Lightroom Desktop: Syncing stuck forever

Hi Harry,

What does the sync activity preferences show in Lightroom Classic ?
Preferences -> Lightroom CC

1. Do you get any error message when you click on the link under the column Sync Details/Errors ?
2. Is the image properly uploaded to cloud ? (You can check this by clicking the link for lightoom.adobe.com for that asset that is shown in the sync activity preferences)
3. If it has been uploaded successfully, then please try to remove that image from cloud (lightroom.adobe.com). Once that is done, check if the "1 image pending.." thing is resolved. Once that is resolved, try to add the same image again and allow it to sync.

Thanks,
Arjun

Hi Arjun, 
I am not using Lightroom classic, I don't even have it installed.
My problem is that I don't know which image it is trying to sync, and I don't know how to locate it. I tried going through some of the Adobe log files, but I couldn't find anything useful (but then again I'm not sure which one I'm supposed to be looking at).

BTW, I thought I'd try the customer support chat option, and for more than an hour now all I get is "Thanks for your patience.  Representatives are currently helping other customers and we will be with you shortly."


Thank you

Also, in case it helps: my issue as far as I can tell is related to downloading not uploading.
When I initially uploaded everything I didn't have the 'Store a copy of all originals & previews..." selected.
The initial sync/upload finished without any errors.

Then I selected "Store a copy of all originals and previews locally".
So it started syncing/downloading everything.
While it was doing that I could see the images pending a download by Opt clicking on the cloud icon.
After there were no images left, it is now stuck with the "Syncing 1 photo" message.
Of course I've tried application and laptop restarts (I'm on a MacBook by the way).
I even tried unchecking "Store a copy of al originals" for a few minutes, so it would delete a few images and then checked it again to force a sync, with no luck.

Meanwhile, it's been 2 hours trying contact Adobe support via chat, and I'm still getting "Thanks for your patience.  Representatives are currently helping other customers and we will be with you shortly."

Status update: more than 2 hours on queue for a chat support session, someone finally picked up.
I must admit they were very polite and trying very hard to solve the problem in a screen sharing session.
After about an hour of getting nowhere, they generated some diagnostic logs for further analysis and said they'd revert by tomorrow.
(BTW, you can generate the logs and diagnostic reports by going to Preferences, and while in the Account tab pressing Alt/Opt [it's mentioned in some other posts but I hadn't found it until it was mentioned by the support person])

Having said that,  and being an adventurous spirit, based on the information in the diagnostics report, I found the problem in one of the database tables. There was a phantom entry about an asset, that I just deleted, and voila the program got unstuck.
Sync seems to works fine now (I tried adding/removing pictures from other devices and the web) and so far I haven't experienced any issues.
I'm not sure I'm allowed to post exactly what I did (after all no-one should be messing with the catalog tables or instructing others to do so, but I was desperate) - if it's ok, please let me know and I will.

I installed the 1.2 update yesterday, and the same issue arose again!
It was *exactly* the same issue, on exactly the same image, and I resolved it by doing the exact same steps.
Nice going Adobe...

Did try to uninstall with removing preferences and install again with no progress -> Still got 1 photo stuck in sync even after clean reinstall.

Just a follow up , they could not assist me and instead of a refund I just had to cancel my membership accompanied by a cancellation fee. Very poor user experience Adobe !

I have exact same issue, all the individual photos show they are synced but one of the folders and the cloud storage say syncing 2 photos. It started when I edited a couple using Photoshop. I upgraded to latest LR and PS yesterday but still showing the sync issue.

Go to LR Classic, open preferences, Lightroom Sync. See what is trying to sync, and click on the file(s) one at a time and it should tell you more. Worked for me.

LR Classic is showing everything synced. It's just LR cloud that is showing 2 photos syncing. It shows in one of the folders but no photos are marked for syncing and when I filter for syncing photos there are non.

To be fair I don’t think you can use a store analogy here, because you are getting something better - pay one subscription and you get to choose whether you want to use Classic or CC.

If CC is not for you then use Classic.

I pay a monthly subscription and yes CC has shortcomings, but overall has the core basics - especially considering the price of the monthly subscription is not that high?

I agree that the software itself has value - I just think Adobe has horribly botched cloud storage - both technically and from a PR perspective.  I was an Adobe Revel user....put all of my photos on it.  Then Adobe decides to pull the plug on Revel - no upgrade path - just "sorry" and "just download your 130Gb worth of pictures or poof! they'll disappear!"    So when I saw Lightroom CC, I thought that they must have finally gotten the cloud storage thing right.  (Cue the Price Is Right loser horn)....nope.  It sucks worse than Revel did.  I've just resorted to using LightRoom Classic, storing my photo collection on my NAS and syncing the NAS storage with DropBox.  Works like a charm.

> My desktop app has 120 images, but can't sync because the CC server thinks i don't have space left. 

That's clearly not normal, but I can't see a thread on the subject. Where did you post it to get help solving it? My first thought would be that you're using the rest of the space through Creative Cloud Files, which wouldn't show up in Lightroom CC.

I fully agreed. There should 100% be refunds issued to us users when the product does not function as it is advertised. I have 427 photos 'syncing' still and it's been 4 weeks since the issue arose. I have tried all the suggested fixes and nothing worked and no one fr Adobe has come to the rescue.

Hi Jake, 

Are you seeing the issue in Lightroom CC or Lightroom Classic CC?

Thanks,
Arjun

I'm using light room CC .
I have the subscription for CC only with 1tb of storage

Thanks

Hi Jake,

I'll contact you off thread to collect a diagnostic log. 

Becky

Thank you. Worked a treat. Very fast to rebuild the file and no syncing issue.

This is really bad advice. the "Lightroom Library.library (on a Mac) is all your images. It is a "package" and if you click on it while holding the control key, you can navigate into the file and see all your images.

by deleting it, and having recreated it by just running Lightroom CC again (really just creating a new copy from the cloud store) you fix this by not having whatever image(s) that were stuck. You lose those unsync'd images, and that isn't an acceptable solution.

That's assuming that those images are actually un-synced. Are they?

Thanks for the clarity Geoffrey, yes you should use caution and discretion with this "hack"

In my specific circumstances this worked for me as all my images were already synced, but the message never went away.

Cliff, I can't find any posts in which you've described your problem, so let's start at the top... which Lightroom version number (help menu > system info) are you using? And have the photos synced to the cloud - you can check at https://lightroom.adobe.com

We need to first confirm where the photos are getting stuck (e.g., between the desktop and the cloud, or the cloud and the devices).

And what have you done to try to fix it?

Hi Victoria. At least in my case, i wasn't able to determine which photos stuck syncing. The filter "Sync Status" doesn't showed anything...

If anybody has an idea how to tell where the photos are getting stuck -- or even which one it is, in my case -- that would be great.

Lightroom CC's interface is overall excellent, but it's frustrating to not be able to peek into lower-level details like this.