Lightroom 2.0 has some issues, Please help!

[Steve Williams 0]

Hi all,

Lightroom 2.0 was released July 28th after being avalaible as a beta for the last few months. If your an apologist for Adobe you'd say that "everything is great", "lots of cool new features', "new software is going to have a few growing pains'. A more realistic approach would have to note that it's got some real problems. Using the new brush tool or the gradient filter for example, causes some machines to run very slowly and many like mine are just hanging. Both Mac and PC platforms are reporting the same issues. A painful three day review of the blogs seems to support the conclusion that the problems are not based on available memory either. Even more suspect is that the Adobe support center has been so swamped since the release that it's been impossible to get any help. Or for Adobe to see how big the problems are. If you can get the support center page to open (about a one in ten chance) there is a file there labeled "Trouble shooting system errors and freezes" but guess what, the support center's server freezes when you try to download it. So the good news is that there may be a fix, the bad news is you can't get to it.

 

What really irks me (going to rant now) is that a broad review of all the Adobe blogs like Scott Kelby's have made no mention of the problems. These guys are so tied at the hip to Adobe that they have lost all credibility. How in the hell can they put out a product with known issues and not fix the problems noted in the beta version. This isn't some screwed up typing program where you might "only" lose a few hours work if it crashes. This is the program where all your original images are held. If they can't have rock solid performance who is going to trust it? (rant over)

 

To be fair, many folks have not had an issue, many others just note "it's slower than LR 1.4" I really hope they fix the problems. I enjoyed the new tools and saw they have real potential in the 2 hours I had before the crashes started to come.

 

Here is a recommendation. If your thinking about the upgrade ($99 in the US, $140 international, That's a whole other post) download the trial and put it through it's paces for the trial period before spending the money. And don't remove 1.4, if you have it, until your sure 2.0 runs on your setup or until Adobe gets their $^#T together. And please, if somebody could do me a favor? Go to the Lightroom support center and try to download the "Trouble shooting system errors and freezes for Windows" file, Top of the list, can't miss it. I've tried three different machines but maybe it's a network problem on my end. I'd really appreciate it. If you could share it here, Wetpixel would once again be the first light in the darkness.

 

Thanks,

Steve

Edited August 6, 2008 by Steve Williams

[sideways 3]

well this thread is about 5 hours too late.....LOL. I just upgraded from 1.1 to 2...5 hours ago. So far I don't see the speed difference you mention. I am a rookie with this prog though. Might be more noticable to more seasoned vets

 

I'll be watching for a patch though.

[cor 0]

I am very disappointed with LR2. I even put a small video on youtube to show how slow it is in some cases. Like Steve, what irks me the most is that there is absolutely no mention of these problems, or even some form of acknowledgment. The only bug ive seen an adobe person mention something is the bug there LR looses all your keywords during upgrade. 'oh oops, we'll see if we can come up with a fix tool'. That was a week ago. They should have pulled LR2 right then and there. That silly keyword stuff is actually important to people Adobe. And thats not even the bug that i hate the most. The worst for me is that the Library Module is so slow, i find myself grinding my teeth working with it. It's like someone at Adobe went 'how can we $) with their minds and make it so slow they'll move to another piece of software'. It's just unworkable for me. I can not quickly browse through my image library. Mind you, 1.4.1 was never fast either, but this is ridiculous.

 

I've been trying to somewhat reverse engineer what Adobe is doing in the library module, and even in 1.4.1 I dont really like what I see. It all seems very inefficient to me. To give but a small example, it looks as if every image you view they load all those fancy new ACR profiles, instead of just the one you set for that image. And instead of keeping it in memory, they load it again every image. And those kinds of strange inefficiencies seem to be going on throughout the code, especially when it comes to thumbnails. I am starting to doubt if LR is ever going to be fast.

 

 

ps: does it show im ticked off?

[PRC 2]

Oh crikey that is scary Cor.

 

Think I am holding off upgrade as of now - a lot of people have invested a lot of time in key-wording alone

 

And that is without any other 'issues'.

 

Paul C

[loftus 42]

Everyone makes a big fuss about Adobe releasing a beta before the full release; did these problems not show up in the beta? You would think they had every chance to fix them. You are right Steve, these guys are tied by the hip to Adobe. I use Aperture, and when I was at Steve Frink's course a couple of years ago, I caught a lot of flack from Dan Brown of Adobe Evangelists for daring to compare aperture to the yet to be released Lightroom.

Edited August 6, 2008 by loftus

[cor 0]

This is one of the irritating things. Many of these issues had been identified in the beta, but were not fixed. Makes you wonder why you bother working for Adobe for free to beta test their product.

[rtrski 20]

This may be a partial hijack, and if so sorry, but is Lightroom intended to be a 'one stop' solution to RAW development, organization, and basic photo cleanup/manipulation? Or is it just the "workflow" application and one is also expected to get Photoshop elements and/or CS3?

 

Currently just use the free Olympus Master program for my RAW development, then cheapie Corel Paint Shop Photo XI to do any alterations, clone stamping, whatnot. Seems to work okay, but while I don't want to spend boatloads I would like something with a few more options, starting with simple things like the ability to use a black background to see the photo better than in a glaring white or light gray frame. I thought Lightroom would be that substitute, but even browsing Adobe's website doesn't make it perfectly clear to me whether that's really "all" I'd need.

[Steve Williams 0]

This may be a partial hijack, and if so sorry, but is Lightroom intended to be a 'one stop' solution to RAW development, organization, and basic photo cleanup/manipulation?

In a word yes, that's what it's designed to do. Photoshop is a fantastic graphic artists tool set. But once Adobe put a "feature" in they can never take it away or the mob would revolt. Eventually you end up with a tool tha's hard to use and learn for someone just starting out, and a bunch of capabilities few people need. Lightroom was intended to be a photgraphers tool set to go from RAW file to print/output. Once I started using LR I only used PS for layers type adjustments and the occasional use of Bridge to find an image I lost in LR. LR2 has added the ability to do most of the kind of adjustments I was using PS for. If and when it works the average photographer will have access to everything they would need and not have to pay for or learn Photoshop.

 

Back to the original post. Can anybody download the file from the Lightroom support center that details what to do to avoid the freezes?

 

Thanks for the responses guys, I was beginning to wonder if I was on this island all by myself. Hey Cor if I made a video it wouldn't be very exciting, the screen would just be frozen and the gradient filter lines would be flickering for as long as you want, frozen. Doesn't make for exciting entertainment. Maybe if you got a clip of me throwing the puter out the window....?

 

Dan Brown is a great idea, I met him in Bnaire at the shootout, great guy, I'll PM him and see if he can help. He might be a little busy though right about now.

Steve

[ATJ 1]

I am appalled by how bad Lightroom is from a bug perspective. It is worse than most Microsoft applications. I appears that the developers are not trained application developers and don't even do basic things such as unit and functional testing.

 

Don't get me wrong, I love Lightroom, or at least what Lightroom should be. I just find the small bugs to be so frustrating and it feels like I'm filling in a bug report every week.

 

For example, there is a function to Save Metadata to File and Read Metadata from File. Reading metadata from a JPEG file does not work and much of the metadata is lost (even though it is visible in the JPEG file). You can import a JPEG file, add some metadata, Save Metadata to File, immediately Read Metadata from File. Most of the added metadata is blown away. This is basic function in the code. The developer should have unit tested it - obviously it wasn't tested. It should have been tested in functional test - it obviously wasn't. And this is just one example there are so many like this.

 

And please, if somebody could do me a favor? Go to the Lightroom support center and try to download the "Trouble shooting system errors and freezes for Windows" file, Top of the list, can't miss it. I've tried three different machines but maybe it's a network problem on my end. I'd really appreciate it. If you could share it here, Wetpixel would once again be the first light in the darkness.

Steve,

 

It works fine for me. I can get it from http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewConten...9&sliceId=1 and also using http://www.adobe.com/go/kb404099.

 

I'm using Firefox 3.0.

[Steve Williams 0]

Steve,

 

It works fine for me. I can get it from http://kb.adobe.com/selfservice/viewConten...9&sliceId=1 and also using http://www.adobe.com/go/kb404099.

 

I'm using Firefox 3.0.

Thanks Andrew, I've got it. I'll try to work my way through it this evening and post anything that helps.

Steve

[Drew 0]

Any of you actually asked for your money back? That and serious bad press would probably wake them up more than anything.

[edpdiver 21]

Steve,

Thanks for posting. I was just about to buy this. Now I will wait for further developments. Bad reviews that are factual and detailed are extremely useful. Sorry to hear about your problems and frustrations, though. - Erwin

[Steve Williams 0]

Hey Erwin,

You might want to consider downloading the trial. I believe it is the full package that is time limited. Put it through it's paces and see what you think. There are some very good video clips at Adobe TV that walk you through the capabilities. See how your system performs. At the end of the day I think what were seeing here is a good program they released too soon.

 

I have just seen on another site where a customer finally got a hold of a person at Adobe's customer support. They acknowledged they have a problem with the tools I mentioned. They are seeing it on their machines too. They believe the issue is fixable relatively soon (software guys always say that ). Expect 2.1 pretty quick.

Steve

[scubamarli 5]

At least I haven't installed it yet! At least I got a deal on it! (Some deal) Since they fixed the mess with 1.4, I have become a convert for a lot of my workflow. Hopefully a fix will come about soon.

Cheers,

Marli

[pakman 0]

thanks for the heads up folks. I was just about the purchase LR 2.0

[ATJ 1]

The downloadable trial is actually the full version but can only be used for 30 days. i.e. nothing changes once you purchase the license other than stopping the reminder each time you start it.

 

The frustrating thing for non-US citizens is the huge mark-up that Adobe add to the cost of the upgrade. For US people, the download version of the upgrade is US$99. In Australia, the exact same download costs AU$165 (more than US$150). This is for the same product with the same level of support. Further, the support from Adobe Australia is woeful and if anything we should get a discount.

[Marjo 8]

Oh No, I wish I would have read this a little earlier! I installed LR 2 and it is slow, the flickr export doesn't work and the applications freezes frequently. Trying to run the slidesho crashes the laptop from time to time. Horrible!

[cor 0]

Drew, I havent bought the upgrade yet. I bought 1.1, and went through all the misery upto 1.4.1, which works somewhat. I got the 2.0 trial, and it's a disaster imho. It could be so good, but they bungled everything up. Im hoping for a 2.1 soon, but some problems just seem too structural to fix soonish.

[markprior 0]

I wouldn't rest your hopes on the help document.

 

I've just scanned through the windows version and it just suggests things like upgrading your graphics drivers and setting your page file to be large enough. Its all really general computer tune up advice.

[rtrski 20]

In other words, "we code sloppy, make sure you have lots of headroom"? All too prevalent with software today, unfortunately.

 

Are those of you having problems running 32 or 64 bit versions? If I buy (and right now I'm thinking wait, since I'm not upgrading and don't want to spend almost $300 to have this kind of trouble vs. waiting a bit longer to see how patches go), I'd be installing on a Vista x64 system with 6 GB installed RAM. (Yes, I'm a geek... )

[cor 0]

People are reporting problems regardless how tricked our their machines are.

[Steve Williams 0]

The Lightroom support file is mostly the standard stuff as Mark suggests with one exception. It seems that the preferences files can be conflicting or damaged. A review of the LR webpages suggests that removing it and letting LR build a fresh one is helping some folks. It seemed to speed up my machine and the gradient tool is working again. If you want to give it a try here are the directions from the Adobe file;

 

Re-create the Photoshop Lightroom 2.0 and 1.x preferences files to

eliminate problems that a damaged preferences file might cause. If you do not

delete your 1.x preferences as well as your 2.0 preferences, other issues may

occur. To re-create the Photoshop Lightroom preferences file:

 

1. Quit Photoshop Lightroom.

2. Rename the Lightroom 2 Preferences.agprefs file (for example, to Lightroom 2 Preferencesagprefs.old) and the Lightroom Preferences.agprefs file (for example, to Lightroom Preferences.old) in the Documents andSettings/[username ]/Application Data/Adobe/Lightroom/Preferences folder.

3. Start Photoshop Lightroom. Photoshop Lightroom creates a new

preferences file.

 

If the problem continues, the preferences file isn't the cause. To restore custom settings, delete the new preferences file and restore the original name of the previous preferences file.

 

Just a quick thought before I go.

A quick review of the Windows System errors and Freezes instructions from Adobe is the best example I've ever seen to buy a Mac.

Have fun,

Steve

[loftus 42]

I can see the Apple ads now: "Hello I'm Lightroom, and I'm Aperture..................."

[bmyates 3]

Man oh man...Adobe isn't making it easy for people to become Lightroom converts, do they!

 

I bought LR 1.0 and immediately wasn't impressed, so uninstalled it and went back to using CS3 and figured LR was just a waste of money except for wedding photogs and others who needed to process kazillions of photos.

 

Then I roomed with Don Silcock in Indonesia a few months back, and he was still using the last version of Raw Shooter as if it was the puppy he'd always loved and couldn't bear to part with. RS really impressed me, but it unfortunately was apparently bought by Adobe and shelved, with only "parts" of it integrated into Lightroom...so I decided maybe I should give LR another look.

 

When you posted how great 2.0 looked, I immediately bought the upgrade (I'm still waiting for box to arrive - I'm an old-fashioned guy and like to have a disc), but it sounds like I should wait to install it until 2.1 is announced so I can install and download the fixes before actually using it. I really appreciate you bleeding-edge guys letting us know about stuff like that!

 

Not to hijack this rant-at-Adobe thread , but do those of you really familiar with LR consider it the best/closest product compared to Raw Shooter for simple, quick image processing?

[danielbrown 0]

While there shouldn't be (and generally isn't) a huge shift in code between beta and "GM" (Golden Master) versions of the app, there are occasions when, at the last minute, one chunk of code which is "safer" gets swapped out for one that's "optimized".

 

With that said, I'm hardly "in" on what happened here. I showed off Lightroom 1.4 at the Bonaire Digital Shootout in June, and have dabbled in (but not hammered on) LR 2.0 since then.

 

A glance through the Adobe Support forums for Lightroom 2.0 under the topic of performance:

 

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx/.59b604cf

 

Shows several complaints, and several people wondering what the other people are talking about. There are some optimization tricks that seem to help, but my hunch is that people are using the retouching tools in LR 2.0 the same way they would in Photoshop and they are VERY different animals.

 

I'm sure they'll patch it quickly as the Lr team can be a bit more nimble and flexible than the Photoshop team. Hang tight.

 

As for Lightroom versus Aperture, I've no opinion either way since I no longer work for Adobe (though that may change...) My impressions of the two applications come from:

 

1. The fact that Lightroom is "cross-platform" and based on the number of responses from people on Windows machines, once can imagine that to be appealing.

 

2. The impressions I've received from talking to about 200 people who have used both intensively and prefer Lightroom over Aperture (rather vocally in some cases.)

 

In the end, it's personal preference; use what pisses you off the least 'cause, sooner or later, every piece of software is gonna do it.

 

Danielsan-->

"Wish I could take enough pictures worth keeping to slow Lightroom down"

www.downloadculture.com