P: Adjustment brush stops working after deleting photo

[Bob Somrak]

I have created a NEW post because of the MANY other posts about this problem.

I have seen several posts on the Lightroom forum and this Photoshop Family forum of the adjustment brush stops working.  Many of these were unsolved.   A recent post on the Lightroom forum has a REPEATABLE scenario to make the adjustment brush stop working. See here in posts #9, 10 and 11  https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2082068

The scenario is as follows and as the forum post shows happens on Windows and Mac.

Use the Adjustment Brush
Remove any photo - chose Delete from Disk
Adjustment brush stops working (no new pins, can't select old pins, nothing in history)
Select Spot Tool and create random spot/heal and immediately delete spot/heal
Select Adjustment Brush and the Adjustment Brush will start working again.

This behavior is completely REPEATABLE.

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

What operating system are you using? I've just tried to reproduce on 10.11 and it's working as expected, but it's possible that there's an additional step that's not listed.

My steps were:
Import photos on desktop
Add adjustment brush squiggle
Remove photo, set to Delete from Desk
Add another adjustment brush squiggle - works as expected, without needing to go near the spot tool.

[Bob Somrak]

Hi Victoria,

I am using OS X 10.11.6 and LrCC 2015.6.1.   As you can see from the link I provided it apparently happens on Windows too.  I just did a computer restart and it still happen on a TOTALLY REPEATABLE basis.   There are several threads where the adjustment brush stops working and is NOT related to flow/density.  In this case you can not even select an existing brush dot or create a new brush area.   

[Bob Somrak]

Hi again Victoria,

Considering it works for you I decided to try and reset the preferences and try it.  The adjustment brush still quits working as in my original message even with the preference reset.  Please see my previous post to this thread for info on my OS and Lr version.   I also have other info there.  I forgot to reply directly to you.  Sorry.

[JimKiefer]

I'm having this same issue, for many months.  Steps to recreate:

Start Lightroom (if not already started)
Remove any photo - chose Delete from Disk (I never use the remove from catalog option)
Adjustment brush won't work - can't drop a pin, can't see old pins, nothing gets added to history. 

After it stops working, there are multiple workarounds to get it working again - any one of the below is enough to get it working again.  I'm assuming there could be more workarounds. 

Restart Lightroom
Turn off & Turn back on brush adjustment (or turn off and undo)
The spot tool approach mentioned by the OP

My current LR version: CC / 2015.6.1 Release / Camera Raw 9.6 (but had been happening with LR5 and maybe earlier - don't recall exactly when it started)

My current O/S: Windows 10, 64 bit (but happened on Win 7, 64 bit as well)

Like OP said, not related to flow / density.  Optimizing does not help, nor does turning off gpu acceleration. 

I can post my system info if anyone wants to see it. 

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

Don't worry, I'm not questioning that it's a bug. I just can't repeat it yet, and if I can't repeat it, then the engineers may well have problems doing so too - and if they can't repeat it, they can't fix it. There's obviously something different, but the trick will be figuring out what that is.

[Guest]

 I'm not questioning that it's a bug. I just can't repeat it yet, and if I can't repeat it, then the engineers may well have problems doing so too - and if they can't repeat it in my logo design web, they can't fix it. There's obviously something different, but the trick will be figuring out what that is.

[Jim Wilde]

I had a go at producing the problem as well, Victoria, but without much success. I did once or twice get the Adjustment Brush to lock up, but with no repeatable pattern. In the main, on both OSX and Windows 10, everything worked as expected apart from those one or two lock-ups (though even with those the problem was easily cleared without having to restart anything). There's probably a bug in there, but as you say the engineers may have trouble finding it.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I can repro this on Win10.  I will log it in. 

[Bob Somrak]

My system info is 

2015 Imac I7 16gb ram SSD  OSX 10.11.6   LrCC2015.6.1

2010 Imac 8gb ram Spinner HD   Recently did a CLEAN install of 10.11.6 and only programs are Photoshop CC and LrCC2015.6.1

Both machines will reproduce the problem EVERY time I try it.

At least the work-around is very easy : )

[JimKiefer]

Thanks Rikk!

[J453]

This issue should be addressed by today's update: http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjournal/2016/09/lightroom-cc-2015-7-now-available.html

[JimKiefer]

Hooray!!  Seems to be fixed now in 2015.7. 🙂 🙂 🙂