Experiencing performance related issues in Lightroom 4.x

[BCormier]

Anyone else notice that lightroom 4 is slow? Ligtroom 3 always ran fast on my system but Lightroom 4 seemlingly lags quite a bit.

My system is:

2.10 ghz Intel Core i3 Sandy Bridge

8 GB Ram

640 GB Hard Drive

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Message title was edited by: Brett N

[rpavich1234]

I understand you have a problem -- some number of people do, but the majority do not.  Read all the various forums (adobe, nikoneans, ...) and you will find that the majority do not have these problems.

So the basic S/W is not the issue, so it must be some relationship to the environment its running in.

Two things:

How in the world would you know what percentage are having problems other than a wild guess?

Second question: IF the majority (51%) of users aren't having issues then the software isn't at fault?

That's very poor logic.

[andreas603]

Time for me to chime in...Dennis, this forum's thread is entitled "Experiencing performance issues in LR 4.x" not "LR works for me" thus the thread is intended to 1)report; 2) inform; 3)drive dialog to improve.  If you dont have a prob with LR congratulations...go somewhere else.  If you do, and you have any energy left, keep reporting and don't forget to also post in the forum that Adobe 'officially' looks at too...this forum is user to user.

[Keith Reeder]

andreas603 wrote:

Time for me to chime in...Dennis, this forum's thread is entitled "Experiencing performance issues in LR 4.x"

Andreas, the forum title is clearly intended (if not appropriately punctuated) as a quiestion, in which case, Dennis' response is entirely on topic and appropriate.

How in the world would you know what percentage are having problems other than a wild guess?

.

.

.

That's very poor logic.

OK, you want logic?

How many tens - or hundreds - of thousands of Lr licences do you think Adobe has sold? And yes, I'm confident about the magnitude of sales - I might even be on the low side.

If the majority of those tens - or hundreds - of thousands had the problems some people on here are encountering, the internet would grind to a halt (yes, hyperbole to make a point) under the weight of posts complaining about how bad Lr is.

And we're simply not seeing it. Instead we're seeing a few people - here and in any other forum you might care to visit - with issues. The Silent Majority speak very eloquently with their silence about their experience of Lr...

[rpavich1234]

OK, you want logic?

How many tens - or hundreds - of thousands of Lr licences do you think Adobe has sold? And yes, I'm confident about the magnitude of sales - I might even be on the low side.

If the majority of those tens - or hundreds - of thousands had the problems some people on here are encountering, the internet would grind to a halt (yes, hyperbole to make a point) under the weight of posts complaining about how bad Lr is.

And we're simply not seeing it. Instead we're seeing a few people - here and in any other forum you might care to visit - with issues. The Silent Majority speak very eloquently with their silence about their experience of Lr...

I guess you've assumed several things; including now how many of the users having problems are complaining and how much bandwidth it takes to post something like this......

Just say..I'm making some wild guesses and don't know but here is what I guess.....

that's fine with me.

[dwterry]

I have seen many people in Facebook groups (where I mostly hang out) and on Google+ complain about the speed of Lightroom 4.x.  Most of whom would never bother to come here to say anything at all. 

So I think this is a very poor argument. 

If you want to through out wild numbers, my guess is that you get less than 10% of the customers with problems who will take the time to contact Adobe to complain.  Instead, everyone else will complain to their friends and post in public forums about how bad it is so that everyone else will know what they are suffering through.

It gives Adobe a black eye and Adobe might not even know it.

For what it's worth ... I'm one of those that saw a huge drop in performance going from 3.6 to 4.x.  That was true all the way from 4.0 to 4.2RC.  Without changing anything on my side, the 4.2 release is functioning much better than any other 4.x release did (including 4.2RC).  I still wish 4.2 was as fast as 3.6, but maybe one just can't have his cake and eat it too.

[quenton8]

andreas603 wrote:

Time for me to chime in...Dennis, this forum's thread is entitled "Experiencing performance issues in LR 4.x" not "LR works for me" thus the thread is intended to 1)report; 2) inform; 3)drive dialog to improve.  If you dont have a prob with LR congratulations...go somewhere else.  If you do, and you have any energy left, keep reporting and don't forget to also post in the forum that Adobe 'officially' looks at too...this forum is user to user.

Presumably not having a problem might allow me to have something constructive to say.  I have pointed out where, being in the S/W and Systems industry, I have seen similar kinds of problems and what kinds of solutions there were.

I have also suggested that people pull all their USB (and any other) peripherals that are not 100% necessary to testing LR performance.  It may be that the poster I was responding to HAD done that, but I have had a number of people here and on other forums state that "they aren't going to do that kind of thing" -- well its what we have to do sometimes to resolve similar problems.  You have to figure out WHAT before you can "fix" it.

I have tried repeatedly to make constructive suggestions.    I would LOVE to go to someones home or business who has such a problem and work at it with them.   Just because I don't have the problem doesn't mean I am not sympathetic -- what I do NOT sympathize with is statements that LR itself is at fault when most people do NOT have a problem.  And yes, most people do not -- if they did, forums like Nikoneans, and NAAP would be screaming and they are not, just a few mumbles from a small number.

[quenton8]

Further on "I don't have a problem so why am I posting here" ...

I missed one example -- on another forum someone finally DID remove all peripherals -- they had an old

scanner which responded "I am a disk drive" but then froze for periods of time when accessed as such.

Removing that solved the problem and brought LR4 up to the speed of LR3

So why did LR3 not have the problem?  If LR3 and LR4 were identical internally then LR4 would have worked the same as LR3 but

then all the functionality would be the same too.  Assuming that because its LRx that if LR3 was fine then LR4 should be fine is

an invalid assumption.

[Guest]

Dennis,

I honestly don't like your logic very much. Let me put it in a different way:

What is LR 4.x? It is a LR 3.6 with the last ACR (and a bit of makeup -geotagging, blurb) (yes, there are a couple other nice things like softproofing, I upgraded so I don't need to be sold on that). Now, Lightroom 3.6 works great on my system and so does the last ACR but the mix (LR 4.x) doesn't work. Are you still going to tell me that it is my fault that the "old scanner" or my toothpaste are upsetting LR 4.x?

For someone that works in S/W industry, it looks bad to state things like "if it doesn't happen to everybody then it is not the software fault but the system itself". I could not disagree more with that. Sometimes we get the flu but we don't show it like others, some sneeze and have fever, some just feel a bit off for a couple of days.

I give you more examples. One of the suggestions (and solutions to some) is to unplug colour calibrators (especially if they do constant ambient light monitoring). But, hold on a second, we are talking about a software built and made for professional photographers that cannot work with basic and well known photographers hardware? What is next? Sorry, LR cannot read anything but DNG and PSD? I mean, I could understand maybe needing to unplug my phone, but my calibrator? my printer or scanner? Seriously?

It is poor programming of LR. Like I've said before, what's the use of having a Ferrari if it cannot go faster than 50 km/h? That's LR 4.x, lots of whistles and bells but in real life, in my real life, it is just a piece of c...

I run LR 3.6 on a 5 or 6 year old notebook with only one harddrive (only 10 GB free) reading photos out of a slow external HD and that runs faster than LR 4.x running alone on a i7 3.0 GHz with 24 GB Ram, 1 Gb VRam, dedicated RAID for the photos, dedicated HD for the system and dedicated scratch HD: 40 seconds to load a preview? really?

Let's put a different spin on this: (and I have said something similar before)

I think that more than 7 or 8 months ago LR 4.0 was released to the public. Many, or even some, let's say, like me, had problems with it. Well, problems are still standing, Adobe, of course didn't give any refund on the poor software they sold, their Technical support (that is not free) doesn't know what to answer when confronted with the problem, there is no official statement anywhere and there is not even a note on LR main page letting users know that despite meeting the minimum requirements, LR could have some problems.

If you would buy a car where 1 in every 1000, let's say, could put you in danger and the company wouldn't say anything about it, you would sue the heck out of that company. But wait, there is more, if the company were to find that there is a problem that could make the car not work properly then they would recall it.

But in the world of the bits and bytes, everything works different: They sell you a piece of crap, you cannot return it once it is opened and nobody will sue (unless it is Apple of course... "just kidding" -in case Apple decides to sue me for that statement) and nobody needs to say anything about it, or make a note about it (unless it is Microsoft... people always make a big deal when they screw up something)

So here we are, on the biggest Lightroom thread in Adobe forums dealing with a problem that is just in our heads (because there is only "a few" of us with it) where people keep insisting in mutilate our computers to see if it works a bit better, where the company causing the trouble doesn't bother to: 1- give an official statement, 2- Apologize to "the few" of us having the problem, where Adobe's staff only show up once in a while to say things that are absolutely useless and even insulting.

Yes, I think that is a good summary. And yes, I am upset, and frustrated and disappointed. I am stuck with LR for many thousands of photos (especially the ones that I, stupidly, converted to DNG), but I am making sure to modify my workflow to eliminate LR from the equation.

I leave you with one of my favourite LR 4.2 "quotes"

[areohbee]

uphotography wrote:

This is evidence of a bug in Lightroom - no doubt about it. However it's a bug that I am not running into (and probably a bug the developers aren't seeing much either...).

I understand your frustration, but you continue to put words into people's mouths that they are not saying.

Adobe says (paraphrasing): "we are having a hard time reproducing the problems in the lab that are being experienced in the field".

That's different than saying "it's yours or your computer's fault" or "Lightroom doesn't have bugs".

I'm not an Adobe defender. In fact, I have my own pet aggravations with their insufficient attempts at addressing Lr's issues. In my case, it's not performance, but other bugs and ommissions I am running into, which you may not be.

You want the truth?

At $79 an upgrade times the number of upgrades (dunno price for entry now), there just isn't enough money to make it better than it is. Having problems? - tough tiddies... - they're doing the best they can given the profit margin they must maintain to stay in business and beat the competition... - you don't like it? - then use a different software package...

I wish they'd added 50% to the price instead of reducing it, and fortified development efforts, but they didn't - au contrare: they reduced the price, and if I had to guess, probably tightened up the belt around the development staff too. You probably won't agree with this, but I suspect they know their business better than you or I, whether it seems like it or not from your or my point of view. - that's not defending them, it's just stating what probably is a fact...

Having problems with Lightroom performance? - there are bugs yet to be fixed, and something you haven't tried yet in order to dodge them... - not saying you are technically qualified to do so, or should have to, or have the inclination or time & money..., I'm just sayin'...

~R.

[DavePinMinn]

I've been staying out of this for the last while 'cause I figure there's not much point in continuing to beat the dead horse...  For me, bottom line, a bunch of people bought LR4.  For many (1%, 10%, 90%) of them it works adequately.  For some - whether 1%, 10%, or 49% - there are a variety of performance issues. It's convenient to blame PCs, Windows, poltergeist, cosmic rays or whatever, but the bottom line is that there's a group of purchasers that are having problems either as new users, or who didn't have problems with the previous version (after enough releases that V3 worked adequately).

And so far, there's been very little response from Adobe.  So:

You want the truth?

At $79 an upgrade times the number of upgrades (dunno price for entry now), there just isn't enough money to make it better than it is. Having problems? - tough tiddies... - they're doing the best they can given the profit margin they must maintain to stay in business and beat the competition... - you don't like it? - then use a different software package...

At least then there wouldn't be the illusion that a MAJOR effort is underway to address the problems that "minority" (however large or small) is having.  And purchasers would know buying the product is a crap shoot - if it works for you, on your system, great.  If not, "tough"...

[Guest]

davepinminn wrote:

I've been staying out of this for the last while 'cause I figure there's not much point in continuing to beat the dead horse...  For me, bottom line, a bunch of people bought LR4.  For many (1%, 10%, 90%) of them it works adequately.  For some - whether 1%, 10%, or 49% - there are a variety of performance issues. It's convenient to blame PCs, Windows, poltergeist, cosmic rays or whatever, but the bottom line is that there's a group of purchasers that are having problems either as new users, or who didn't have problems with the previous version (after enough releases that V3 worked adequately).

And so far, there's been very little response from Adobe.  So:

You want the truth?

At $79 an upgrade times the number of upgrades (dunno price for entry now), there just isn't enough money to make it better than it is. Having problems? - tough tiddies... - they're doing the best they can given the profit margin they must maintain to stay in business and beat the competition... - you don't like it? - then use a different software package...

At least then there wouldn't be the illusion that a MAJOR effort is underway to address the problems that "minority" (however large or small) is having.  And purchasers would know buying the product is a crap shoot - if it works for you, on your system, great.  If not, "tough"...

Exactly, why there is no note anywhere (on LR main product page) stating that there is a chance (1%, 10%, 49%) that LR will perform poorly on your system? You know why? Because screw you, we'll get the money and then if it works great, if it doesn't, well, that's your problem... See you again LR 5.0

[Guest]

I understand your frustration, but you continue to put words into people's mouths that they are not saying.

Adobe says (paraphrasing): "we are having a hard time reproducing the problems in the lab that are being experienced in the field".

That's different than saying "it's yours or your computer's fault" or "Lightroom doesn't have bugs".

Not true, check previous answers from other members and you'll see that that is the implied statement (sometimes explicit)

You want the truth?

At $79 an upgrade times the number of upgrades (dunno price for entry now), there just isn't enough money to make it better than it is. Having problems? - tough tiddies... - they're doing the best they can given the profit margin they must maintain to stay in business and beat the competition... - you don't like it? - then use a different software package...

Partially agree with you. First, you don't know, nor do I, how many copies of Lightroom were sold and what the cost of producing it is. It's a marketing strategy. You can sell a haircut at $300 and sell 3 of them or sell it at $3 and sell 300 of them. In both cases the amount collected is the same, effort might differ.

Maybe they were selling LR cheaper because they had pressure from other SW at the time (Photo director I think) and this is just my hyphotesis, doesn't have to be right. Maybe they knew it was not up to standard and decided to low the price, who knows what the reasons are. To be honest, it is not the 79 of the upgrade that bothers me. It is the time that I have lost trying to deal with a subperforming product while trying to meet my deadlines. The money lost on time lost is what upsets me, I have had to push many personal and business projects because I lack the time to finish the "day to day" because something that in LR 3.6 took me 30 mins to do, takes me now between 3-4 hours.

About your solution on using a different package, yes I am working on it. But unfortunately I can not ignore the tens of thousands of photos that are in my LR catalogue with thousands of hours of adjustments, keywording, labelling, etc... I have a couple of candidates that I will try to add to my workflow leaving LR for the compromised photos.

I suspect they know their business better than you or I, whether it seems like it or not from your or my point of view. - that's not defending them, it's just stating what probably is a fact...

Maybe, but one thing is for sure, they don't know their customer care and technical support. That is also "probably a fact"

Just saying...

~A

[areohbee]

Victoria wants to help you help Adobe and yourself to get Lightroom problems resolved.

But it sounds to me like you've got one foot out the door, and would like to get the other one out too - here's how:

In Lightroom:

* Save xmp in your DNGs (and non-DNGs... - iow: all photos).

* Export all DNGs (and RAWs) and virtual copies in TIF or JPG format (same folder as original, max metadata).

Using exiftool:

* Extract xmp from DNGs into XMP sidecars using exiftool (or in Lightroom, using xEmP plugin).

Via OS:

* Copy original raws into photo folders (base filenames must match xmp).

* Delete your DNGs.

Your metadata will now be available in other raw converters (ratings + keywords...), and you will have converted from DNG back to proprietary raw format.

Develop settings will not migrate, but for the transition - use the exported files unless you re-edit the raws in your preferred software.

Of course backup everything first, and test as you go...

- You'll never have to open Lightroom again...

Rob

[Guest]

Rob Cole wrote:

Victoria wants to help you help Adobe and yourself to get Lightroom problems resolved.

But it sounds to me like you've got one foot out the door, and would like to get the other one out too - here's how:

In Lightroom:

* Save xmp in your DNGs (and non-DNGs... - iow: all photos).

* Export all DNGs (and RAWs) and virtual copies in TIF or JPG format (same folder as original, max metadata).

Using exiftool:

* Extract xmp from DNGs into XMP sidecars using exiftool (or in Lightroom, using xEmP plugin).

Via OS:

* Copy original raws into photo folders (base filenames must match xmp).

* Delete your DNGs.

Your metadata will now be available in other raw converters (ratings + keywords...), and you will have converted from DNG back to proprietary raw format.

Develop settings will not migrate, but for the transition - use the exported files unless you re-edit the raws in your preferred software.

Of course backup everything first, and test as you go...

- You'll never have to open Lightroom again...

Rob

Rob, that is very nice of you and I am sure many will find it useful. However, some of us have put thousand of hours developing our photos. By developing I don't mean a mass sync of white balance or expossure adjustments but local and tailored brush masking, grad filters, curves, custom B/W conversion, color treatment, noise reduction and custome sharpening, custom camera calibration and some times spot removal. I don't know what is the main use you have for Lightroom, and I don't know if you use it professionaly or as a hobby. I don't know what the end result of your images is (to enjoy at home or deliver as a final product) and I don't know what the quality of it is, I don't know if you are an enthusiast or if you make your living out of photography. But I guess you can understand that I am not going to devote thousands more hours to transfer all my photos to a new software occupy twice or three times the space and try to develop them all again. I think I stated before that my plan is to use a different SW in my workflow in the future but keeping LR for the ones that I've already processed.

Being the cognosseur you seem to be (according to your website) and comments here, you can also understand that having gone through the effort of shooting something in RAW and processed something in RAW to end up exporting it as a Jpeg (definitely not an option) or Tiff (size prohibitive and different behaviour to set presets) it is simply not an option. We could convert this thread into an IQ discussion but that won't take us very far, I think and is unrelated to the origin of it.

So, I have my foot down... I'll use LR for what I have and something else in the future (who knows, maybe you'll find me complaining in one of their forums a year from now).

In any case, thanks for taking the time to write it down.

p.s. By the way, I have used exiftool in the past (with LR 3.6 I think, because back then I only had two options with Lightroom regarding metadata and I wanted to keep some while deleting other), but ended up doing a small php page that would process all my images in a folder to do what I wanted.

[areohbee]

uphotography wrote:

So, I have my foot down... I'll use LR for what I have and something else in the future

So, you haven't chosen "something else" yet?

[Guest]

Rob Cole wrote:

uphotography wrote:

So, I have my foot down... I'll use LR for what I have and something else in the future

So, you haven't chosen "something else" yet?

I have tried many but honestly didn't have enough time to go deep in any of them. Capture One was very intuitive for me and I would have liked the trial of Photo Director to last a bit longer (didn't have much time after installing it).

Other than that I have even considered making a Linux partition in my computer to run Darktable that unfortunately doesn't run under Windows and I think that compiling it escapes a bit from my capabilities.

Who knows... maybe I just do Bridge + ACR in the end.

[areohbee]

If Lightroom is slow, but ACR: not so much, then Bridge + Photoshop/ACR seems like an obvious choice in your case.

[Guest]

Rob Cole wrote:

If Lightroom is slow, but ACR: not so much, then Bridge + Photoshop/ACR seems like an obvious choice in your case.

That is one of my surprises and what troubles me when thinking about this. ACR with PV 2012 works perfect while LR is really sluggish. I think that Bridge + Photoshop/ACR is indeed the best (at least time-wise) alternative for me but need to try it out for some time and see how it feels.

[areohbee]

Lightroom's develop module harnesses ACR (written in 'C' and/or 'C++', if I remember correctly) for it's functionality, but it includes a lua layer and some added features...

Since you are getting lua errors (the "upvalue" stuff, which may *not* have anything to do with a plugin), that could be where the rub is, Lr-wise.

~R.

[DavePinMinn]

That's what I generally do.  ESPECIALLY if I'm on the road and working from my laptop (i720 quadcore with 8GB of memory) where LR 4.2 is even slower than on the desktop.  I can run through a thousand raw images in bridge, examine them, rename, label, keyword, fiddle with the ones I'm curious about in ACR, and throw away the garbage (usually about 75% of my stuff gets dumped on the first pass) in a LOT less time than I can do the same thing in LR.  Once done with all that, I import the survivors into LR and let it do the organizing.

[Guest]

davepinminn wrote:

That's what I generally do.  ESPECIALLY if I'm on the road and working from my laptop (i720 quadcore with 8GB of memory) where LR 4.2 is even slower than on the desktop.  I can run through a thousand raw images in bridge, examine them, rename, label, keyword, fiddle with the ones I'm curious about in ACR, and throw away the garbage (usually about 75% of my stuff gets dumped on the first pass) in a LOT less time than I can do the same thing in LR.  Once done with all that, I import the survivors into LR and let it do the organizing.

At some point some people suggested that the problems were with PV 2012 but that they didn't see it with PV 2010 (maybe under the develop module). What I tried was to do the sorting using PV 2010 and then bring to PV 2012 only 3 stars or more. But to be honest I didn't see any improvement. Maybe doing what you do, keywording and rating in bridge and then only working on the 3 stars or more in LR might save me some headaches and some whining too, especially since my LR starts behaving chaotically after 20-30 mins of work

[Todd Shaner]

uphotography wrote:

I give you more examples. One of the suggestions (and solutions to some) is to unplug colour calibrators (especially if they do constant ambient light monitoring). But, hold on a second, we are talking about a software built and made for professional photographers that cannot work with basic and well known photographers hardware? What is next? Sorry, LR cannot read anything but DNG and PSD? I mean, I could understand maybe needing to unplug my phone, but my calibrator? my printer or scanner? Seriously?

That was me and I'm sitting at my Windows 7 system with LR4.2 and an i1 Display 2 calibrator plugged in and monitoring and measuring ambient light. Guess what? LR is running just fine, no performance issues, no lockups, and no issues opening images in the Library or Develop module like this OP:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4670182#4670182

The solution in the above post was to disconnect the USB i1 Display 2 calibrator. So why don't I have the same problem when using the same exact calibrator, with the same exact software, performing the same exact function? I've tried like heck to make it misbehave importing images, closing LR, opening LR, adjusting images, import more images, measure the ambient light a few more times, and then repeating everything all over. So what's different about o2Gallop's system or LR usage? I have no freak'n idea and I'm pretty good at pushing systems to their limits.

Dennis Smith mentioned he would love the opportunity to get his hands on a misbehaving LR4 system and likewise.

I have 45 years of system design engineering experience, just retired with lots of time on my hands,  and always up for a challenge. Anyone who lives in New Jersey with ANY of these problems send me a private message and let's talk. Now how's that for an offer of technical assistance and Adobe isn't paying me anything!

[areohbee]

trshaner wrote:

...how's that for an offer of technical assistance and Adobe isn't paying me anything!

I'd say that's pretty generous .

It'll be interesting to see if anyone in New Jersey takes you up on your offer...

Cheers,

Rob

[Guest]

Dennis Smith mentioned he would love the opportunity to get his hands on a misbehaving LR4 system and likewise.

I have 45 years of system design engineering experience, just retired with lots of time on my hands,  and always up for a challenge. Anyone who lives in New Jersey with ANY of these problems send me a private message and let's talk. Now how's that for an offer of technical assistance and Adobe isn't paying me anything!

That was a pretty generous offer from both of you. And it goes far beyond what Adobe is willing to do or have done so far. Unfortunately, I am nowhere close to New Jersey, otherwise I would be giving you a call and preparing coffee or tea... Whatever you prefer.

In a way it also bothers me that we "have" to rely on other people's good intentions and support instead of the support from the company making the money. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate and encourage people's cooperation, I do a good deal of volunteering even teaching photography but it really bothers me that others not related to Adobe almost have to take matter into their hands because of the practically non existing support from Adobe.

And many people have suggested other solutions on how to at least make it easy on many of us. Like giving LR 3 support for some of the new cameras (like the Mk III) but no... we are forced to work with something that doesn't work if we want to use one of these cameras... So, that tells me that there is not really a will to help/deal with the situation. Doesn't work for you... Too bad!

[Victoria Bampton LR Queen]

uphotography wrote:

Now, Lightroom 3.6 works great on my system and so does the last ACR but the mix (LR 4.x) doesn't work. Are you still going to tell me that it is my fault that the "old scanner" or my toothpaste are upsetting LR 4.x?

[...]

I give you more examples. One of the suggestions (and solutions to some) is to unplug colour calibrators (especially if they do constant ambient light monitoring). But, hold on a second, we are talking about a software built and made for professional photographers that cannot work with basic and well known photographers hardware? What is next? Sorry, LR cannot read anything but DNG and PSD? I mean, I could understand maybe needing to unplug my phone, but my calibrator? my printer or scanner? Seriously?

No one's saying that you should have to unplug all those things to get LR to work.  But since Adobe are having a really tough time reproducing the leftover problems, and you'd like it fixed, perhaps it's worth the effect to do a few simple tests which could provide just the clue they need.  If a pattern can be established, they stand a much better chance of being able to reproduce and fix it.

uphotography wrote:

where Adobe's staff only show up once in a while to say things that are absolutely useless and even insulting.

I completely understand the frustration, and those of us who are trying to help are equally frustrated at not being able to solve it.  But I also understand why Adobe staff don't pop up here very often.  They don't know how to solve it either - if they did, it would be fixed - and when they do post, nothing they say will be 'right'.

It's undoubtedly a really difficult situation for those who are still affected, and we will all continue trying to track it down.