Lightroom stuck syncing

No offense to them, but Adobe's technical support is really shitty. I'm not native speaker, but I have a better english accent than theirs. I probably know lightroom better than them, and the only thing they'll suggest is to remove "All synced photographs" and try again.

I have had this problem, and the workaround has been to sync one folder at a time, easy and no issues.

I really can't. Re-syncing all the collections is a huge pain thanks to the UI bug choice: you can't unsync by unchecking the sync button, you need to remove the images from the all sync tab.

Not to mention the time it takes to sync back everything. I'm sick of this "workaround", I feel like I need to do this every other week :-(

Syncing a catalog of over 20, 000 images can present problems if the system gets stuck on something . You don’t need to sync collections, just sync the Folders individually. However, the question is, why are you syncing. My experience is it only rarely needs to be done in CC , and when done, it may locate missing images that need to be imported.

Why am I syncing? To access have my pictures on mobile devices. Otherwise I would have kept a perpetual licence and not a mounty subscription!!

You don’t need to sync collections, just sync the Folders individually.

No, you need to first create a collection in order to sync it. Folder's cant't be synced. Neither can be smart collections, by the way. For whatever marketing decision. But whatever, if that's the way it works.

If I want to re-sync everything, the only way is to remove all photos from "All Synced Collections" and then to re-sync everything. This will take ages, in labour time AND in processing/upload time.

I've been using sync for ages. But it has never been reliable. Really. I've had to re-sync a bunch of times. And I'm really sick of this buggy implementation.

I'm on macOS, latest version. LR is version 8.3.1, I don't want to take the risk to install 8.4 RC1 as it's a RC and can't take the risk to have more bugs.

Yes, I've rebuild the sync data since it had sync issues. Maybe (?) after I created a virtual copy (which I removed from the synced collections, because you never know... so that's out of the equation).

Is 8.4 RC1 public? If not, you may be breaching your NDA.

I couldn’t, I haven’t tried it. The presence of RC is a mystery to none.

Hi Antoine,

When rebuild sync data is clicked, the number to sync increases and should decrease eventually though.

Since the sync activity shows that no images are pending to be uploaded or downloaded, are there any pending images to be downloaded?
I meant to say, is your "All sync photographs" count matching with the count of "All photos" in https://lightroom.adobe.com/? (Classic doesn't show the video count in All Sync Photos )

Thanks,
Arjun

Hi Arjun,

Thanks for your message. Indeed, the number was increasing (before stopping). By the way, this behavior could use a description of what is actually happening. And more generally, when something is not going as expected, and error description in the sync action would be great. Generally, sync just stops and you have no idea of what's going on. Same goes for sync errors. Klicking on it just sends to the images, but you have no clue of what's going on.

There were no images to be downloaded. On that topic, it's also strange to see "Syncing xxx images" while seeing no sync activity.

Regarding my issue: I left my computer on during the night, as I always do when syncing and it was synced in the morning. I have no idea what "solved" this, which is good and bad at the same time. I really suspect something at the server side, as I already encountered, but have no idea what or how. All in all, it took 3 to 4 days to solve, which is still an issue. (I posted this thread after a couple of days of troubleshooting, rebuilding data, ...)

To be noted, my library was already fully synced, and I had to rebuild the sync data after sync was stuck (no idea if it was the same issue or not. It probably was, but no idea).
If you could check on server side, that would be great. Let me know if there are files I can send you.

Let me grab the opportunity to repeat my feeling towards sync: It is -on paper- a great feature and the only reason I keep Lightroom. I think many photographers feel the same.
However, it really feels like it has been poorly implemented. The (management) decision to stop the development of Classic is a real trahison towards long term LR users. It's a b*tch move and shows Adobe only cares about cash.
But that's only one thing. Despite being limited 'by design' (not syncing keywords, faces, stacks, colors, folders, smart collections and sets, edit history, ...), it is also terribly buggy, which is even more worrisome. This is not the first sync issue I encounter (last time it was an issue with an image having no date, for example)

Don't get me wrong, I'm not blaming anyone on this forum, certainly not developers and others "firemen" having to preach Adobe's decision, just repeating frustration I'm sure I'm sharing with many many other photographers.

Thanks for the information and feedback Antoine and thanks for standing by.
I am also glad to know that the issue was solved. 
We are looking towards the messaging part too.

Thanks,
Arjun