P: Facebook interface disabled and FB Publish Service Collections will be eventually removed

[JTA12]

Yes, I'm aware that the interface to Facebook is disabled, but WHY have you removed ALL my published catalogues??? As I have published more than 1000 images to Facebook, I'm now completely blind on which image and when!!!! I have no problem to understand the disabling of the direct publishing, despite the fact that it leaves LR sometwhat crippled in the usability, but why did you remove all my history???????

[Kelsofly]

So sorry to hear that as well! I'm also confused about the fact that Adobe fixed what appeared to be a very similar issue in 2017 and don't seem inclined to look into it this time.

[Fiona Chong]

I have the same issue! I was shocked to find all my albums (spanning across 2010 to 2018 when I stopped using LR to directly publish onto Facebook) disappeared recently this month.

I have sent multiple reports to Facebook to report the problem/ask for help but have not had any replies.

I've also reached out to Adobe chat support but the reply was: "Hi, we're sorry about the trouble but we do not have any official communication on this. You can share your feedback on the community thread you shared. Our product team can look into this & may share some insights on the thread. Thanks!"

I also called the Adobe Customer Care this afternoon for help and tried to explain the issue and even pointed the person to this page: https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/facebook-plugin-shows-unauthorized.html

in the hope of submitting the request for Adobe to "reapply" a similar solution they used in 2017 but they didn't seem to understand the issue and insisted on getting a screenshare on my end to see the Facebook plugin in LR which doesn't exist anymore/discontinued even if I were to dig out my old LT Catalogues so that wouldn't help at all especially since I'm not trying to publish now.

I really hope the PRODUCT TEAM will see this thread and help restore the images back. We don't need the Facebook plugin function to come back, we just need product changes NOT to affect completed services in the past which I don't think anyone here ever thought it will happen =(
PLEASE HELP!

[Kelsofly]

I hope with enough of us raising this, they will do something. It's so frustrating and shouldn't be too hard of a fix, especially if they can do what they did in 2017 or something similar. No need for the plugin now, like you say, but losing carefully compiled albums is horrible. 

[Fiona Chong]

Adobe says the link is broken because Facebook changed its API settings so I asked if they are in the process of working to fix this issue to make it work with Facebook's changed API settings and if not, to escalate this issue to their product team to help. I'm not sure if they will follow through though *fingers crossed*.

If anyone else is experiencing the same issue, please help to log/raise the issue to the Adobe Customer Care via:
Email: customercare-support@adobe.com
Call: 800-685-3570 (24hrs/7days)

Anyone works in Meta/Facebook or knows anyone who can report this issue either direct or via the Developers site?
https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/

[GoldingD]

This occurred in 2018. Basically Facebook told the software providers like Adobe to go pound sand. I doubt if Adobe will ever fix this.

Following link is from 2018, but updated last May.

https://helpx.adobe.com/in/lightroom-classic/kb/facebook-publish-service-error.html

I have no idea why the Publishing service collection in LrC has emptied, perhaps Adobe can answer that, but they probably will not be able to fix.

Why, 3 years later the members above are still trying to work with FB via publish service is beyond me. 

[Kelsofly]

I think you may have misunderstood what everyone here is expressing as an issue. No one wants to use the Facebook publish service from Lightroom anymore, and I myself haven't used it since 2018. However, the photos that were published using it in the past, have now disappeared. This is what everyone is contacting Adobe about in the hopes that they can implement a fix like they did in 2017.  

[iamstephieee]

We're not trying to use FB publishing service any more. Just very disappointed to find that pics we posted to FB 3 years ago using Adobe & Facebook approved software (the plugin) is suddenly gone. 

[LukeHoward]

Right, if anyone is to reach out to Adobe customer care about this (I am yet to do it), it woudl be prudent to make the distinction between the publishing service API no longer existing, which I imagine most of us have accepted; and the disappearance of previously published photo albums from Facebook.

[tiffanyclemence]

I used to use Adobe Lightroom to publish all of my photos and albums to Facebook. 

I recently went to view these photo albums to find that they have all been deleted. Hundreds of photos, gone. I wouldn't have thought this was possible with two massive tech companies such as Adobe and Facebook... I can't contact either company for support. They must be in cyber space, somewhere. I'm devastated. 

I can see from other posts that this has happened in the past but there doe'sny seem to be a resolution. I'm really hoping that there is a fix for this. I no longer have the  photos on Lightroom, Facebook was the only place where they were stored. 

[F. McLion]

If Facebook has deleted your photos, you need to talk to Facebook. 

Nobody here can help you with that in any way, we are all just users like you - we are not Adobe.

Another thing: Are you seriously saying that you are using Facebook to store your photos, and nowhere else?

[Fiona Chong]

you are not alone.

Refer to this thread:

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/facebook-albums-created-with-lr-plugin-...

[Fiona Chong]

Users understand that the Facebook plugin was since discontinued in 2018 but none of us would have ever thought that the possibility of the photos we have previously uploaded to Facebook (prior to the discontinuation of the plugin) would go missing from our Facebook and without notice. And the fact that this happened within the past few months i.e. 3 years after the plugin was discontinued suggests that something was done recently to trigger this. *Interestingly, photos (from the missing albums) if previously selected and included into other (non-published via LR) albums such as "Profile" or "Featured" still show up in these albums.
I (and other users) have obviously also reported this issue to Facebook but not getting any response as yet (for some weeks).

We are NOT trying to use the discontinued plugin now but trying to get my photos back online.

Adobe Customer Care claims it is because Facebook changed its API settings -- which means that Adobe is aware but not doing anything about it? I have requested for the issue to be escalated and Adobe Customer Care had said they will escalate to their "senior department" but after that, I keep receiving the same reply pointing me to a self-help article that the plugin is discontinued (which is irrelevant to the problem reported).

(Most) Users would have the original photos somewhere but the descriptions/captions and interactions with clients, family and friends can never be replicated with the published albums gone.
It is akin to using Adobe Media Encoder to export (from Premiere Pro) and directly upload to one's YouTube, Twitter or Vimeo etc. and then one day down the road to discover that your videos are gone from the platform(s) regardless of whether it is Adobe or the hosting platform making changes to settings.

There was previously in 2017 a similar issue when the plugin is still active but that was due to Adobe's error and they resolved it. This time round, the cause of the issue is different as claimed by Adobe. 

This is one of the main threads in the community that shows other users experiencing the same issue.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/facebook-albums-created-with-lr-plugin-...

I (and on behalf of other users devastated to lose their photos/memories) sincerely hope the Adobe LR product/development team will help resolve this (work with Facebook?) and also find a permanent solution that should API settings or other coding etc. on Adobe or its partner applications/plugins/platoforms change in future, it should not affect completed services in the past.

Look forward to your help. Thank you.

[iamstephieee]

Thank you for posting this. This is a great summary of the issue and why it is so upsetting to all of us. 

[Kelsofly]

So well said! Thank you for your comprehensive summary and efforts to get this sorted. Support wouldn't even help me beyond a point because my version of Lightroom is "old." They directed me here, which although it hasn't solved anything yet, I'm hoping will eventually get us noticed! 

[tiffanyclemence]

Hi there, 

I just wanted to add that this has also happened to me. I used Lightroom 4 over 9 years ago to upload hundreds of photos to Facebook, and now all the albums have disappeared. Hopefully something can be done about it. 

[Kelsofly]

Sorry to hear that! I hope so too, as there seem to be a lot of us affected. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Please see the authoritative post at: https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/facebook-interface-disabled/m-p/9988829

[Kelsofly]

There doesn't appear to be any solution to the problem all of us are experiencing on that old post from 2018. 

[Fiona Chong]

Hi Rikk,

I was directed by Adobe Customer Care to report a Bug/Technical Issue on this interface (which I did) and surprised to find my post filed back into this discussion thread. Why are we going in circles?
The authoritative post you indicated above is from 2018 and I don't think you fully understand the issue we are frustrated about because the users here still had their photos online on Facebook up till Oct/Nov 2021 i.e. we were not affected even after the plugin was discontinued in 2018 until Oct/Nov 2021.

We are also NOT talking about collections inside old LR catalogues.

This means something happened/changed in the last couple of months to trigger this.

Can you help us understand where the data (exported photos) sits when LR published onto Facebook via the plugin? Is it still stored within the Adobe ecosystem and Facebook's API points/links to it?

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

If I understand you correctly, you had images on your Facebook page that have disappeared from your Facebook page. Is that correct?  

Lightroom kept track of images you had published. If a change was made in Lightroom it prompted you to republish the image as your catalog image was more up to date than the version you'd previously published. No material would have existed in the Adobe Cloud as part of this transaction. The data was transferred to Facebook.  It wasn't necessary to be a cloud-syncing client to use the Facebook plugin to upload images or to retrieve comments from FB.

If images have disappeared from Facebook, with no action by you, I would recommend your contacting Facebook support to see if they can advise you as to the disappearance of your images.  Have you contacted them already?

[Kelsofly]

Hi Rikk, I know that several of us, myself included, have contacted Facebook numerous times and there is no response. From what I gather further up in this thread, there is an issue with API settings that Adobe has pointed out. If this uniquely affecting Adobe-uploaded images, I would certainly hope Adobe would liaise with Facebook to ensure this issue is sorted for their customers. We have tried every avenue and are not getting any assistance for something that holds a lot of emotional weight for many people, years of photos and memories (even when backed up elsewhere) that were carefully compiled into albums. Any help from Adobe would be greatly appreciated. Otherwise, it is hard to trust any service provided if it's just an "out of our hands" response to something that, if not for using Adobe, wouldn't have happened to any of us.

[Fiona Chong]

Hi Rikk,

Thank you for the clarification on the part of how the data flows/is stored.

Even though the data is transferred to Facebook as you mention, if you are sure/can confirm that this current issue is NOT the same as what happened previously where Adobe tried and/or managed to resolve the issue:
i) In May 2017 (https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/facebook-plugin-shows-unauthorized.html)

ii) in 2018 (https://feedback-readonly.photoshop.com/conversations/lightroom-classic/lightroom-classic-unable-to-...)

THEN will you please help us escalate to the Adobe Product Team and developers/engineers and forward our request for their help to work Facebook directly again to resolve this and find a permanent solution so that any future API changes introduced by Facebook will not impact already published photos?

Not sure if this (https://developers.facebook.com/support/bugs/) is the platform to report bugs for developers, though I would think that Adobe would have a different/more direct channel with Facebook wrt. APIs and integration etc.

On our part, there is no doubt individual users have reported the issue to Facebook and I can only imagine the number of ex-Lightroom users in the same situation who are not in this Adobe online community at all. The impact is understated.

[Nick_J]

Hi @Rikk Flohr: Photography,

I'm really happy to see that you are taking an interest in this issue. It's an incredibly painful one as it's not just a bug - we've actually lost important metadata and memories of interactions given the posts have completely disappeared from Facebook.

Have you been able to make any progress? Is there anything we can do to help push this through?

As others have mentioned - many of us impacted by this have tried reaching out to Facebook Support, but they just don't even bother answering tickets logged by us as lowly users.

Looking forward to seeing some action here!

Cheers,

Nick

[StranderoShoots]

Another Lightroom Facebook plug-in user who has succombed to the same fate of 5+ years of curated photos and all social metadata disappearing... Those also happen to be the first 5 years of my relationship with my soon to be wife!

I want to add my name to the list of desparate customers who request this issue be escalated within Adobe. Facebook does not awknowledge or address individual customer complaints like these, and we all need the request to come from Adobe corporate directly to Facebook/Meta corporate for anything to change. Thanks!

[iamstephieee]

Hello friends! Does anyone happen to have any updates on this issue?