Lightroom Classic: no longer syncs completely, successfully.

Agreed on all counts. It has actually been broken for me since about v9.3

@jens_koopmann Hey Jens, I just wanted to offer my sincere thanks again for identifying the recent problems with LR sync. I actually managed to finally narrow it down to a series of shots I had taken from 1999-2004 with a Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror lens that does not report its EXIF data. All of these images had been successfully synced before, so it's all really weird. Strangely though, (as nothing seems to be normal with this bug) one single image of the bunch does still sync! Weird.

Thanks again, fellow LR sync sufferer!

=)

– Hans

Lightroom Web does not show any errors. 

Sync activity in Lightroom classic shows nothing - even after 30 Min. So no stuck images are shown here and no reason why images are not synched.

Deleting the synch.lrdata-Folder made a refresh on all data, but kept stuck at the same images. If I remove them from sync and try to sync other ones, they work sometimes. But now and then a couple of images are again not synching. By now it is almost unusable, because you can't collections anymore, only add single images. 

So unfortunately your solutions did not help. Btw. I just deleted all synced data about 2 month ago because of the same issue. It worked shortly afterwards (took about a week to resync), but now its stuck again, so resetting it again is no option.

Please provide another solution! Thank you

@Rikk Thank you for the reply, however:

#1 – I've never seen this "Sync Errors/Issues Album" you're talking about on Lightroom Web. All I see is the activity alarm bell icon, the cloud storage icon, and my account avatar icon.

#2 – No changes could be made per your Step 1. I did, however rename a few collections on LR Web, but they're not showing up in LRC on macOS.

#3 – Nothing ever shows up here anymore. It used to of course, but not anymore. Now the main sync panel (cloud icon, upper right, small) just showed the very stuck "LOCAL ACTIVITY syncing 68 photos" forever and forever.

#4 – I assume this is the "nuclear option" you alluded to. I've done this with no success at least a half dozen times in the last 3 months. It never seems to help, sorry.

Give me an overview of your sync clients:

I know you have Web and Lightroom Classic. Do you. have any devices, other computers, etc. Please list all, devices attached to your Adobe ID and their current OS and LR version.

Example: iPhone 10 - iOS 14.2 - Lr 6.02.

No, Lightroom Web does not show any sync errors in my case.

My OS is Windows 10 64bit Built 19041.630.

I am running Lightroom 10.

My phone is a Samsung S10+ running Lightroom Mobile v6.0

Lightroom CC is on a Surface Pro (also Win10) but not used in month (version 9.4), since sync take hours if not days to finish.

As said, synching problem in my case only effects the direction Lr Classic  => Mobile. Only RAW-Images in non-DNG-Format with no lens data are affected. If I remove those from the queue syncing works in both directions (which is obviously not a solution, only a short-term workaround).

Rikk –

Thank you for the continued follow-up. Please find attached a screenshot from Lightroom Web showing that I have no sync issues.

I have the following devices running Lr:

• 2018 Mac mini running macOS 10.15.7

• iPad Pro 10.5 running iPadOS 14.1

• iPhone XS running iOS 14.1

I'd really like to update macOS to 11.0 Big Sur. I do a lot of mobile editing, organization & publishing from the iPad (which I absolutely love) I often capture scouting and grab shots from the iPhone with the LR camera app, and love that too. EVERYTHING was working as smooth as silk through about July, at which point LR Classic got stuck on syncing a few dozen photos, and has never recovered since.

Now what?

Thanks for the screenshot Hans.

Can you get me a screenshot of the Classic Sync Panel (Cloud Icon - upper right)

Sure thing, Rikk. Here's the URH sync panel from LR Classic 10.0 on macOS Big Sur:

Does the 52 count ever change?

No. Unless of course I add more photos to sync. Then of course it just puts those on top of the clog.  ;-|

Open Preferences>Lightroom Sync and wait 30 seconds for the Sync Activity to populate.  Post a screenshot of that next please. 

Sure thing. Please find attached below. FWIW, all those pending iPhone XS shots synced from my phone to LR Web just fine it would seem. LR Classic is just stuck still.  =(

Hans,

So, the pending shots are all in the Web safely and waiting to come down to Lightroom Classic - correct? 

You only have 651 total photos synced so a resync from scratch isn't that arduous of a detail. 

"In the location where your catalog is stored is a file called 'sync.lrdata'. Close Lightroom and rename sync.lrdata to sync.old. Restart Lightroom. Allow it to sync. If you have a large number of assets, this can take some time. I usually recommend doing this before you go to bed in case it is a several hour operation. "

Does that clear it?

Hi, Rikk, I have the same sync issue as @hans_rupert reported. I am using windows 10 and LR CC v10. Here are some facts about my issue:

1. The Local Activity in LR CC keeps showing "Syncing xx photos". The xx number increases as I added more photos to the Collections. None of new collections (jpg, raw) can be sync'd to the cloud.

2. My lightroom cloud web does not show failed sync. I may have deleted some photos that were in the Sync issue folder when I first noticed the issue.

3. The new photos I have added to the LR app in my cell phone (Samsung S9) are timely sync'd to LR CC on my desktop. It tells me that syncing from phone app to LR CC on my desktop works well.

4. I have done the things you suggested: changing the sync.lrdata to sync.lrdata.old, rebuild sync data thru the preference window, uninstall and reinstall LR CC v10.... nothing helps me. 

5. The sync issue seems to start right after the LR CC V10 upgrade.

This issue really drive my nuts! 

It will be appreciated if you can help me address the issue.

Thanks.

Rikk -

I really appreciate the continued follow up. I REALLy want to get this fixed and back to work with my previous LR Sync workflow which was absolutely magical when it was working.

I know I have tried rebuilding the 'sync.lrdata' several times before, but without any success. I will try again since it's such a small number of photos. Please note that I had over 5,000 photos successfully synced before, and it was growing daily. Now I'm just dead in the water stuck. 

Just as a follow-up:

• stopped syncing, quit LR Classic

• nuked 'sync.lrdata' again

• went to LR Web and did the "delete xxx photo permanently" reset, logged out of Lightroom.adobe.com

• started LR Classic again, verified no synced collections

• chose one previously perfectly synced collection of 271 photos

• start sync, watch big sync panel (with files list)

• LR Classic says it has 271 photos in "All Synced Photos" collection.

• LR Web shows only 100 synced photos

• LR Classic's URH sync panel says it's still chugging away at the remaining 171 photos.

• It's been stuck on those 171 photos for the last 45 minutes and counting.

Something is very broken with the sync engine. There are no "photos with sync issues"in the LR Web collections. There are no "missing photos" from the LR Classic app search.

Why can't problem photos be skipped and set aside or logged to let the sync finish? Why can't the sync databases just be completely reset? This is getting infuriatingly frustrating.

Was there a reason for doing these?

"• stopped syncing, quit LR Classic"

"• went to LR Web and did the "delete xxx photo permanently" reset, logged out of Lightroom.adobe.com"

I fear that things are getting muddied when you manipulate multiple clients at the same time.   All that was necessary was to rename the sync.lrdata. The other steps were unnecessary and may have set the diagnosis back some.

If things do not resolve themselves by leaving the sync running overnight, we will have to identify the stuck file and see what it is.  I would highly recommend not modifying Lightroom Web at all during this process. 

Oy.

This is getting to be a bit voodoo-like. I'll leave everything just the way it is overnight and let you know how it goes. I can pretty much predict that *NOTHING* will happen, not a single thing will change. There will still be just 100 photos in the cloud, and LR Classic will be stuck saying 171 photos are still syncing, which of course they're not.

Thanks again for the follow-up. This really needs fixing. Is engineering even aware of this? Apparently, I'm not the only person having the issue.

Rikk –

The reason for doing these things was simple in my mind: wipe out any photos being synced in every place they might live, and reset the sync database to 0 so we can just start over. 

re: "This really needs fixing. Is engineering even aware of this? Apparently, I'm not the only person having the issue." 

As another data point, I have 37000 photos synced currently between Mac/Windows/iOS using Lightroom Classic, Lightroom (iPad and iPhone), and Lightroom Desktop. I haven't seen a stuck sync issue in over a year and that was a special case. 

In any case, lets take stock of where you are this morning (it is morning in my time zone)

What is your Lightroom Classic All Synced Photos count?
What is your Lightroom Classic Sync panel status? Syncing? (Screenshot)
What is your Lightroom Classic>Preferences>Lightroom Sync>Sync Activity (wait 30 seconds to refresh) status? (Screen Shot)

What is https://lightroom.adobe.com  All Photos count? 

Wow, color me envious – that's exactly how I had hoped LR Sync would ultimately work for me: all of my important photos in the cloud and accessible from any device!

Screenshots are included below. Sadly, it's still stuck at syncing 173 of 274 (I took one iPhone photo to see if it would sync across all devices, and it does – even back to the stuck desktop!)

What @hans_rupert showed is the same situation as my case. I am watching you two's conversation. 

Just FYI, I was able to remove all un-uploaded photos from Collections and "All Synced Photographs" so that "Local Activity" showed all "Synced". After that, I started adding different photos one by one in new collections and followed by removing the "sync.lrdata" folder. I was trying to diagnose the sync issue vs photo type or taken date...  There was NO successful sync in any of my trials. 

Thank you for the screenshots Hans.

Your Lightroom Classic Preferences screen concerns me. It shows no activity. If you launch that screen again and wait 60 seconds does anything appear in Sync Activity?

Sadly, no. I even let the sync and that panel alone overnight, and there is no change. The computer is not to set to sleep at all. I have since opened and closed that LRC Prefs panel several times over 15-20 minutes at a time. So nothing is looking like it's moving at all.

Ideas?!?

Since my last post, I have also paused and restarted the sync several times in 15-20 minute increments to see if the LRC Prefs panel/sync will start reporting sync states. Still no joy.

Rikk –

Do you or engineering have *any* ideas what's going on here? I'd sure like to get back to work.

– Hans

Rikk,

Is there a way for us to generate some log information or an error report for you to diagnose our issues?

@hans_rupert 
At this point it looks like a single file may be holding up your sync.

There are a couple of ways to go about this: 

1. Query the Sync Activity section of the Preferences>Lightroom Sync tab until you find the image that is truly stuck - remove it and allow the rest to sync. Note: there may be more than one problem images. 
2. Set aside the group you are currently syncing and sync other files first. Then add the 274 back 10 or so at a time so you can find the batch that has the problem image. 
3.  From the Preferences>Lightroom Sync panel hold down the Opt/Alt key to create the button to Generate a diagnostic log. This would be forwarded to engineering for review. 

Let me know how you would like to proceed.

@hans_rupert 

Did you by any chance check if the reason might be similar to mine?

I went through my stuck images, until I found a pattern, which images could not sync. So far all images stuck are 100% native-RAW-Files (no DNGs) with no lens data, because I shot with a manual lens.

Maybe there is some kind of pattern in your stuck images as well.

I'd like to add, that this is by far no solution, because this is still a major bug, because all valid image files should sync, otherwise it's best not to advertise the ability to sync across platforms anymore.

Rikk –

1) I think we keep going back over this endlessly: There are no images stuck in the Preferences Sync tab! I keep showing you this in screenshots.

2) You've got to be kidding me. So, set aside the images I need access to most and just take shots in the dark with other collections until I run into problems again?!?

3) Alrighty. I'll try your #2 suggestion above and then generate the sync log again. (I've don't that in the past, but apparently it just gets discarded at Adobe since nobody ever gets back to me)

This is bordering on ridiculous. I had over 5,000 photos synced perfectly up until about 100 days ago, and then something broke. And it's STILL BROKEN. Please fix this!

Jens –

Thanks for your insights & suggestions. The problem I'm having is that LR never shows me what is stuck, or just won't sync. I mean, I could sync 10 photos at a time, and LR hangs on sync like it has, I'd still have to guess which of the 10, and then just start syncing one at a time. Ridiculous.

I'll have to go through the photos and see if I can find any without any lens data, as you were saying. There might be a few. (but why does LR not just skip shows and log an error?) All these anecdotal attempts to solve the LR sync issues remind me of chasing down bad IRQ settings on a Windows machine in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file. It's infuriating.

@hans_rupert 

Reference #3 - this creates a log but you still have to deliver it to someone. To whom have you sent this in the past - I can chase it down. 

At this point I think you should forgo all other options and send the log to me. 

I know it is ridiculous. But in my case LR also did not just skip some photos but was stuck totally without showing any activity at all. I agree on all points with you, that this is unbelievable.

Rikk –

Thanks for the quick response.

The logs were taken from the online support chat agents in India. I'll generate a new log for you. Should I simply attache the .zip file here?

Jens –

Two things I cannot believe were overlooked when this sync engine was being engineered:

1) Can we skip problem files and just keep syncing and then report those problem files to the user afterwards?

2) What happens if everything is FUBAR in sync? Can we just reset the sync database on all devices and start over from scratch? (I've tried this numerous times on all devices with limited luck)

Jens -

Furthermore, all I'm trying to do is get back to the 5,000 photos I had successfully synced over a few years. The last time they were all synced just fine was in July! I'm not even trying to add any new photos, I just want my LR sync to work again.

@hans_rupert 

I've emailed instructions for the log file. I will respond on this thread once Engineering has reviewed and replied.

Thank you very much, Rikk. I just sent you the link.

Thanks Rikk; just sent you a link

Got it. Please leave your link up for a week or so. As soon as I hear back from the team, I will update you. 

Hi, Rikk,

I have learnt from another forum that changing catalog file could cause sync issue. When I upgraded my LR CC to v10, the system changed my catalog file to orginal_name-v10.lrcat. Could this be the root cause of my issue?

do you want to work on case at same time when you are helping @hans_rupert? or should I get another Adobe expert to help me? please advice.

Thanks.

Yin

@hans_rupert 

From Engineering:
According to your log file:

"There are 172 documents missing from docStore and 632 pending lrcat changes are yet to be processed.

Since the no of images synced is very less .. a quick “Rebuild sync.lrdata” would help here."  

This would be going to Preferences>Lightroom Sync and holding down the [Alt/option] Key and then clicking on the [Rebuild sync.lrdata] option.  Even if you have done this before. We would like to do it again and see if sync moves. 

@Huaqing Yin 

I do not think this catalog renaming is in-play for a sync issue.  

Sync issues tend to be very specific to a user's state and conditions and, in general, and unlike other threads here at feedback.photoshop.com they are best served as a single poster per thread.  When multiple users post in a continuous thread, it tends to cause some confusion as to who is saying what about what.  That is why this thread is focused on Hans and his specific issue. It is very hit or miss whether the solution for Hans will apply to other customers.  

We want to help everyone with sync issues but it is very difficult to do fragmented across a multi-user thread.  Often, persons not fluent in the forum come in to assist and have to parse the original posters issues separate from other subsequent posts. 

What can you do to help us help you? 

For Sync Issues Only: 

Start a new thread that contains as much information about your:

• System
• Current State
• What's been tried before
• And any other information you feel is pertinent

If we can keep sync-related threads cleaner it helps us move through them more quickly.  I would recommend you and @jens_koopmann both consider doing this.  Feel free to copy and paste the information you've shared here already into your new thread-unless that information is out of date. 

That said, working through a forum introduces a time delay based upon our various time zones, schedules and work loads. (at time they do give me a day off here and there so it may take a few days for a round trip response). If faster service is necessary, I recommend contacting Adobe Customer Care for Phone/Chat support. 

If you prefer to work through the forums, I welcome you to create a new post as outlined above.

Thank you for your patience and your support of the Lightroom Classic product. 

Hi, Rikk,

I fully understand that you need to focus on the issue case by case. I will start a new thread and keep following your progress here.

Thanks.

Yin

Hi Rikk -

Thanks again for the quick response, and thank engineering too for sifting through the sync logs so fast. Sadly, the "Rebuild sync.lrdata" did not help. Tried three separate times, even after log outs and reboots.

HOWEVER, I can say that @jens_koopman 's discovery that any photos with "Unknown Lens" as a metadata field will fail an entire sync! I just removed 256 such photos from two dozen different collections, and then synced the remaining 1,000+ photos with absolutely no problems whatsoever. For me (and Jens apparently) THIS is the exact bug.

Funniest thing? ALL these photos used to be in sync with no problem. Also funny: many of the photos are from known cameras, sometimes with built-in lenses. The iPhone 4s after all is a pretty known value.

Hope that helps engineering squash the bug. Now can I have the last 100 days of my life back and my CC subscription refunded?

Hi, Hans,

Glad to hear your problem is solved. Do you have to removed the phone photos from your LR CC collections created from the day 1? Do you have to remove photos sync'd from your LR mobile?

Thanks.

Your and Jens' reports regarding the unknown lens metadata failing sync is very interesting. 

Do either @hans_rupert  or @jens_koopmann  have a file that that can share with me for testing?

Hi Rikk -

I'm not sure yet. All I did was filter for the metadata of "no lens profile", move those files out of the synced collections, and then turned syncing back on, and then suddenly everything worked. 

I think I'd have to add one of the suspect files at a time and see when LR Sync gets stuck. I have to say I **AM** a bit hesitant to do this because I'm afraid of having to start all over again!  =)

Give me a few days to work on this, and then I'll let you know. I'm certainly willing to help quash this bug though!

@Rikk  Here is one file including the sidecar as an example.

All files failing to upload have the same camera, same file-format (ORF) and same lens (manual Laowa 7.5mm).

Example File

Thank you for the file. I have a Lightroom Classic Catalog with 37000 images synced - no errors

I have added this single image to the catalog and set it to sync.  Image does not sync.

Clearing the image from Synced Collection and All Synced Photos allows Sync to proceed normally and completes.

I will log a bug with the Classic team and include the image you sent.  Thanks for sticking with this and providing the test file. 

Well it is a good start, that you could reproduce the behaviour.

Let's hope now there will be a fix for this soon.

Rikk –

Thanks for your patience. I went through the 1,200 or so files in my current portfolio that were synced from LR Classic to the cloud, pulled out the ones that had the metadata "Unknown Lens" and then added them back to the sync one at a time until I found the problem files. I've included those files, their XMP sidecar data, and a screenshot of the shots themselves.

A few things to note: Firstly, all the shots that will not sync (and do clog the sync pipeline, preventing any other files from syncing) were taken with the same camera (Canon D60) and same lens, a Sigma 600mm f/8 mirror that apparently doesn't report any data via EXIF. Secondly, all of these shots have been successfully synced in the past (until about July this year) Lastly, one of the files –the one with the huge silver tank and steam– does indeed still sync, despite having the same "Unknown Lens" metadata criteria (and the fact that it was taken in January 2004 in Iceland just like all the other files) At first I thought it might be that because unlike the other files, I had processed it with Photoshop, and maybe some of the offending metadata got stripped. But when I uploaded the original raw file, it synced just fine too.

Weird.

https://www.dropbox.com/preview/Lightroom/Guh/LR%20Classic%20Unknown%20Lens%20–%20Files%20Fail%20to%20Sync.zip?role=personal

Let me know if this helps please. Jens & I both look forward to a speedy solution.

– Hans

Hi,

I am not able to access the above shared link. Can you please re share the files. Thanks.

@ragrawal  Did you mean my link or HansRuperts?

Mine is still up til end of December.

I am able to access the file which you shared.

Not able to access the dropbox link shared by Hans.

@ragrawal Sorry about that – let me go check the link.

@ragrawal @jens_koopmann 

I am able to get to the file (once done dismissing the "sign up now for Dropbox" dialog) on Chrome and Firefox, without any special credentials or logins. Jens, would you be able to confirm, please?

https://www.dropbox.com/s/mi0b8qsj796nhud/LR%20Classic%20Unknown%20Lens%20%E2%80%93%20Files%20Fail%20to%20Sync.zip?dl=0

Able to access now. Thanks.

My OS in Win10, but I already tried deleting the lightroom cache and also did drive maintenance recently. But that did not help either

ok, here is some more info about my problem after spending the evening narrowing it down.

After synching files one by one I realized, that there is a pattern to those files failing. In the end 16 images will not sync whatever I try. The following might help to further investigate the issue on Adobe`s side:

• All images that failed where shot with a manual lens where no exif data was transmitted from the lens. So all images have 0mm focal length and f0 as aperture
• All images were single exposure, ORF (OLYMPUS-Raw-Files). Images that were bracketet or panos merged in Lightroom as a Pano/HDR-DNG-File do sync!

So proprietary RAW-files (non-DNG) with no Lensdata do not sync in my case.

This is by no means a solution, but maybe it helps someone from Adobe to fix the issue.

@carlos_cardona Well, I've been doing UNIX and MacOS sysadmin for 25 years, and I'll just say that if this is the kind of voodoo housekeeping necessary to get Adobe Lightroom to run properly, then Lightroom needs to be rewritten from scratch. This is the kind of disastrous system corruption that led me to abandon Windows 25 years ago for NEXTSTEP (now called macOS, funny enough)

I'll try this all as a last resort, so thank you for your efforts with my problem.

@carlos_cardona Also, I'm not sure if you read my original post, but I did indeed create a fresh, virgin account on macOS, AND a new Adobe account to sync to, just so I could test such a theory, but even that got stuck.

@hans_rupert Me too, I was an Apple-certified Mac Sysadmin, also for 25 years, mostly in New York City! Small world, huh? I still go by the dictum "computing is like an iceberg, 85% is the OS, 15% is the app"! As to your sync issues, I will add that my experience with Adobe's backend authentication servers, over 25 years, has been a freakin' nightmare! I can't TELL you how many Creative Cloud users I've had to delete and recreate in corporate environments, because nothing else would get them back working again. So maybe it's not your Mac?

Hi Rikk, I already downloaded the fix and checked it with all my stuck files and so far everything syncs fine again so far. Thanks for your support!