CCC Forum

One of my longstanding criticisms of Adobe has been that it does not properly test its Lightroom updates prior to release. That situation seemed to have improved recently and I had been optimistic that Adobe had learnt its lesson. Unfortunately, the company reverted to its old ways with the launch of its latest version, Lightroom 7.3. A bug fix has just been made available which, hopefully, fixes the problems.

As ever, my advice remains to let any Adobe update settle and use a search engine to see if others are experiencing issues before installing it. That recommendation also extends to this bug fix as there is no guarantee that Adobe has achieved a full resolution. Or not introduced new errors, for that matter. It should not be like that, but despite making huge profits Adobe seemingly lacks the resources to undertake thorough testing of its updates. Yes, mistakes can happen to anyone, but in Adobe's case it happens all too frequently. In this instance, there is a surprisingly long list of errors which I would have expected to have been caught beforehand. In effect, it is customers who are doing the final testing and that is just not acceptable in what is supposed to be a premium product.

More information from DPReview: https://www.dpreview.com/news/185490302 ... classic-cc. Note the advice about backing up the Catalog after installing the new version due to the possibility of corruption in earlier backups.

Hi
Yes Mike, but this problem is not exclusive to Adobe, as it has been widespread throughout the software industry from the beginning. I have personal experience of the pressures developers are under to release the next version, having worked as a software developer for four years. I don’t expect anything to change, as it is all financially driven.

Paul

I have an extensive IT background and worked in a business which was intolerant of errors. Adobe itself wrote "We ..... felt that parts of the release didn’t uphold the level of quality that we hold ourselves to." Yet it is not the first time it has released buggy software and I would have expected all these errors to have been caught before launch if its testing had been adequate. The earlier errors are detected, the cheaper they are to fix, with rework being the most expensive. Occasionally there might be good reason to release software before it is ready, but it risks reputational damage which can have a far greater effect on the bottom line.

Standards do matter. Would you want to drive a car that was built by Adobe?

Hi
I know you are anti Adobe, but I haven’t had any software from them that has had any serious defects. Where I have known cases of car manufacturers having lots of design issues, that’s why they have so many recalls to fix issues, which are either fixed at service intervals or just ignore.
Paul

PaulW wrote:I know you are anti Adobe ......

If that were the case, I would not use its software. All I am looking for is fewer errors when it releases updates, which I do not feel is unreasonable.

Hi
I agree, but when humans and time restraints are involved, mistakes will happen.
Paul

PaulW wrote:..... when humans and time restraints are involved, mistakes will happen.Paul

Annually, customers pay Adobe £100 (plus £20 to HMRC in the UK) for the privilege of using the latest versions of Lightroom and Photoshop. That is not an insignificant amount and contributes to the $2bn profit which the company made last year. In financial terms, that makes Adobe very successful. Yet it is prepared to jeopardise that by allowing updates to go out because it seemingly prioritises release schedules, which it does not announce publicly, over the reliability of its code. It is able to get away with it in part because some customers simply shrug their shoulders and accept shoddy service.

This is not a recent issue at Adobe. I was one of the first customers to migrate to Creative Cloud when it launched and my details were among the 38 million compromised in the infamous 2013 hack. To its credit, Adobe did own up and I received an e-mail but I had to phone them to find out what happened. After being left on hold for 45 minutes, Adobe confirmed that I was one of the customers affected*. Moreover, the person I spoke to admitted that the hackers had been able to bypass Adobe's defences because it had not implemented industry standard security for its payment system. If I recall correctly, it was using software it had designed itself. As part of any agreement to acquire payments, the financial services sector has stringent requirements which Adobe would have breached.

Sometimes, standards really do matter and a cavalier approach does have serious consequences.

* Adobe also promised that I would receive a complimentary year's subscription to a credit monitoring service to ensure that my financial position had not been compromised. It failed to deliver on that commitment as well.

Initial reports suggest that the LR 7.3.1 bug fix release has fixed a lot of issues but the application can become unresponsive after ejecting a SD card or external hard drive, or the drive cannot be ejected while LR is open. It also appears that LR is still prone to slowdowns and crashes.

https://laurashoe.com/2018/04/24/whats- ... sic-7-3-1/

It is possible that the external hard drive problem is not down to Adobe. See Rikk Flohr's second response in this thread:

https://feedback.photoshop.com/photosho ... -1-hanging

Unless anyone really needs the new features introduced with version 7.3, sticking with 7.2 or earlier looks like the best option for the time being.