Users of Adobe Creative Cloud have taken to social media to vent their fury after a software update caused Mac users’ files to be deleted.
Adobe released a fix for the bug yesterday, Sunday 14 February, but that was after a number of users had reported that the bug had accessed their hard drive and deleted the first folder that appeared alphabetically. Hidden system files or backup files were among those deleted, due to the file-naming system used on Mac computers.
For some users the patch was too little too late, with Twitter user @steevbishop direct messaging @AdobeCare saying: "the damage has already been done for those like me who had CC auto-update. I’d like advice on recovering affected folders?"
Steevbishop was then directed by AdobeCare to a statement issued by the company. Adobe said: "Earlier today we were notified of an issue with an update to the Creative Cloud Desktop application on Mac that we rolled out earlier in the week. In a small number of cases, the updater may incorrectly remove some files from the system root directory with user writeable permissions.
"We have removed the update from distribution, and are in the process of deploying a new update which addresses the issue. When prompted for the update, Creative Cloud members should install it as normal."
In the statement, Adobe also credited Backblaze for identifying the issue. Backblaze, a provider of backup software, started to receive hundreds of support requests from customers on Thursday 11 February, with further investigation revealing that some of its backup files had been deleted after the Creative Cloud (version 3.5.0.206) update.
Writing on its blog, Backblaze said: "The updated version of Adobe Creative Cloud (3.5.0.206) can delete files that Backblaze stores on the Mac system to manage the backup of that system. These files are in a hidden folder named .bzvol located in the "root" directory on the Mac system.
"When the updated version of Adobe Creative Cloud is started is deletes all the files located in the .bzvol folder. This disables Backblaze from backing up your primary hard drive and results in Backblaze displaying a pop-up similar to the following."
Adobe released a new version of Adobe Creative Cloud (3.5.1.209) which they say fixes the bug fund by Backblaze. In a statement, Adobe said: "On the 12 Feb we were notified that some customers had an issue with an update to the Creative Cloud Desktop application.
"We removed the update from distribution and deployed a new one which addresses the issue."
