I watched helplessly as all the files from one specific folder just started disappearing Thursday afternoon. Unfortunately, it contained all of my working files for my clients. I spent the next 24+ hours trying to figure out what had happened. Contacted Apple tech support and we walked through everything to determine it wasn't a hard drive issue. Finally figured out that it was in connection to the Adobe update. I was on the phone with Adobe tech support and we both watched as more files (dummy files I had copied over to that same folder as a test) disappear. They finally told me they were aware of a bug with this new update and are looking into it. This was 24 hours after the original fiasco. Like braddock6921 the folder that was affected had a space before the first letter in order to keep it atop my hard drive contents. This folder contained Adobe files, but was not tied in any way to the Creative Cloud Files folder, which I do not use). No other files or folders were affected.

What are the chances, even if the bug is fixed that we'll ever see these missing files again? Where could they have disappeared to? I have run Data Recovery software and am not finding any of those files that have disappeared. This is beyond devastating for a small business.

Hi,

CC build 3.5.1.209 has the fix for the problem described in this thread. We are rolling out the update and should be available to everyone soon.

Regards,

Anirudh Bhatnagar

Creative Cloud Lead Quality Engineer

Hi Shih Min Twu,

I can confirm that this update i.e. 3.5.1.209 fixes the issue.

Thanks,

Vikas 

That's great.  Except that, in the meantime, Adobe's update has trashed certain important files in my and other people's folders (like rydesigns- I feel your pain there) where it shouldn't have been messing in the first place.  Why does it have to faff around with this level in the OS anyway?  What's wrong with a regular application support folder?

Like rydesigns, I spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what had happened to my folders/files and ran a number of programs in the hopes of trying to retrieve them. In addition to that, I was worried there may have been additional files, further down inside my folders on my hard drive which too may have mysteriously disappeared. I had not idea that this might even be related to Adobe CC had it not been for a photographer friend and fellow CC user who read about this on one of his photography forums and then emailed me a link to the article. Immediately, an email should have been sent out to Adobe CC users to warn them of the situation and possible solutions to avoid any further 'destruction' to their drive's contents. I love working with the Adobe software, but a begrudgingly signed up for CC and now am seriously having regrets about doing so. CS6 did and still does most of what I need to do. As a freelance designer I can't afford the downtime this has imposed upon my work schedule. Not that any of us can afford the downtime, but I don't have a large corporation to 'absorb' the time it takes to try and search out the problem and then recreate any necessary lost work.

I will be very curious if there is a way to retrieve those lost files. After running Disk Warrior I couldn't seem to locate them. I hope you get an answer to that question one way or another and that it does get posted.

This is quite a violation of our trust, isn't it?

Since I still have my .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder, did something else get deleted?

Would Adobe like to offer us a data recovery tool ASAP so we can find out?

Will Adobe listen to their lawyers and do as little as possible to take responsibility for the damage they've done, or will they do whatever it takes to regain our trust?

So many questions…

A user posted this comment:

"While this is Adobe making a mess here, Apple by means of iTunes has already caused other embarrassing deletion incidents. In that case it was due to a script not supporting file paths with spaces in them. Sure this was a few years ago, but shows how sensitive deletion operations can be and how careful you need to be in testing. I still see a lot of scripts that don't quote file paths, so don't deal well with thing like spaces in general."

In any event, the CC 2015 direct download links are now back to being the latest build of the Desktop app, for anyone who wants to immediately access the new CC version 3.5.1.209.

Yes - other folders can be affected. I had a clients folder named with an initial "space" so that it would show at the top of my window. Nearly 90% of the files in that folder were deleted by Adobe CC. Unbelievable!!!

I'm still trying to wrap my head around the fact that Adobe released this update. Do they test before release anymore?

At 11:29am today, I went to creative.adobe.com to download the Creative Cloud app. It downloaded and installed .206, as I just confirmed after launched and checking preferences.

It will be the .206 version

Just to be sure, is this only happening in the first folder in the root Macintosh HD directory? In the case of non-Backblaze customers, that would be the hidden DocumentRevisions-V100 folder keeping track of changes made in auto-saved documents.

A few questions I'm trying to answer now:

1. People that have folders with a leading space, are they in the Macintosh HD directory or somewhere else?

2. Is this folder emptying happening on launch or initial install of .206 or a continued process that happens all the time until an update is released? My CC app updated all on its own, but I opened up some documents to see if my version histories were wiped. I still had access to them, and also verified through Terminal that the folder had content (DocumentRevisions).

You have released software which has me and others panicking. Please tell us directly where we get the supposedly fixed version from. I mean a direct link. Put the direct link here in your replies. I want to overwrite the 206 version. I do not want to have to search for a perhaps-fixed version when I am not sure what I am getting until after I have installed it.

davechapfilms - In my case, the folder with the leading space was on the top level of the Mac HD Directory, right up there with the Applications, System, and Users folders. It was simply named (space)Clients. I have since changed it to read _Clients as I understand that simple change will prevent the erasure. Inside that folder, about half of my client folders were removed to whereabouts unknown.

As far as exactly when and how it happened, I have the Adobe Cloud icon up in my menu bar and I'm assuming it is automatically updating something, although I'm not sure as I haven't delved into it that much. I recently needed an update from CS6 to CC Flash in order to create some HTML5 banner ads, so I really haven't upgraded my other CS6 software. 

Hope this helps to better understand.

I find:

• In the internal package contents plist, it says it is .209
• in the user preferences pane after you install it, it says it is .206

No idea what it really is.

davechapfilms,

From reading, it seems file loses are from root directory, accessing the first folder in alpha order.

I've read that the deletion occurs when one logs into the CC account. Since I was still logged in when the update occurred, I seem to have NOT been affected.

If you refer to the Arstechnica article linked to in post 16, there is more detail.

Hi Vikas,

I haven't seen any link to the new version yet. Can you please post the fix?

197 GB of working files Gooooone! Wow.

Today was meant to be a great day.

31 degrees

Blue skies

A little work in the morning

A couple beers at the beach

Deadpool in the late arvo...

Um, seems things took a turn for the worst.

Oh Adobe.

How can we tell which folders and data have been deleted?

Do you or Adobe have an official response on how and why this happened?  What steps will you be taking in your software QA process to prevent something like this from happening again? 

I suspect the steps that are being taken is with their legal counsel, through Adobe's apparent negligence thousands and thousands of man-hours of work was likely destroyed...

Mark Wycherley wrote:

 

Please tell us directly where we get the supposedly fixed version from. I mean a direct link. Put the direct link here in your replies. I want to overwrite the 206 version. I do not want to have to search for a perhaps-fixed version when I am not sure what I am getting until after I have installed it.

Sure, you can get it here – look for the CC Desktop App in the links table:

Creative Cloud 2015 Downloads: Adobe CC 2015 Direct Links / Trials

(Please first make sure to carefully follow the download instructions given on that page, which are required by Adobe's servers in order for the direct links to work.)

This is pretty bad. Accidental file deletion is such a well-known risk. For example, a programmer means to do something like: wildcard-search for '/' + adobe-folder-prefix + '*'; then delete-first-folder. But for some reason the adobe-folder-prefix variable isn't set, and so the first result of '/*' is deleted. (t could be worse - the code might be to deleted all folders found! That's why it's burnt into the experience of all developers who have seen it or done it themselves.)

Given the obvious risk, you'd expect special care. For example, only delete folders and files through a single routine that checks against a list of Adobe folders. Or have a sentinel file inside each folder that should be deleted, and check for the existence of that sentinel file. You'd also expect any changes to deletion code to get special attention at the code review stage, and that would be one of the items on the review checklist.

I don't think this is just a accidental error with unfortunate consequences. It suggests a major flaw in the CC development process. Given the other problems I have experienced personally with CC updates (failed without logging out and back, removal of plugins, removal of a major feature without notice) I hope Adobe will take this incident as a wake-up call that the CC update process needs an overhaul. To date, Adobe have demonstrated that they don't have the expertise to make the Creative Cloud experience work for their customers.

Imksn, that article just says that deleting .DocumentRevisions-V100's contents could have negative consequences. Not too helpful. Can anyone tell me:

a: how to determine if my .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder is compromised (my computer says I don't have access)

b: if it is compromised, what do I do about it?

BlazinBuffalo,

a. You've probably already gotten the same notice that I have regarding the updated blog post by Adobe that includes info that the folder affected must be user writable. Since the .DocumentsRevisions-V100 folder is not user read nor write enabled, that folder will not be affected.

b. If it is compromised, the only option would be to reinstall from your backup. That would only be important if you needed past versions of files that were auto-saved. Otherwise, it seems it would be replaced by a fresh folder the next time you work on a document or file from an app that has the auto save function such as TextEdit or Preview.

Mr ProDesignTools, I did check your site, and did click around, but I really honestly could not find the app link.

I also appreciate you are providing a service and being helpful, but this is a catastrophic Adobe bug, that Adobe staff (who I was replying to) should clearly correct very quickly and then be very precise on where and when we find a fix. Looping off to a 3rd party website such as yours or searching through the regular pages of Adobe's own CC sales pitch that we have to endure on their main sites is simply not acceptable in this case. A single direct link should have been provided by Adobe staff every time they mentioned the issue was fixed. I do now see that direct links have been provided at the since updated Creative Cloud Desktop Mac Issue | Adobe Customer Care Team page, but they should have been here also at the very outset in Vikas' and Anirudh's responses above.

Adobe also still has not quantified the issue. They know from code inspection what that errant script does and so can and should also write a verbose report on what customers should be checking for to know what customer files may have been damaged or deleted. Despite installing .206 I do not believe I lost anything from my machine, but I do not actually know because I do not know what I should be checking for. Relying on 3rd party (i.e. Backblaze's observations and tests) is not acceptable.

Thank you imksn for the info. I have not heard anything from adobe on this matter, I had to learn about it from various news/blog articles.

Since .DocumentsRevisions... is not user read/write enabled would the bug fail or move on to the next available writable folder?

Like Mark, I don't appear to be affected but it's hard to get answers from adobe who seems to be staying very quiet.

I simply compared my current root with the last Time Machine backup prior to the CC update and added back the files in the 1st folder that were deleted by CC...

I just don't understand how these guys 1st have the Lightroom debacle and then this disaster...  I guess it all stems from the completely absurd software rental model.

PS. On a tangential topic, has anyone noticed that the latest release of Bridge is completely unstable?  Use it for 5 minutes and it crashes, 5 minutes and crashes...

I trialed Capture One Pro and wow do I love it and have also trialed Affinity Designer and Affinity Photo (amazing product but need a bit more time to mature)...  When my CC Photography renewal comes up in two months I am out, Adobe is just way to customer hostile for my tastes...

BlazinBuffalo,

>>Since .DocumentsRevisions... is not user read/write enabled would the bug fail or move on to the next available writable<<

As the Arstechnica article states, the first folder listed alphabetically in the root directory will be affected. Any folder with user write access in that root directory is susceptible. As jsm5758 mentioned in post 67, one can check ones backup to compare the first folder listed in the root directory.

imksn ,The Arstechnica article doesn't say anything about user write access, and in fact states that the .DocumentRevisions-V100 folder could be effected.

".DocumentRevisions-V100 [is] a folder that stores data required for Mac autosave and Version history functions to work properly. Deleting its contents could have negative consequences. "

Let me clarify my question:

My first alphabetically listed folder was .DocumentRevisions-V100 (I have since added a buffer .aaaa folder) and thus not user writable. My next alphabetically listed user writable folder was .vol which is now empty. So, is the nature of the bug that if the first listed folder is not user writable, nothing happens (in which case my .vol folder is supposed to be empty) or does the bug cause the first user writable folder's contents to be deleted? Any explanation of the bug I've seen has been ambiguous on this distinction.

I wish that Adobe would offer greater explanation than simply to say hold off on updating. What about those of us that already have?! Even an apology would be nice.

BlazinBuffalo,

>>>The Arstechnica article doesn't say anything about user write access<<<

I wasn't clear about where the idea came from that the folder had to be user write enabled to be susceptible. That came from the updated Adobe Customer Care Team blog mentioned in post 65 previously.

Related to the /.vol directory, that's over my pay grade. Mine is also empty, but the folder above that is /.TemporaryItems on my system. So, I would think that may suggest that the /.vol folder is empty when we view it in Finder. Additionally, every /.vol I look at in my Time Machine backup is empty. Someone else will have to verify this thinking of mine.

Hi,

You can go ahead and update the desktop application.

The issue has been rectified.

Regards,

Sheena

Sheena,

The issue will have been rectified once customers who installed the .206 version:

1. understand which of their files/folders may have been deleted

2. have, all-being-well, restored those deleted files from their own backups

Adobe needs to provide guidance on this aspect also. An updated .209 install may indeed prevent it happening again, but customers who installed .206 also want to know what additional steps they need to take. So far, as you can read above, there is only speculation as to what the erratic script actually did.

Regards,

Mark W.

We have advised customers to take local backup of their files just to be on a safe-side.

Sheena the issue is not rectified until Abobe makes their customers whole again.  There needs to be a method to determine which folder(s) and file(s) were affected. It may be a simple matter of retrieving the files from time machine (or not).  Particularly for working professionals real tangible damage has been done!!!

What is Adobe doing to repair the damage done to their customer's computers???

Sheena,

I have a local backup from before I installed .206.

Having now installed .209, what I want to understand is which folders/files in that back-up I might need to restore.

Thank-you,

Mark W.

You can configure finder to view hidden files and folders.  In terminal executng the following commands:

In the Terminal type:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles TRUE

killall Finder

Then compare the current root with the last Time Machine backup before .206 was installed.  It should give you some idea of what was deleted

To set it back execute these commands.  In the Terminal type:

defaults write com.apple.finder AppleShowAllFiles FALSE

killall Finder

Good luck

YMMV

I can understand your concern.

Please see Creative Cloud Desktop Mac Issue | Adobe Customer Care Team for further concerns.

Honestly Sheena nobody cares what you say you are going to do!!!  Adobe's actions speak much louder than your words!!!

What we want to know is how Adobe is going to fix the damage done to our computers and how Adobe is going to recover the work that was stored (and was deleted by Adobe) on those computers.

Sheena, as others have stated above, this issue is far from rectified.

Fortunately, my desktop doesn't seem to have been directly affected (at least as far as I can tell) so I'm not having to go through all the restorative steps others are. But even still, the indirect damage in the form of harm done to an already tenuous trust level with Adobe is significant. This issue will be only partially rectified when all of the following are done:

1.     All obviously affected users are given patient, personal assistance in restoring their deletes files in full. Whatever it takes.

2.     All other users are given clear instructions on how to verify beyond any question that they were not affected.

3.     Adobe explains in clear, unequivocal terms exactly what happened, why, what has been done to correct the situation, and—perhaps most importantly—what safeguards are being put in place to prevent this from ever happening again.

Let me state it clearly: this is a significant, inexcusable, violation of trust. Nevermind some license agreement mumbo jumbo that grants you the legal covering to modify files and that puts all responsibility on us, your paying customers. Hogwash. You didn't delete your own code on our machines, you deleted files utterly unrelated to anything Adobe. You know very well what the word proprietary means. You deleted proprietary files that didn't belong to you.

Adobe software is the de facto industry standard, and quite frankly that is the simple reason why you have all these CC customers. It's not that we love your products so much; it's that we have little other choice. But that may not always be the case, just as others before Adobe were once the standard and have now ridden into the proverbial sunset.

Adobe, your future rests on your trustworthiness every bit as much as your technological innovation. Tread carefully.