P: 6.x crashes in the facial recognition module

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Since a week my Lightroom crashes when opening the facial recognition modul. Program closes. 

I am working with Windows 10. 

I do not know. Mayby it has something to do with the latest Windows Update: 8. Dezember 2020 – KB4592438 (Betriebssystembuilds 19041.685 und 19042.685

Or it has something to do with the Installation of Photoshop Elements 2021 / Adobe Premiere Elements 2021

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

You're right of course. The problem many of us have is that if you would even get a refund, all the time and effort (editing, assigning faces etc.) is gone and all you are left with is maybe 100 USD or so.

As I've been indicating earlier in the discussions in this thread, I'm pursuing something that might help others here (I never said 'fix'). Regretfully, I still need to follow-up on things and that regretfully takes way longer than I had expected.

There's two chances: I'll disconnect (and of course then the situation continues but my help won't be available) or I'll be able to explain a bit more here and that could maybe help users in their journey to find a fix. Regretfully, I'll have to remain a bit cryptic for now.

By all means, I do hope that people won't wait for me and will continue to seek solutions. Maybe call Adobe and ask about this (and it IS as you say: a license is expired I can confirm that 100%). 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm still here... waiting for something to happen. Not sure when that will occur. Will update when I know more...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Adobe support in Germany? Yes, for sure LR6 is an old version. It was the last sold with a perpetual license (one that -if the environment around it doesn't change- should work forever).

The next LR versions are all subscription based and cost >100 / year.

Just so you know: suddenly the face recognition module stopped working last December. As one can restore functionality but resetting the date to a time before Dec 2020, this seems related to a license issue. The latter makes it as least look like we were all sold a license that was called perpetual but in fact was not...

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

No I'm not using the same catalog.   The catalog is reasonably new and very small.   The laptop has been online and is still not crashing however I noticed it is not searching for faces.  My desktop is also now not searching for faces any more with either work around. 

Windows did an update while the laptop was online, so I'm doing a system restore back before that update.  When searching what programs will be affected by the restore an Adobe program was listed 'Adobe Genuine Service'.

[cachc6sous]

Unfortunately on Mac an old version like El captain for instance doesn't solve the problem.

However I noticed that a new catalog with few photos doesn't crash. I don't know the trigger that pushes LR to crash concerning the catalog itself.

*ALR20 Are you using the same catalog ?

[Tomasz_Koc]

just checked it

both HDR Merge and Panorama Merge work for me in Windows 10 with compatibility modes of Windows 7 and Windows 8 (face recognition also does not crash the program)

I also do not see any performance degradation in those modes, but I did get a new fast machine recently that Lightroom 6 cannot fully utilise anyway...

I will work on compatibility mode from now on and report back if I encounter any side effects

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

OK ... easy come easy go ...

Using compatibilty mode for win 8 I'm no longer able to merge HDR. (The progression bar reaches about 60%. Then it jumps back and forth. In the end the process just freezes.) Same problem when switching to compatibility mode for win 7. After switching back to lightroom without compatibility mode it's working fine.

So ... once again a workaround with side effects ...

Could someone else check this? Anyone else experiencing this?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

First impression: Compatibility mode seems to help under Win 10.

I'm using Lightroom on Windows 10. I now started Lightroom using compatibility mode for Windows 8 while keeping the correct date. Now I can switch to people mode. Lightroom even seems to search for new faces. I also can browse through people and "open" the images of a single person. Also after closing and starting again using the compatibility mode leads to the same result. ... could it be that easy???

Nevertheless: First impression after a few minutes of testing ...

[cachc6sous]

So this could mean latest OS + date > 2020-12 = crash

Interesting... I will install LR on mountain lion Mac OS to confirm this behavior on a Mac.

*ALR20 could you please tell us if it crashes when it is connected to internet ? Thanks to @tomaszkoc test it seems that internet connection doesn't make LR crash

[Tomasz_Koc]

This is indeed promising. When I executed my lightroom.exe in compatibility mode, it did not crash on face module (I have a system date set to current date, the host system is Windows 10 - constantly connected to the Internet).

This could replace my workaround of using RunAsDate - unless it causes other issues.

[bob frost]

I was just about to ask whether any of you had tried running LR 6 on the OS that it was designed to run on. It was never designed to run on Win 10 or the latest MacOS. I see ALR20 above has done that and it works fine! It may run for ever on the OS it was designed for!

Bob Frost

[cachc6sous]

hope for you it will still work 😉

but otherwise it would be a great discovery

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

The desktop is running on Win10, while the laptop is running on Windows 7.  So that is another difference.   I haven't connected the laptop to the internet yet to test if Lightroom works after connecting.   

[cachc6sous]

*ALR20 this is very interesting

can you give the os version of each ?

is your laptop on internet now and still working (LR I mean) ?

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm still here... Doesn't look good. Taking some other actions now. Will continue to keep you posted but these actions might take more time. Don't wait for me doing anything that can help you. As said, I had some promising things going and all of that seems to have failed. I know it's cryptic, sorry. If I'm really at a dead end I'll share things I know here.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Next update: received an answer (after a reminder) but it wasn't good. Will try a last time. Hopefully in a week or so I'll have a last update. 

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Update: There's one option left now (as the others failed or converged to the remaining one). There is communication and I'm now waiting for feedback on my request (something that fixes this for all of us without workarounds).

In the meantime, please re-read the last part of my earlier update (the legal part) as that might become the only option left if my last thread fails...

[SdeGat]

Regardless of the outcome, thanks for trying to help us all @TML59 🙂

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

John, Dale, I don't disagree. But I can at least try, right? 😉

[dy8dale]

Wholeheartedly agree. The only good thing about Adobe showing us their true colours is finding ACDSee.

Dale

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I promised an update. So here it is...

I had several threads running with promising chances for success (no workarounds but real solutions). The last few days, suddenly several have failed. There's still some options open but I am close to sharing what I've been doing (out of respect for my sources I have not done that before, but if they start breaking promises, which is what seems to happen, I will break some of my promises to them too).

I realize you have no way of telling if I'm just making all of this up. I'm not (I promise) but even if I would have, it wouldn't have made a difference until now, right (LR is still not working)? So why wouldn't this be real?

Anyway, I've now upped the pressure so hopefully this will come to a closure one way or another.

In case this fails, I wonder if there's users reading this with a legal background as whatever happens: Adobe sold us a perpetual license which is clearly shown not to be perpetual. We can prove that by setting back the date and we can also pinpoint the offending file (the face recognition DLL) which is external to the main LR code. If we remove that file, the crash is not happening (but obviously the recognition functionality is lost). I don't have a legal background but that sounds solid to me... 

More coming (another promise I'm making)

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Understood, but for now, my glass is still half full 😉

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I have sent a reminder to my contacts... Will have an update on the case next week, one way or another. Let's hope it will be good news.

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

Come on Adobe, do the right thing guys!

[FeedbackCommunityMember]

I'm also still waiting (but I won't let go)