At the suggestion of someone, I installed the trial version of Elements 10 to see if it made a difference since I do not have or use photoshop.  I only use LR4.  Well, after downloading the trial and installing it (not even open it yet), I went to LR4 and all of the NIK software is working fine!

This tells me Adobe is the one who needs to fix this problem.  What a shame to have to download one of their products and take up hard drive space just to have LR4 work properly with NIK but I guess it will be the temporary solution until someone finds the fix or admits the error and who needs to fix it!

CEBimagery, it is funny how easy it is for people to think they've found a simple fix for a problem. I wish the fix was as easy as changing the Adobe develop version. Nope, that doesn't do the trick for me, but I'm sure happy it seems to have solved your problem.

I installed the trial version of Elements 10.  I am on a PC windows 7. 

After installation, all of NIK worked properly.

The updates were posted yesterday.  They did not seem to solve any of

the issues most of are having.

Been up all night trying to get arond this issue, instrall, re-install, different versions etc.......end result, same issues as above    Lightroom 4 and updated nik plugins NOT working......bummed out  ;-(

I'm having the same issue. I'm using the newest plugin as posted above but get the following error message, "Unexpected error performing command: bad argument #1 to 'lower' (string expected, got nil)." This is a clean installation for me on a new hard drive and I haven't installed PS yet. Is that required to make this plugin work?

I had the same issue. Once I installed LR4 on my Windows 7 64 bit machine no external editor would work (NIK's Silver Efex Pro - latest version 2.004pl posted 3/6/12 or any other non-NIK software). All I got was "Unexpected error performing command:bad argument #1 to 'lower' (string expected, got nil)". I tried removing and installing Silver Efex without success. The fix for me was to install the PS CS5 demo (which first required to installed the Adobe Download Assistant which required Adobe AIR to be installed). Now all external editors (NIK and non-NIK) are working just like with LR3.6 (never tried LR4 beta).

Hello Brett!

The updated Nik Plugins won't help,

but installing CS5 Demo on my Mac did help;

and as I tested the LR4 beta Nik-plugins workd fine both with LR3 and LR4

Interesting installing some other Adobe product like PSE or CS5

heals the failing area

Ther error clearly comes from the final version LR4

and not from the Nik Plugins, other Plugin Software like Topaz have the same problems

working with LR4

cheers

/Karl

I am developing software since Turbo C++ 1.0 ;-)

So re-install PSE and everything should be fine? I'm interested to know if this is also true on a Mac (10.7.3)? I've noticed that with Windows users, you at least get some sort of an error - I am getting nothing. Just inaction.

I will try re-installing PSE when I get back home.

I tried uninstalling Viveza 2, then re-installing it. It wouldn't accept the product keys that were originally sent to me. Looks like they should just issue all of us the Beta version (or a free version of PE) and call it good night. 

@achrysostomou

For what it's worth, I have un-installed PSE10 twice now and continue to have the Edit In failure.  Same as you describe - there is no error message, it just fails to send the image to PSE.  I am on OS 10.7.3.

Julie: I uninstalled, then re-installed Viveza 2, and NIK wouldn't accept the product key they gave me. This is all amazing to me. Stuff like this can put pros out of business. From what I've read, the only ones who are having any luck are the people who are installing Elements.

Isn't this something? When I went from LR-2 to LR-3, this problem didn't exist. I'm beginning to wonder just what they might have put in the new version that's blocking the use of (in my case) the NIK and Topaz software? Luckily, I still have LR-3 in use. I can still do everything in that.

@Calsteve

I'm on Mac OC 10.7.3

@7thsojourn

I'm going to have to revert to LR3 too until they get this sorted out. 

Hi,

Quoting what I already explained in another thread:

This error message is typical of a "dangling pointer" problem (in developer parlance). The "lower" function which converts a character string to lowercase, receives an argument that is a pointer (memory address) to the character string that should be converted. In that case, the pointer is invalid or null. This kind of bug may or may not cause a crash depending of the value (wrong address) contained in the pointer variable. This is just a matter of memory layout. So the bug affects everybody but in some cases it has no consequences. In other cases, it causes a crash that the system may (Windows) or may not (Mac) notify to the user.

Typically, this kind of bug originates in "last moment changes" made to a piece of code that is not  re-tested afterwards (it was not present in the beta version).

When you install another program like PS or PSE, you also install some services that were not there before. These modules are loaded when the system starts. So when you re-launch LR4, it is no longer loaded at the same memory address. This may (or may not) change the "dangling pointer" value. The value will always be invalid but in some cases this will do no harm.

This kind of behavior is typical with such bugs. Loading another program first may (apparently) fix the problem. Installing another application may have the same effect... or not. This is just random and this is what is observed. The "PSE fix" works for some users and doesn't work for others. I guess you could obtain similar results when installing/uninstalling another application. Don't waste your time with these tests. The problem is a plain old classical pointer bug. The error message is unambiguous. It clearly explains what's happening and where. It should be easy for the developers at Adobe to spot this coding problem quickly.

Thanks!  I'm not sure about the Mac problem but after installing a trail

edition of Elements (not starting the program, just install) I went back

to LR4 and all the plug ins worked properly and are still working fine. 

When they ever find a solution to the problem, I will uninstall Elements

and see what happens.  I am using PC windows 7 64 bit.

Julie McLeod wrote:

 

@Samoreen

 

Thank you for your detailed and technical explanation.  Much appreciated.  Once the engineers identify the coding problem, I wonder how long it would take to get a fix pushed out?

This is the problem with Adobe. Even for bugs that are easily spotted and fixed, it may takes a very long time until the fix is released. They are not used to release "x.0x" versions like Nik Software do, just to fix a specific bug. They never did this for LR. Chances are that we'll have to wait until they release version 4.1. For me, this is a major bug. If I can't safely invoke external programs or plugins, I'll stick with LR 3.6.

I can confirm that the Nik plugins worked fine with Lightroom 4 Beta. However since I bought and installed Lightroom 4, when I use Photo...Edit.. for any of the plugins, I get the "Unexpected error.....bad argument #1 to 'lower' (string expected, got nil)".

The only plugin that works is Nik's HDR Efex Pro which is accessed from File...Export with Preset...

I have Windows 7, 64 bit with 8G bytes of RAM.