P: Book Module – Unfinished book vanishes

[dadod]

I’m creating my first Blurb book inside of Lightroom 4. There are some 175 images in my collection/filmstrip. I was about 80% complete with the book, when I selected an image to go into the Development Module for adjustments. When done I returned to the Book Module. But the book was gone! The filmstrip at the bottom of the page is there indicating images are in the book, but the book itself is empty with only a cover and two blank pages. If I add an already “used” image, the filmstrip counter goes from 1 to 2.

Trying to fix this problem, I backed up and optimized my catalog. But upon restarting Lightroom no change... and no book!

Any suggestions as how to get my book back? Or do I have to start over!

[dorin_nicolaescu]

Is it 4.0 or 4.1RC?

Release notes of 4.1RC say:

It was possible that a layout of a saved book could be lost after quitting Lightroom 4.

[john beardsworth]

I have hit this in 4.1RC and have filed a bug.

[rhaquephoto]

Update: I use Time Machine (Mac), so I was able to recover an earlier version. Damage was losing a hour worth of work. Looks like they've fixed the issue with Lightroom 4.1 RC, but broke the Flickr publishing service.

Loren, I feel your pain. I have a similar story:

I’m creating my Blurb book inside of Lightroom 4. There are 56 images in my collection/filmstrip. I was almost done with the book--was just updating the captions type format. All of a sudden, all the pages of the book were gone! The filmstrip at the bottom of the page is there indicating images are in the book (56), but the book itself is empty with only a cover and two blank pages. If I add an already “used” image, the filmstrip counter goes from 1 to 2. The book is listed in the Collection (listing 56).

A lot of work went into this, I really hope I can get the book back.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yes, beware making books in Lightroom 4: I'm working on several book projects and when I flip over to another book or library to copy, move or paste something I loose the book I'm working on. I am a regular user of Aperture and purchased Lightroom 4 mainly because of its Blurb Bookmaking capabilities. I'm running version 4.0 and the software update says this is the latest...

I've lost five hours of work today alone because of this. Be careful out there!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm working on several book projects and finished two successfully. Now when I flip over to another book or library to copy, move or paste something I loose the book I'm working on. After a bit of research I'm not alone. Here are links to folks experiencing the same issues:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4318253

I've lost five hours of work today. Beginning to loose faith and trust in Adobe!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Lightroom 4.1 still does not save changes in books.
I edit an existing book, then once LR4.1 is closed the changes seem to be lost.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Yep, the same thing that Malcom describes has been happening to me.

When working in the book module, moving from book to book or from book to another module, causes one, two, or sometimes all of my books' contents to vanish. Poof!

Not fun.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

In Lightroom 4.0 I was editing a photo book. When I reached page 25 or so, at the attempt to insert a photograph to a new page, lightroom stalled for some time and the book was gone. Any attempt to open it would only bring up a blank book beginning, although in the film stripe below all photos included in the missing book were marked with their number of appaerance in the book. For days I tryed everything I could think of to recover my book, without success.
Although everything had seemed to be quite straightforward (I have some experience with BookSmart) I thought I might have made some mistake that caused the disappearance of my book.
So I studied the book module manual and started anew, being carefull in all activities to build up the book again. And again at page 27 or so it disappeard under similar or identical conditions.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have exactly the same problem except I have already installed 4.1RC which was supposed to have fixed this issue. I recreated a book in 4.1Rc and instead of the book vanishing the program replaced the images with others from my library never even picked for the book. Very, very frustrating as i have now lost two full days of work.

[antonym7183371]

I have had serious concerns about the blurb and book module and |i set these out in a report which has not even beed acknowledged. Seems its low priority.

[john beardsworth]

It may be helpful to say where this report is.

[antonym7183371]

Its in this list, posted 11 days ago with title: lightroom.book module a real mess

[john beardsworth]

Adobe employees read all posts in this forum. Your http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh... is a different range of issues from the specific problem in this thread.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

When I am designing a book, and then need to do something else in LR, when I come back the changes are either lost completely or the layout changes are saved but 60% of the images in the book have been changed around / duplicated on other pages. Why can't I save a book so nothing happens to it while I do other things?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I finally finished my book using Lightroom 4.1RC. It was my third try so I was very familiar with the material. Never-the-less I moved very slowly and purposefully afraid that the next pen stroke might end in another total loss. It would appear that the"Create book" button has been removed from beneath the "Book" module. So after successfully transferring the job to Blurb I sought out the other button (i.e., Command S) and hit it. The book disappeared but did not show up in the list! I had no more time to fool with it so have not investigated further.
Tom Angell

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have had all these "loosing" of the book info as well. But, can always restoe it from a back-up. My problem this past week is that the book I have worked on will not publish to BLURB. Nor will it export to PDF. It just starts and does nothing. I have to cancel the job to end it. Does anyone have any ideas what I have done wront. I have LR4. Windows 7. 64 bit. Should I upgrade to 4.1RC? And, how do I do that?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

when changing panel from book to library and going back to book all the pictures are randomly substituted by only the last one arranged in the book layout

[dorin_nicolaescu]

Hi Janlai,

What Lightroom version are you running?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

4.0

[J453]

This problem should be addressed by the 4.1 update which was released today. Choose Help>Check for Updates... to install.

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

[Aktenschrank]

i have 4.1 installed, but had this issue today. Complete Book is gone after i chose a picture and changed to the Develop Module. Lost 2 weeks of work.

[john beardsworth]

Can you not restore a recent backup?

[antonym7183371]

Yes, I lost a book last week, having already installed 4.1. However I had made a duplicate the evening before and only lost the changes I had made since then- a real pain but not a disaster.
I have little faith in the stability of the book module and there are all sorts of other problems too with many of the features in the Blurb software missing. Great idea but quite dreadful execution by Adobe. I have made 13 Blurb books and am seriously considering returning to using Blurb's own programme even though I will lose the benefits of an integrated workflow.

[Aktenschrank]

unfortunately my last backup is two weeks old, i tried to save space on my SSD (not a good idea!).. changed it to backup whenever i exit lightroom now 🙂 However, it ́s still kind of unfortunate to experience this kind of frustrating bugs in a grown and established product.

[Joe_Caldwell]

Jeffrey,

> This problem should be addressed by the 4.1 update which
> was released today. Choose Help>Check for Updates... to install.

What you state isn't true. I am running Lightroom 4.1 and have just lost a very important book.

I don't think, as many users have stated, that the problem only occurs when one switches between two or more books. In my particular case I only had one book and it happened to me while I navigated between the book and library modules. I have been working day and night on a book that is very important. I took a week of vacation time and have dedicated all of it to this project only to find that as I approached the end of the project and was almost ready to send it for printing the book simply vanished.

Adobe has to release a solution for this problem. I have been a user of Adobe's creative suite since its release (CS1) and have used Bridge. Before that I was also using Adobe's products such as PageMaker and others. The suite is now in its 6th version (actually 7th if you consider CS 5.5) and Bridge is still plagued by many of the same bugs it had in its first version. Adobe is rushing to market with these products before they are properly developed and tested, using its customer base as paying beta testers. This is imoral and a betrayal of those who, like me, have been using the company's products consistently for many years (in my case decades).

When many of you mention trust and faith I can't help but to think that it doesn't apply to Lightroom's book module only, but it is a more generalized issue - it really applies to Adobe as a company and the approach it's been taking when developing its products. Are they going to come up with an answer and a solution that will help those of us recover the books we have lost ? I don't know and certainly hope so but based on their recent track record I honestly doubt it.

The one thing that comes to mind right now is 'Class Action Lawsuit'. This is what the company needs to change its approach. As soon as they are hit by a mega Class Action Lawsuit filed on behalf of numerous disatisfied customers who have experienced losses from their defective products Adobe will start to invest a little more time on properly developing their products and ensuring they aren't available for purchase until the company is certain everything is functioning as expected. There are numerous law firms out there that would love to take on a case such as this one involving a large corporation such as Adobe.

This issue aside, what can one do to recover the book that has been lost ? Is there some time of procedure, or tool, or protocol that will allow a missing book to be recovered ?

Thank you in advance.