Lightroom 4: Book Module – Unfinished book vanishes

Sharad, the product manager for Lightroom, has just posted an update as blog entry on this book issue. It includes specifics on what can cause it and how to avoid it. Thanks to the help of Marko and few other users the team has tracked down a reproducible case/steps that the team can use to nail down a more permanent fix in a future update to Lightroom 4:

http://blogs.adobe.com/lightroomjourn...

Hi Ben,

This bug is fixed in Lightroom 4.3. Upgrading may not recover your book, but will prevent you from losing books in the future.

Becky

Is it 4.0 or 4.1RC?

Release notes of 4.1RC say:

It was possible that a layout of a saved book could be lost after quitting Lightroom 4.

I have hit this in 4.1RC and have filed a bug.

Update: I use Time Machine (Mac), so I was able to recover an earlier version. Damage was losing a hour worth of work. Looks like they've fixed the issue with Lightroom 4.1 RC, but broke the Flickr publishing service.

Loren, I feel your pain. I have a similar story:

I’m creating my Blurb book inside of Lightroom 4. There are 56 images in my collection/filmstrip. I was almost done with the book--was just updating the captions type format. All of a sudden, all the pages of the book were gone! The filmstrip at the bottom of the page is there indicating images are in the book (56), but the book itself is empty with only a cover and two blank pages. If I add an already “used” image, the filmstrip counter goes from 1 to 2. The book is listed in the Collection (listing 56).

A lot of work went into this, I really hope I can get the book back.

Yes, beware making books in Lightroom 4: I'm working on several book projects and when I flip over to another book or library to copy, move or paste something I loose the book I'm working on. I am a regular user of Aperture and purchased Lightroom 4 mainly because of its Blurb Bookmaking capabilities. I'm running version 4.0 and the software update says this is the latest...

I've lost five hours of work today alone because of this. Be careful out there!

I'm working on several book projects and finished two successfully. Now when I flip over to another book or library to copy, move or paste something I loose the book I'm working on. After a bit of research I'm not alone. Here are links to folks experiencing the same issues:

http://feedback.photoshop.com/photosh...

http://forums.adobe.com/message/4318253

I've lost five hours of work today. Beginning to loose faith and trust in Adobe!

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Blurb Books Disappear in Lightroom 4.

Lightroom 4.1 still does not save changes in books.
I edit an existing book, then once LR4.1 is closed the changes seem to be lost.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Lightroom 4.1 does not save changes in Book module.

Yep, the same thing that Malcom describes has been happening to me.

When working in the book module, moving from book to book or from book to another module, causes one, two, or sometimes all of my books' contents to vanish. Poof!

Not fun.

In Lightroom 4.0 I was editing a photo book. When I reached page 25 or so, at the attempt to insert a photograph to a new page, lightroom stalled for some time and the book was gone. Any attempt to open it would only bring up a blank book beginning, although in the film stripe below all photos included in the missing book were marked with their number of appaerance in the book. For days I tryed everything I could think of to recover my book, without success.
Although everything had seemed to be quite straightforward (I have some experience with BookSmart) I thought I might have made some mistake that caused the disappearance of my book.
So I studied the book module manual and started anew, being carefull in all activities to build up the book again. And again at page 27 or so it disappeard under similar or identical conditions.

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
LR4 photobook disappears.

I have exactly the same problem except I have already installed 4.1RC which was supposed to have fixed this issue. I recreated a book in 4.1Rc and instead of the book vanishing the program replaced the images with others from my library never even picked for the book. Very, very frustrating as i have now lost two full days of work.

I have had serious concerns about the blurb and book module and |i set these out in a report which has not even beed acknowledged. Seems its low priority.

When I am designing a book, and then need to do something else in LR, when I come back the changes are either lost completely or the layout changes are saved but 60% of the images in the book have been changed around / duplicated on other pages. Why can't I save a book so nothing happens to it while I do other things?

This reply was created from a merged topic originally titled
Book feature unusable due to bugs.

I finally finished my book using Lightroom 4.1RC. It was my third try so I was very familiar with the material. Never-the-less I moved very slowly and purposefully afraid that the next pen stroke might end in another total loss. It would appear that the"Create book" button has been removed from beneath the "Book" module. So after successfully transferring the job to Blurb I sought out the other button (i.e., Command S) and hit it. The book disappeared but did not show up in the list! I had no more time to fool with it so have not investigated further.
Tom Angell

I have had all these "loosing" of the book info as well. But, can always restoe it from a back-up. My problem this past week is that the book I have worked on will not publish to BLURB. Nor will it export to PDF. It just starts and does nothing. I have to cancel the job to end it. Does anyone have any ideas what I have done wront. I have LR4. Windows 7. 64 bit. Should I upgrade to 4.1RC? And, how do I do that?