Adobe this morning released an update to Lightroom Classic – 7.3.1 – only two weeks after releasing 7.3. This interim update provides important bug fixes only – no new camera support or lens profiles, and no new features.
Preset and Profile Bugs Fixed
- Some customer presets were not converting to the new .XMP format and were therefore not present in the Presets panel. Upon launch of 7.3.1 all old .lrtemplate presets will be reconverted, .lrtemplate files will be renamed,beginning with ~~.
- When selecting a B&W legacy preset, the profile resets to Adobe Standard
- Presets were not sorting properly in the Presets panel
- Translation errors in other languages for some profiles
- B&W Mix option not present when Copying/Pasting or Syncing
Note that many users are experiencing slowdowns when hovering over presets, given the new behavior in 7.3 of this generating a preview in the main window rather than just in the Navigator panel. Adobe does plan to allow you to turn this behavior off in Preferences – but this didn’t make it into 7.3.1. If you’re experiencing slowdowns as a result of this preset preview and you’d like to try out Adobe’s preference fix before it’s available to the general public, leave a comment below.
Backup Catalog Corruption Bug Fix
Adobe has discovered that some catalog backups made during the 7.0-7.3 timeframe are being corrupted as they are written, due to a rare condition in the code. This issue has been fixed in 7.3.1 so backups made from now on should not be corrupted. For this reason in particular, it is important to update to 7.3.1, and then to backup your catalog so that you can be sure that you have 1+ backups that are not corrupted. If you don’t want to update to 7.3.1 right away, then regularly make a manual copy of your catalog (.lrcat) file to have as a backup. To see where you catalog file is, go to Edit (PC) or Lightroom (Mac)>Catalog Settings – the location and the file name are listed on the General tab.
Note that 7.3.1 will not zip up backups of catalogs smaller than 4 GB on Mac. This will be fixed in the next update. Having backups zipped (i.e. contained in .zip files) protected us from accidentally launching Lightroom with one of these backups and unknowingly working with a backup rather than with our master catalog. Until the next update therefore, be extra careful not to double-click on a catalog backup. (Stay out of the date folders in your Backups folder.) You can manually zip a backup file if you wish – right-click on the file and choose Compress.
How to Update
To update, go to Help>Updates, and in the Creative Cloud application that launches, click on Update next to Lightroom Classic CC. If there is no update available, then click on the three vertical dots in the top right and choose Check for App Updates. If that fails to find an update, then click on your profile (next to the three dots), sign out, and sign in again. If that fails and it’s launch day, then try again later.
Whether to Update
This is an important update. Nevertheless, as long as you make a manual copy of your catalog to serve as a backup, it can’t hurt to wait a few days to see whether the update introduces new issues. Check back on this post (rather than writing to me) – if there are widespread serious issues, I will update this post (but I won’t update it with every bug reported). No news is good news. You can also track reports of issues and report your own issues on Adobe’s bug/feedback site for Lightroom Classic – Adobe engineering staff participates here. They can’t fix what they don’t know of, so do report any issues you encounter!
Update April 25: It seems like a great deal of the issues reported for 7.3 are not being reported for 7.3.1 – it is quieter, at least so far. That said, there still are known issues, such as:
- Program unresponsive after ejecting an SD card or external hard drive, or the drive won’t eject while Lightroom is open.
- Some reports of crashes and slowdowns.
I do think that generally it’s an update that is worth installing. If you do experience issues you can’t live with, here’s how to easily roll back to 7.3 or 7.2.
I am experiencing slowdowns as a result of te new preset preview and woild like to try out Adobe’s preference fix before it’s available to the general public. Thank you.
I’ll pass your info along, David!
Hi David, I passed your info along. It may be several weeks before the build is ready to test, but at that point you’ll hear from someone at Adobe.
The Latest upgrade changed all of my legacy profiles from color to Black and White. It even added BW to the name.
All of my custom color passport profiles are now Black and White. They may have fixed a few bugs, however they seem to have created a major one.
Hi Frank, thanks for letting me know. Please also report this here: https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_photoshop_lightroom
Thank you for all you do.
You’re welcome, Festus!
Interestingly (and an extremely frustrating and miserable 2 weeks) my catalog was not actually corrupted after rolling back to 7.2. Something in there new code, I think having to do with the .xml convert, hammered backups on my password safe also which is database-based. Since this all occurred on a brand new computer, it was hard to pin down the problem. After I checked everything and did a clean Windows 10 boot did I see articles about the new profiles causing the corruption errors. When I got everything reloaded and after setting a restore point, I opened the supposedly corrupted catalog and it was fine, except that any profiles I had used on photos were gone. My password database was also fine. I’ve now used this catalog for a day and no back-up errors and no corruption. I’m sharing this so people who think their catalog is corrupt and might have to start over maybe won’t have to. Also 7.3 would not completely close a catalog thereby never closing the lock and wal files. Usually I update right away, but this time I’m going to wait. Is there anyway that I can test 7.3.1 without having to uninstall 7.2? I look forward to hearing about how 7.3.1 works out. I think false catalog corruption is far worse than presets out of order so I hope they’ve fixed that.
I’m sorry to hear what you’ve been through, Lise. The corruption of catalog backups (not main catalogs) doesn’t have anything to do with profiles, so you must have had something different going on. No, you can’t test 7.3.1 without uninstalling 7.2, but it is not difficult to revert if necessary.
Lightroom said my main catalog was corrupted. I tried a few back-ups and the same thing occurred. In actuality the data in the catalogs was not corrupted. It had something to do with the 7.3 release because I was able open the supposedly corrupted catalog when reverting to 7.2.
Thanks for the info on the update Laura. Thats pretty scary about the backups being corrupted. I didnt know about this. Ive been following the Adobe bug reports forum lately due to all the issues people have been talking about with 7.3 but never saw that one so it must have been Adobe insiders who found that.
YW. I agree about it being scary – I didn’t find out about it until a few days ago; otherwise I would have warned everyone sooner.
Does this new update show as 7.3.1 Release? I did the update on my MacPro, yet it still says 7.3 release. My Profile choice is still Adobe Standard alone when I click Profile. I have to go to the 4-sq icon to see more.
When I did the update on my MacBook Pro, it looked like it was doing an update (watched the bar moving slowly), but LR says its 7.1 release. I thought it was 7.3 before, but I can’t be absolutely sure.
Comments?
It does show as 7.3.1, Lynn. When you click profile you’ll only see (1) the profile already assigned, and (2) profiles you have marked in the browser as favorites – so what you’re seeing there is correct … but you’re still not using the latest update. I would look in the CC app to see if it still shows “Update” next to LR Classic CC.
Let me give a big thumbs up to the full-screen preset preview. This was already a feature of Luminar and some of the other plug-ins I use. This alone is a game changer for LR. So far my previews have been instantaneous; no slowdown as others have reported. (I’m using the Mac version.)
Good to hear that it’s working well for you, Cary. It is for me as well, except that it’s really distracting to have it flashing previews as I’m discussing presets in a video tutorial!
Lightroom Classic CC 7.3.1 Still Isn’t Working
I’ve installed Lightroom Classic CC 7.3.1 and it’s still not fixed. The app is so slow going from Library to Develop, or from one image in the Develop module to another and it’s practically unusable now. It also takes about 2 minutes to load a very small catalog of less than 300 photos, even after the .xmp files have been converted. I am now forced to roll back to version 7.2 as 7.3.1 is clearly not yet ready for prime time.
Unless there’s something I’m missing or the new final RC version download has not yet been made available in my area yet, I won’t be able to continue on with updating Lightroom Classic CC until this is fixed.
I’m sorry to hear it, Stephen. Thank you for letting me know. Please do also report it on Adobe’s bug/feedback site – Adobe engineers participate and really need our assistance with surfacing issues so that they can fix them.
I, too, am having nightmare problems with LR 7.3.1 (Mac OS 10.11.6). It’s slow as a snail when trying to use adjustment brush, I brush, it sits there doing nothing, the rolling beachball appears & disappears a few times, & finally a bit of the brush stroke appears — took about 70 seconds. I’ve restarted the app & the computer, to no avail. I’ve gone back to 7.3 and now have the same problem with it. This is extremely frustrating & annoying.
I’m sorry to hear it, Lynn. Please do report it at https://feedback.photoshop.com/photoshop_family/categories/photoshop_family_photoshop_lightroom – even if someone else has already reported it!
How can I go back to Lightroom before the “CC” and “Classic CC” versions?
My 2 year old PC has not worked well in LR since (slow, crashes, and is now too top heavy with all the pre-sets and profiles).
Hi John, here’s an article on how to roll back to an earlier version of Lightroom. Unless you know that your system is too underpowered for LR under the best of circumstances, I would still suggest posting your issue on Adobe’s bug/feedback site so that they can work on this issue – they really do listen here, and they need examples from users or they won’t be able to develop adequate fixes.
Hi Laura,
I typically use a Canon T5i, but recently rented a T7i for a school event. I was surprised that I couldn’t upload my photos. I’m hesitant to upgrade to Classic from my current subscription Lightroom 5 (which I’m happy with) simply to upload this batch of photos. I’m wondering if I can upload a trial version of Classic simply to work on these particular photos, and then uninstall it, or will that mess up my current Lightroom 5 version?
Thanks for your help!
Hi Lori, every new camera takes work on Adobe’s part to support, so only the current version of Lightroom will support new cameras. Download Adobe’s free DNG converter and convert the files to DNG – then you’ll be able to import them into Lightroom 5.
I updated to 7.3.1 and after the update the two most recent folders (several hundred photos each) are not appearing in the Library. I had spent hours making adjustments and cropping, etc. If I import them again from disk will those changes be there or are they lost?
It sounds like you are not in your master catalog, Bob. Here’s an article on this. (The article addresses having no photos, but having less than expected is usually due to the same issue.)
Yesterday I updated LR Classic CC to 7.3.1
I then started to edit several folders of new photos and found myself getting frustrated with unexpected things happening.
Maybe I am nuts/wrong etc etc…. but it seems to me that there have been some change that I have not seen referred to by anyone.
In the LIBRARY Module, using the GRID VIEW, if you select a number of images any keywords, stars, flags, colour labels etc you enter will be applied to all the selected photos. This is as it was before.
However, before if using the LOUPE VIEW, with a number of images selected, any keywords, stars, flags, colour labels etc you enter would only be applied to the image being viewed in loupe view. Now all those things are being applied to all the selected images.
There are pros and cons to this, depending on your workflow, but if you use the short cut “X” to set as a reject now it is applied to ALL the images in the selection when using LOUPE VIEW, where before it was only applied to the single image.
In SURVEY VIEW, if you click the “x flag” at the bottom left of one image, ALL the images are given an x flag whereas before only the one image rec’d the x flag.
However in the COMPARE VIEW, if you click on the little x flag bottom left, it is only applied to that one one image.
Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just my memory going?????
I just solved it ! I have been working on it for the past few hours and finally decided to post here. Then I was back looking again and noticed that “AUTO-SYNC” was on at the bottom right of the LIBRARY Module. I clicked on the “vertical slider” and it changed to sync and all is back to normal. I have never consciously used, not even looked at, SYNC in the LIBRARY Module so how it got changed is unknown, must have accidentally clicked on it.
Good to hear, Jim!
Hi Laura,
I wonder if you could help me.
I had to roll back to Lightroom Classic 7.2 after updating to 7.3. I had a lot of problems with my MacBook Pro crashing and the spinning ball trying to render images. I have no problem with 7.2. I have followed the forums from the beginning of this issue, which is just ongoing with no end in sight. I am now unable to update anymore until this issue is resolved.
How do I contact Adobe ( I am in Australia) to discuss this issue further as the forums are not getting anywhere.
Any advise would be appreciated
Chris
Hi Chris, here’s where to post about bugs – Adobe participates on this site. Otherwise you can contact Customer Support through Adobe.com (or the Australian version).