Adobe Lightroom Update Error: Photos "Not Recoverable"

The latest update to Adobe Lightroom had some unforeseen consequences with users that've taken the time to hit the update button this August, 2020, and some users are not happy. It would appear that the latest update has completely removed some users chosen preferences as well as their entire collection of photo edits. In some cases, this has removed months or years of files without explanation.

The update came through the iOS app store – this particular app was made for both iOS (iPhone) and for iPad (iPadOS). As noted by Petapixel, this update "inadvertently wipe users' photos and presents that were not already synced to the cloud."

The issue appeared with Lightroom app update version 5.4, issued this August, 2020. Photos, presents, and watermark data has disappeared for some users, regardless of their user status. This means that regardless of if the users were Adobe Cloud subscribers or not, they were subject to the potential destruction of their media and preferences.

As of August 19, 2020, Adobe is "aware that some customers who updated to Lightroom 5.4.0 on iPhone and iPad may be missing some photos and presents that were not synced to the Lightroom cloud." An Adobe representative continued, "A new version of Lightroom mobile (5.4.1) for iOS and iPadOS has now been released that prevents this issue from affecting additional customers."

Further, Adobe added that they're aware of some "photos and presents that are not recoverable" and that they "sincerely apologize to any customers who have been affected by this issue."

To further protect against this sort of situation in the future, it's probably a good time to go ahead and save all your work with redundancy in-effect. Save outside the app, save inside the app, and save to the cloud if you can! Better safe than sorry!