the steps but will try to at least lay out a few details.
Working on a saved book of 180 images I switched unintentionally over to another collection for another book project which had all its assets off-line. I clicked on one of the pages to see if the preview would open up. It did not. I then went back to my active book project of 180 pages and the pages were there, page numbers were there but no images. Looking at the cover it turned out that the image was gone, the title was gone and instead I had the title for the off-line book. Sound like a magic trick? I tried backstepping in my work flow but to no avail. Because I work fast and have until now felt that LR had my back I never rule out making the stupid mistake unknowingly but I don't think this is the case here. No warnings of any kind appeared. Fortunately, I periodically upload my work to Blurb to see how it will look at a book so at least I can rebuild a good part of the sequence. I have still lost many hours of work but worse, confidence in this software.

Becky and Jeffrey,

I regret to tell you that the issue is NOT fixed in Lightroom 4.3 -- or, perhaps, that a new but similar bug has popped up.

I've just lost my book in LR 4.3. I've posted about my experience elsewhere, but I think this is where I should be posting so I will repeat it here. (Also, incidentally, I called Adobe tech support about the issue today, and they were incredibly uninformed. You might want to look into that, too.)

I've been working on a Blurb book in Lightroom, initially 4.2 and 4.3 since the weekend (Win 32). I have never (knowingly) used mixed-color text in a single box, so it doesn't seem to be the same trigger.

I'd saved the book at the very beginning as a Book Collection. That collection contained the layout and picture/page captions, along with about 150 pictures. I'd been starting and stopping LR several times a day and never had trouble finding my book, either waiting for me in the Book Module or by clicking the "Go To Book" arrow next to the Book Collection.

Today I wanted to add some other pictures to the book that weren't already in the Book Collection. I went back to the Library and dragged several dozen other pictures into the Book Collection. Then I thought, why not, let me drag all my 2500+ pictures into the Book Collection so I can have easy access to the lot while working on the book. When I clicked back on the Book Collection, though, all I saw in the Book Module main panel were a blank cover and two blank pages. But -- strange -- the pictures that I know were already placed into the book layout still showed the "1" label in the filmstrip, indicating that they were in the book layout somewhere. I just couldn't see any of that layout. Control Z didn't help. Restarting LR didn't make a difference, as it was said to with the earlier bug.

None of this is reproducible, though. I tried making a brand-new Book Collection and retracing the steps I mentioned above, but that book didn't disappear. So I don't think those steps were the cause of the disappearance, but I wanted to paint a picture for you of what was happening before the book disappeared. (I'd paint a picture of what happened AFTER the book disappeared, but it's ugly and involves words that would get me in trouble if I repeated here.)

I'm attaching a screenshot of what I see now when I open my Book Collection. Note the empty layout (blue circle) and the filmstrip shields showing plenty of pictures that are supposed to be in the layout (red circle).



As an aside, the workflow for creating and saving books is unintuitive, besides being fatally buggy. I should be able to save my book layout as a preset or as a layout "recipe," unrelated to the collection of photos that happen to be associated with the book. Maybe allow me to make a layout and it creates a smart collection containing all pictures that are currently in the book, but giving me access to the entire library (or to any other collection) for adding pictures to the book from. When I add or remove pictures from the book, that should be reflected in the collection automatically. But -- key -- I should still be able to see my whole library or any collection while working on the book. In other words, just as LR separates the concepts of photo negatives from photo developing recipes, you should also separate the concepts of book layout from book contents.

It is still a Release Candidate - hopefully will go prime time soon

Hey,

it also just happened to me. Photo book module does not show any image in the book, I was working on. Thumbnils in the strip are shown. I was changing the color of the title before (the only text so far), but cannot tell, if this caused the issue. I switched definitely between modules in between. I did not get any warning or message. I am on Lightroom 4.2.
I tried to duplicate the book, export it ... nothing.
Would upgrading to 4.3 solve this problem?

Hope you can help me...
Thanks! Ben

Can you recall what exactly were you doing when the photos have disappeared (like typing text, formatting text, switching modules etc.)?

Did you receive any warning/error messages?

4.2

What version are you running?

HELP! I'm 65 pages into a book and none of the pictures are showing up in their cells. Formatting , text is all there. No images. My LR4 is up to date and I'm not using multiple texts, or text color. What should I do?

Hi Matt,

The cause of the vanishing books involves using different text colors within the same text cell. If you don't have multiple text colors in your book, you should be safe.

I would recommend updating to Lightroom 4.2 to be even safer. This Lightroom Journal blog post describes how Lightroom 4.2 can help: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, the public RC of Lightroom 4.3 is now available on labs. The bug is fixed in Lightroom 4.3. I know not everyone is willing to install a pre-production version of software, so I understand if that is the case for you. Just trying to present you with all your options so you can make the choice that suits you best.

Regarding the PDF saving issue, please post back if it still happens for you in Lightroom 4.2 (or 4.3, if you choose to go that route).

Becky