Lightroom 6 Map Module stopped working - page didn't load Google Maps correctly

[suzannem33579063]

Two weeks ago, I began using the map module in Lightroom 6.14.

I was delighted with the drag-and-drop features for placing groups of my photos from the

ribbon across the bottom onto a location on the map.

Now, 2 weeks later, I open Lightroom again and get the following error:
"This page didn't load Google Maps correctly. See the JavaScript console for technical details."

After searching for how to even FIND the JavaScript console, I had no idea what I was looking at

or what to do about what I was seeing.

I rebooted (no joy), updated drivers and rebooted (no joy), updated system and application software

and rebooted (STILL no joy)!

Upon starting Lightroom, I sill have the "page didn't load" error message.

I rebooted yet again, opened the JavaScript console, then opened Lightroom.

I've attached a screenshot of the Lightroom error message and javascript console.

(At least the GPS coordinates still seem to be intact for the images I placed!)

Help?

I'm running:

Windows 10 Home, version 1803

Intel Core i7, 4770 CPU @ 3.40GHz

24G Ram, 64-bit OS

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti (driver version 24.21.13.9924 - dated 9/5/2018)

Lightroom 6.14

[GoldingD]

Map is no longer supported in this version of Lightroom

(I think an additional link exists??)

Oh, in in the forthcoming tirade about the (censored) at Adobe, remember we are all customers at this forum, none of us work for Adobe. You will be preaching to the crowd, non of whom are at Adobe.

Perhaps another member can provide the link to Adobe for complaints.

Complaining on this forum, if thats to get a response from Adobe, is the wrong place.  But, if you want to vent, fine, but remember to include Google in your vent, include all the responsible parties.

[suzannem33579063]

>> Complaining on this forum, if thats to get a response from Adobe, is the wrong place.

>> But, if you want to vent, fine, but remember to  include Google in your vent, include

>> all the responsible parties.

Complaining and venting wasn't my intention.

I didn't know why a feature would be working fine, and then 14 days later stop.

I thought perhaps I had an incompatible driver/software update, so my

original post was a legitimate request for guidance.

I'm not all that knowledgeable as a sysadmin.

[Colemk4]

You are not alone. Yes Adobe is right to say LR Version 6 is no longer supported.

However, LR Version 6 is still available from retail outlets e.g. I visited my local John Lewis store on Tuesday 4th Dec 2018 and they have it priced £119.95. None of the members of staff were aware that map module would fail. Adobe had not informed them.

I tried "chatting" online with Adobe but was passed from one person to another none of whom was prepared to discuss the issue.

I have raised a query with Trading Standards Institute as I believe Adobe could be charged with making "a profit on something which they know is unfit for purpose". The query number is 15273816

Off to Camera club tonight to see if I can stir them up too 🙂

I know the "little man" rarely wins the day but Adobe really are not playing fair this time I feel

[suzannem33579063]

>> I have raised a query with Trading Standards Institute as I believe Adobe could be

>> charged with making "a profit on something which they know is unfit for purpose".

>> The query number is 15273816

It *is* frustrating to own a product that is still for sale and "supported"... yet isn't really.

Will be curious to learn what comes of your query with the Trading Standards Institute.

[alastairj35094253]

Anyone looking into class action against them?

[suzannem33579063 · Accepted solution]

Since Adobe is unlikely to issue any more updates for Lightroom6,

and it's equally unlikely that Google will revert/undo whatever change it just made:

As a general "work around" strategy, I'm using Google Maps in conjunction with Lightroom

(that is, I have a browser window open to maps.google.com beside my open Lightroom window).

I can't see/interact with the maps in Lightroom anymore, but the database is still logging GPS

coordinates that I provide.  It's sometimes a frustrating process to GET the GPS co-ordinates

to display within Google (they keep trying to give me "plus" codes instead), but I once I have them,

I just copy and paste them into the right info slot in the Lightroom MAPS module.

[newmikeman]

Yes I also find it massively frustrating. Yes you can still get geotag coordinates to paste into Lr. You can also use Jeffrey Friedl's geoencoding plug-in. The thing we have lost completely is the interactive map where you can see flags for all your photos showing where you took them. I'm looking into Google Earth as a possibility and I'm looking into other software products to use alongside Lightroom such as iMatch, darktable and digikam.

[sewhidbey]

Please let us know what you find. Thanks.

[sabottaca]

Once you've copied the GPS co-ordinates into the information field in the Lightroom MAPs module, does the map display in Lightroom? In my installation of Lightroom 6, the error message persisted (regarding JavaScript) even after I copied the GPS co-ordinates into Lightroom.

[sewhidbey]

To say that this is disconcerting is an understatement. I depend on this feature and to have to enter each image separately is untenable. Is anyone out there able to do a work-around that would let us see multiple images? Since Adobe is historically singularly unresponsive and has basically deleted one of the modules on our program, we need someone to "hack" the problem.

I'd certainly sign up for a class action. I have zero intention of being forced into a costly subscription.

[rkc62]

They have tried to force everyone into a subscription model, paying thousands of dollars over the coming years for a product (or lose your collection) and yet the method they are using proves that they cannot be trusted to be fair in the years to come. At some point they will ransom your photo collection for more and more cash.

[newmikeman]

Yes rkc62 that's exactly how it seems to me. Some will say that you won't lose your collection and that may be true for a while after you stop your subscription. But as soon as there is a change to any software that your version Lightroom depends on you will be partially or fully disabled, just like those of us on Lr 6 are now with tha Map view. As time goes by from that point on things can only get worse. Oh and what if Adobe either goes bust or drops Lighroom?

[ChrisDPage]

Just discovered this problem and just demonstrates another reason to not give Adobe more money! Massivley disappointed and it's not like there is a practical upgrade route now that Adobe are forcing their subscription model.

If anyone finds a fix or usable workaround please post!

[jamesjblake]

I just came across this for the first time myself today.  How frustrating.  ADOBE!!! They should fix this it should be relatively trivial to change out the mapping service to an open map service, or let the user select a tile service of their own.  They really should avoid having software functionality in their software that is dependent on a service and api they don't control.  They definitely could have done this originally through an Adobe server and then changed the Adobe server if the google service changes its functionality.  Poor planning imho.

While not really a replacement, Jeffrey Friedl's Geoencoding plug-in gives some functionality that is quite helpful now:  Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Jeffrey’s “Geoencoding Support” Plugin for Lightroom

One of the functionalities that is included with this plug in is a menu item that is you can highlight a photo and then under the Plug-in extras menu there will be an option to "view this location at...." and you will have many different on line mapping services where you can view.  Unfortunately this is one photo at a time and you cannot adjust the location.

Unfortunately with Google's change this plug-in has also lost some of its superior reverse geocoding functionality (Google now charges to access this servie).  He has updated his software to deal with this properly. 

[jamesjblake]

I should also add he has another plug-in that lets you do a proximity search to find other photos within your catalog that are near to a gps coordinates or the coordinates of a picked photo.  See:

Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Jeffrey’s “GPS Proximity Search” Lightroom Plugin

EDIT regarding the Geoencoding module:  It actually seems that you can export a set of photos to Google earth (via KML) and you can to Geocoding manually with Google Earth. I just never played around with that as I had always used the Maps module. 

Between these two plug-ins I can replace most of the functionality I used the maps module for.  However, it is a little more awkward to use.

[GoldingD]

If you are going to use Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Jeffrey’s “Geoencoding Support” Plugin for Lightroom  Just be aware in the update history, that in the version history, the following is posted:

20181226.317

Added the TempC and TempF tokens.

Well, an era has come to an end. Google has started to charge for services that used to be, very kindly of them, free. Now, the charges for the reverse-lookup feature are hundreds of dollars a month, and I just can't sustain that. They do give a certain amount of free credit per month, so I'll try to turn on the reverse-lookup feature at the start of each month, but it'll get turned off once the free credit has been used.

Hopefully in the near future I'll be able to add a way for individual users to use their own billing account at Google with the plugin.

[jamesjblake]

That is true, but most of the features work without Reverse-look-up. 

[daveb5541857]

How did you open the Lightroom console?

[stevej27841170]

I tried Jeffrey Friedle's plugin.  It's very clever, but it doesn't restore functionality of the Map Module.

I then tried the procedure described by Adrian Studer at Fixing the Map module in Lightroom Classic.

It helps if you have a background in IT, but I followed the instructions and it worked perfectly for me on Windows 10 with Lightroom 6.14.

My heartfelt thanks to Mr Studer for explaining the underlying problem and giving clear instructions on how to fix it.

I understand Adobe's position, but I'm not impressed by their response to this issue.  It does nothing to encourage me to subscribe to their latest software, and I worry that the subscription (currently US$13/month in the UK) could increase rapidly in the future.

[DaHaSvk]

I'm also disappointed with Adobe approach and I intensively looking for alternative. I bought it's software with this functionality and I expect that it will work. I also reported different bug before they went to cloud in import module and they didn't fixed it, even if they're agreed it's a bug. So I wouldn't expect that they will be so kind to fix Map module for us.

[GoldingD]

dhajduch  wrote

I'm also disappointed with Adobe approach and I intensively looking for alternative. I bought it's software with this functionality and I expect that it will work. I also reported different bug before they went to cloud in import module and they didn't fixed it, even if they're agreed it's a bug. So I wouldn't expect that they will be so kind to fix Map module for us.

dhajduch  wrote

I'm also disappointed with Adobe approach and I intensively looking for alternative. I bought it's software with this functionality and I expect that it will work. I also reported different bug before they went to cloud in import module and they didn't fixed it, even if they're agreed it's a bug. So I wouldn't expect that they will be so kind to fix Map module for us.

If you are looking for any fixes to Lightroom pre creative cloud. It is not going to happen. Period. Adobe is clear on that.

If you are looking for Adobe to fix a feature in pre creative cloud program because another company changed a requirement. See sentence one.

If you decide to go and blame Google, and it is a Google requirement that broke the map feature. Be aware that Google absolutely does not care one bit. They did it for security reasons, and they are not retreating.

[hatetobeforcedtoregister]

Sorry, such a big company as Adobe could develop an alternative to what they had before. I decided to leave the adobe services and my company is also ready to it. Earning a shitload of money and beeing stingy when their clients needs help. This is a poor behaviour. And in the end a kind of theft. Shame on you ADOBE!

[marend89267633]

Hi everybody,

primarily I used Lightroom 6 for tagging nature photos with species info. The Map function is an important feature for me, to display locations of species on a map. The Developing-function and other features are not that important for me.

Now the Map-Feature it's gone for some months, I miss it, I bought Lightroom 6 because of that feature. But Adobe won't fix it: Obviously they want to push their customers to a monthly subscription model.

I don't want to move to that model, because it's very expensive for my requirements.

Does anyone know any usefull alternative to Lightroom 6, which has a good tagging and maps functionality, which can import the lightroom catalog and which has no monthly subscription model?

[Bob Somrak]

As stevej27841170​ linked in post #18 you could use this "FIX"   GitHub - astuder/lightroom-map-fix: Fixing the Map module in Lightroom Classic. to restore the map it Lr6 and pay Google on your own or use this plugin  Jeffrey Friedl's Blog » Jeffrey’s “Geoencoding Support” Plugin for Lightroom        I helps if you read through the thread for info.