P: Wish for a "cancel" button on "Back Up Catalog" box

Report · Jan 03, 2014

If I had only one wish for the next Lightroom update, it would be a cancel button on the last dialog when you close a catalog. I like the reminder to back up each time, but sometimes I click quit too soon or by accident. It would be great if the "Back Up Catalog" dialog included "cancel" next to "Skip this time" and "back up." Thanks.

Report · Sep 21, 2018

I thought it was just me! 🙂 Too often when moving quickly between applications and with the w and q keys next to each other I accidentally quit Lightroom. Just another button in the closing dialog box would be so wonderful... Thanks for considering!!!

Report · Sep 21, 2018

THis thread started 5 years. It is clear that Adobe is not "considering" this. It's not as though it is impossible. If you set LR to perform a task, like, say, Export, and then you attempt to close LR, it asks you if you really want to do so. So, it is feasible. For whatever reason, Adobe has decided to ignore this.

Report · Sep 21, 2018

I live in the Bay Area, and go to User Group talks at Adobe, and I have gone in and played with new features for other products they are developing. Earlier this year on one of those visits I heard they have something like 40 people working on LR, so keep mentioning this, they will do it if enough people tell them to. It is a squeaky wheel issue.

Report · Sep 22, 2018

I have found—especially with very large catalogs in which LR creates a zip archive as the backup—the most workable solution is to not allow LR to make ANY backups. Instead, I use a third-party utility to mirror the dedicated drive where I have located Lightroom. I can cancel the 'backup' (which is actually a mirror by any other name) whenever I wish and the application—in this case SyncBuddy for the Mac OS—only begins the backup when Lightroom has closed. Restore is a simple matter of copying the mirror back to the source.

The only manual step I have to perform is to remember to optimize the catalog in Lightroom before quitting (although this isn't a stringent requirement IMHO).

I found myself going down this path as my catalog grew into the GB range because LR was so damn slow in performing the backup; it took hours for LR to quit.

There are simply some tasks for which LR is woefully inadequate; e.g., backup, moving of files, copying of files, naming or renaming of files, lens/camera profiles, etc. I have found it better for a robust catalog and image file system to allow specialist software to perform these tasks.

Unfortunately, LR is also pretty crappy at managing hierarchial keywords, but I do not see any alternative but to struggle along with LR for that chore.

Report · Sep 22, 2018

That’s not the point being discussed. It’s simply having Adobe add a cancel button to the close dialog. Often when you think you are closing an image you are closing Lr. It’s a huge time sink to have to reopen the program, back up or not, you can’t cancel once you hit close, your only option is back up or not.

That’s the issue- Adobe give us a cancel button.

Report · Sep 22, 2018

I've been on this thread for probably 6 years waiting for this feature (along with a couple other crazy-obvious feature requests). Always glad to see someone new bring it up agaIn because it's beyond frustrating. Just don't get too worked up. I think Adobe would rather see us suffer.

Report · Sep 22, 2018

We've been waiting for over six years. The point of that is Adobe is NOT listening. Therefore, we have to come up with other options. I simply proposed one—that was my point. Please feel free to come up with your own alternative or keep waiting on Adobe, but don't hold your breath.

Report · Sep 22, 2018

Given my experience with relational database systems, I think the reason Adobe has not offered a solution is because they cannot—not as long as LR is based upon SQL-lite. It's not a true relational database with fourth- or even third-level integrity, much less full referential integrity, so when it starts to parse the database it is committed to the bloody end.

If Adobe switched to MS SQL or Oracle, this would not be a problem, except their profits would decrease (or our costs would increase).

So we have to figure out a workaround. I have one which works for me. Others will find their mileage will vary.

Report · Sep 22, 2018

The solution is rather easy: stop expecting LR to do the backup, it's half baked at best and far from an adequate backup schema. Turn this silly option OFF. Use a product designed to backup everything you can't afford to lose!

Author “Color Management for Photographers" & "Photoshop CC Color Management/pluralsight"

Report · Sep 22, 2018

Exactly!

Report · Dec 03, 2018

In the event that I accidentally hit a button to close Lightroom I would like to see a way to escape from closing the program. Also, I would like to be able to delete a photo from disk from a collection but get a dialog telling me that I am trying to delete just in case I made a mistake. Just like from a folder. Thanks!

Report · Dec 03, 2018

I have asked, on this forum, a couple of times for a Cancel on the exit dialog box. Tab and Q are adjacent to each other on both Mac and PC keyboards. It is too easy to hit CMD (ALT)-Q when you intend CMD (ALT)-TAB. Instead of swapping applications you suddenly find yourself being forced to shutdown LR. A Cancel button would be very helpful.

Thanks

Report · Dec 11, 2018

A cancel quit dialog was implemented in Lightroom Classic CC 8.1. It is a separate dialog from the Backup dialog to allow its use by people who use backup infrequently.

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

Report · Dec 11, 2018

Oh really??? I just (right now, in real time on a system that is fully up to date) quit Lr by clicking on the tiny little red X up in the corner. I was not given a choice of cancel. Fix that and I will be less dissatisfied. I ain't buying anything less. We are the customers, please listen. Do we have to draw a picture?

It is too easy to get stuck in the mode of closing images in Ps by clicking red Xs, then doing the same in Lr and having no option but to quit. It happens to me a few times a day, where I find myself closing Lr when I did not intend to.

Someone finally fixed the Server Busy error, after a decade or so, that makes it a little less painful, but my gosh guys we are not asking for the moon here....

Report · Dec 11, 2018

I just tested on Windows with File>Quit and with clicking the tiny little red X up in the corner and got the Cancel dialog both times. Please go to Help>System Info... and get us your installed Lightroom version and paste it into your reply.

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

Report · Dec 11, 2018

Wow. I just tried it and lo and behold Adobe has indeed, FINALLY, added a cancel quit dialog. As mentioned, it appears as a separate dialog box before the usual one, so it's not as convenient having a single dialog box with "cancel quit" along with "Backup" and "Skip"), but hey, it's still a big and long overdue improvement.

Report · Dec 11, 2018

I looked and am down a rev, I do not recall seeing a notice for an update and just a week or so ago updated Ae and Ps and Id.

I tried to upload the new version, it keeps stalling at 1%, at some point I will get it on there. I am on deadline today it will get a few more minutes to upload then I have to go back to work.

But if it is not triggered by the red X no joy for me. That is how I close files.

Report · Dec 12, 2018

Okay, I do see the new pop up warning box. It is marginally better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, but only a tiny little bit better.

What was so hard about simply adding a Cancel button on the existing dialog box?

Now we have a way out but you demand more clicking, always more clicking... I'd give it two stars at most. Maybe one.

Report · Dec 12, 2018

A Cancel button on the Backup dialog would only be always available to those who have set Lightroom to perform a back on each exit. If you, for example, set your backup to go weekly, you would only have one chance in a week to cancel an exit instead of being able to cancel any exit.

If you don't like to click the extra time per exit, the dialog has a Do not show again option.

Rikk Flohr: Adobe Photography Org

Report · Dec 12, 2018

What I don't like is having to click through two boxes when all Adobe had to do was add a Cancel button on the existing box. How complicated was that? We are not breaking new ground here. I suspect a feature like this was first done in the 1800s, maybe even before that?

If I check the never show again box that sort of, to me anyway, defeats the purpose of having the Cancel option...

It is not the end of the world, but that said Adobe had a chance to hit a home run, they barely got to first base via a fielder's choice bunt.

Report · Dec 12, 2018

See Ricks comment above. That ‘existing box’ you are talking about only exists if you set Lightroom to backup the catalog on each quit. You can also set it to other options, such as once a week. That means you would only be able to bail out of a quit once a week...

The other reason is a technical one. By the time you get the catalog backup dialog, Lightroom has already closed the database. That means that bailing out of a quit at that stage would hardly be different than restarting.

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Report · Dec 12, 2018

July 1969, man lands on the Moon. This is done on a computer with less umph than a modern digital thermometer.

It’s nearly fifty years later. Cars drive themselves, doorbells are smart, heck now only little girls ride horses. All I want is a cancel button that gives me the option of changing my mind a few seconds after I inadvertently click the close icon. Not once a week, but every gosh darn time I close Lr, at my whim.

Reckless? Cavalier? Unreasonable? Hmmm. How hard can this be? Landing on the moon using rocket fuel, old aluminum cans, chewing gum and bailing wire hard? Me thinks not.

I remain respectfully not just unimpressed but not even less disatisfied.

Report · Dec 12, 2018

The new EXIT/CANCEL EXIT mechanism in 8.1 solved my issue with the lack of a Cancel button. It allows me to cancel an exit -- which I couldn't do before -- invoked by CMD+Q when I intended CMD+TAB and that's all I need. In my professional life I spent a lot of time crafting and coding user interfaces. Adobe's solution is not the way I would have done it but I didn't do it.

But someone did, and I'm grateful for that. It works. Thank you, Adobe for fixing it.

Koro

Report · Dec 13, 2018

"All I want is a cancel button that gives me the option of changing my mind a few seconds after I inadvertently click the close icon. Not once a week, but every gosh darn time I close Lr, at my whim."

So what's your point? You've got that now!

-- Johan W. Elzenga

Report · Dec 13, 2018

Adobe products are tools I make my living with. My clients choose me based on can you do it, how novel and tight is your solution and how fast can you do it. The solution they gave us to this shortcoming is not efficient.

Time is money, generally the longer it takes me to do something the less money I make. And I have clients that often need something on a deadline. I need solutions that always work. The new Content Aware Fill tool in Ps is a classic example- it allows me to do better work faster, but it is very buggy and for now that is costing me more time and almost made me miss a deadline when it locked up Ps. Not well done, it was launched before it was ready. I have figured out how to get around the bugs, but I am now back to waiting for a point release after upgrades, they bit me again.

My opinion on this fix, as a paying customer who uses this to make a living, is it's a joke. That is my opinion. You are entitled to yours also. It may be fine for a hobbyist who is in the software infrequently. I do not know Adobe's pro/hobbyist mix of customers, keeping them happy may be all they care about. it may be other professionals are fine with it. I am not. My customers are demanding, so am I.

They fixed the server busy error, finally. I won't ring the bell on that one either, it should have been done years ago.