How do I send a bug report or feature request to Adobe?

If you’ve found a bug, or got a great idea for a new feature, what’s the best way to let Adobe know? Read on!

 

Why so many bugs?

As carefully as Adobe and prerelease testers check each release, the Lightroom cloud ecosystem and Lightroom Classic are now incredibly complex pieces of software and it’s inevitable that bugs will slip through the net. As a result, you’ve likely already found bugs in Lightroom – but who do you tell? How can you be sure it’s really a bug? And why don’t they all get fixed?

 

The Feedback Forum

Most software companies offer a bug report form that’s akin to a black hole. You submit the bug report and that’s the last you hear of it. You have no idea whether anyone else is suffering the same issue, whether there’s a workaround, or whether it’s been fixed.

Adobe has taken a different course with the Photoshop family of products, which includes the original Lightroom Classic and the newer Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem. Some years ago, the Digital Imaging team introduced the separate Feedback Forum. Now, in 2021, this has been integrated into the main Adobe Community Forums.

At first glance, it looks like yet another Lightroom forum, but this one’s different:

• It’s a direct line to the engineering teams. Although Adobe staff can’t reply to every single thread, they do read all of the bugs and feature requests, and often you’ll see the engineers and QE team members personally replying to threads.
• If Adobe can’t replicate the issue, they can communicate with you to get additional information. You’ll note some users have additional titles:
  • Adobe Employees (and other similar titles) are Adobe staff, whether they work in the support, development or quality engineering departments.
    
  • Adobe Community Professionals are volunteers who have been recognized by Adobe as being helpful forum members with excellent product knowledge. They assist staff in testing reported bugs and requesting additional information necessary to reproduce issues.
    
• When lots of users are reporting the same issue, spotting the commonalities can be the key to tracking down the cause of the problem.
• Because it’s public, you can check to see whether someone else has already reported the bug you think you’ve found – and often there are workarounds posted in the same thread.
• The forum software allows users to report bugs and request new features – but more importantly, it also allows users to vote on the bugs/features are that most important to them. Does this actually matter? Yes. Some of the most popular feature requests, such as face recognition, HDR/Panorama merge and Color Grading were implemented by popular demand. Your votes do count.

 

How do I report a bug or request a feature?

1. Go to the official Adobe Community Forums.
2. If you’re not already signed in, select Sign In in the top right corner and sign in using your normal Adobe ID.
3. On the home page, there’s a whole list of Adobe products, which can be simplified using the Photography filter checkbox on the left. Click the View button to enter the product forum.
   
   For easy access, the main Lightroom forums are:
   • Lightroom Classic
   • Lightroom ecosystem (Cloud-based)
4. In the lower search field, type a few words that describe your problem or idea (as you would in a Google search, for example, “zoom interpolation changed”). (The top search field searches all products, whereas the lower search field only searches the product you’ve selected.
   
5. The forum searches existing reports and shows you threads that may be the same issue. Since the forum is a mix of feature requests, bugs and general discussions, each thread type is identified.
   
6. If your issue matches one of the search results, read the thread to look for workarounds and check to see if a staff member has confirmed the bug status. The status is found at the bottom of the first post, near the Reply button. The main statuses are Acknowledged (bug reproduced and fix underway), Solved (bug hopefully fixed!) and Implemented (feature added).
   
7. Click the Upvote button on the right to show that you’re also affected by the bug or you want this feature too.
   
8. Add any additional comments using the Comment field. You’ll automatically be subscribed to threads you’ve created or commented on. This email subscription can be controlled using the Follow/Unfollow button.
9. If your issue isn’t shown in the search results, click the Post to Community button under the pop-up search results or the main blue Post button at the top of the forum product page.
10. Enter a Subject that briefly describes your issue, such as “Lightroom Classic: GPS data format is inaccurate”.
11. From the Conversation Type radio buttons, select Bug for a bug report, or Idea for a feature request. (Don’t worry if Adobe later changes this. Something you call a bug might be considered an enhancement or feature request if it’s working the way they originally designed it, but this is just a technicality.)
12. In the Details field, write a longer description of the problem you’re having, and don’t forget to include your system specs. We’ll come back to tips on writing great bug reports and feature requests in a moment.
13. Topic is usually the operating system you’re using, for example, the Lightroom Cloud Ecosystem offers macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, etc. This ensures that the report is seen by the right team.
14. Check the Email me when someone replies checkbox to receive notifications.
15. Drag and drop attachments, such as screenshots to illustrate the problem you’re trying to describe. A picture really does speak a thousand words!
    
16. Finally, click Post. If a forum moderator recognizes your problem as one that’s already been reported, they may merge it into an existing thread to keep all of the information together for the engineers.

 

What should I include in a great bug report?

The more specific the information you provide in a bug report, the better the chances of the engineers being able to reproduce and fix your bug, so here’s a quick checklist.

• Do a search to see if your idea has already been submitted and add your vote/comments to existing topics before creating a new one.
• Pick a descriptive title (e.g., “Lightroom Classic 10.4: GPS data format is inaccurate” is much better than “Really bad Lightroom bug!!!!“).
• Create a separate thread for each bug instead of a single laundry list thread, otherwise your bug may get lost.
• Follow a standard bug report checklist:
  • Description – write a brief description of the problem you’re seeing.
  • Steps to Reproduce – list the exact steps to reproduce the issue. If Adobe can’t reproduce it, it probably won’t get fixed.
  • Expected Result – write a brief description of what you expected to happen.
  • Actual Result – write a brief description of the incorrect result you’re seeing.
  • Workarounds – note any workarounds you’ve discovered, just in case anyone else is having the same problem.
  • System Specs – list your system specs including the exact Lightroom version, your operating system version and any other information that might be related, such as your graphics card and driver version. The easiest way to do this is to go to Help menu > System Info in Lightroom and copy/paste the first couple of sections (those shown below). There’s much more information when you scroll down, but it’s unnecessary for most bug reports.
    
  • Screenshots – if you can illustrate the problem with screenshots or a video, it’s often much easier to reproduce, and then it has a much better chance of being fixed.

 

What should I include in a great feature request?

There are some tricks that add weight to your feature request:

• Do a search to see if your idea has already been submitted and add your vote/comments to existing topics before creating a new one.
• Pick a descriptive title (e.g., “Lightroom Classic: Mark a photo as final version” is much better than “My great Lightroom idea“).
• Create separate threads for each request instead of a single laundry list thread, otherwise people can’t vote on your ideas and they’ll soon get lost.
• Imagine you’re trying to sell your idea to the team, so make the description clear and concise.
• Describe WHY you want the feature you’re requesting – the problem you’re currently hitting, and how this new feature will solve your problem. The team need to understand how your idea fits in, as they may come up with an even better way of solving your problem.
• Don’t be offended if someone suggests a workaround or plug-in to solve your problem, at least temporarily, or if someone asks additional questions to fully understand your request.

 

Why hasn’t my bug been fixed?

It can be discouraging if your bug doesn’t get fixed, or your feature request doesn’t get implemented.

Does this mean that Adobe isn’t listening? No. All of the suggestions and reports are weighed up, and as with everything in life, they have to be prioritized. One thing I’ve learned through many years of beta testing is that bugs and feature requests are rarely as simple as they sound to us. Fixing that “tiny irritating bug” may create another 10 much more serious bugs, and that “easy feature request” can have far reaching effects.

So should we give up reporting bugs and requesting new features? No. A huge number of bugs do get fixed in every release and new features are also being added. Your feedback does count.

 

 

Originally posted 31 October 2016, updated August 2021.