Keyword synchronization

Of course they know. They read these forums too. Unfortunately that 'functionality' was a glitch. It was never intended to work like that. And so it is highly unlikely that they will purposely build it into the new sync engine.

After some testing and trial and error I have decided to go with option 1 - Apply all keyword in LrC and sync smart previews from LRC and then duplicate the keywording process and other metadata in LR.

It IS an additional process but not as painful as it first appears, especially after becoming more familiar with LR key wording process.

It is also a much simpler process if you do this on a regular basis with a manageable number of photos.

One of the issues I had was manually syncing metatdata for the large number of photos that had been synced during / post LrC v13.3. I was able to easily identify these photos within LrC but the difficulty (initial) was isolating the same photos in LR. So I had 2000 + photos on one monitor in LrC and I wanted to isolate the same photos in LR. LR does not have the same filtering capability as LrC and in the end the only effective (and sure) way of doing this was to flag the 2000+ photos in LrC as "picked" and then filter for "picked" photos in LR.

I was then able to determine whether any of those photos in LR actually had metadata synced from LrC and remove these from the "picked" photos.

I then started what I thought would be a very laborious task of copying the metadata from LrC to LR.

However, I soon noticed that although the keywords had not synced and that City and State data had not synced, the Location (Sublocation) and Country / Region information had synced. After some further investigation I found that the Location info synced whatever was typed in LrC. Even after syncing if I changed the Location info in LrC it then changed the synced info in LR so in effect the Location box in LrC is a "live portal" for syncing with LR. However, it doesn't work the other way round. If I type a new location in LR it did not sync to LrC. Also if I removed the Location info from LrC the "blank" Location did not sync with LR.

The Country / Region box is a little different. All the 2000+ photos had the correct country (there were only 2 different countries). However all the 2000+ photos had GPS data (either from the original photo or was applied in LrC). When I did a test with a photo with no GPS data and either left the Country / Region blank or typed in a Country the info did not sync with LR. So the data for "Country / Region" is clearly coming from the GPS data only.

As the "Location" data had synced I was able to basically filter those 2000+ photos in LR by Location and then manually "batch" copy metadata from LrC to LR. Fortunately you can select and copy all the keyword in the keywords panel in LrC and paste in LR.

After getting into a bit of a rhythm the process was quite fast.

Finally I added a keyword in LrC to those photos "Synced with LR" so that I have a record. 

I am now up to date but will gradually go back pre LrC v13.3 to check that the metadate did previously sync properly.

I hope this gives encouragement to anyone who still wants to have keywords and other metdata synced between LrC and LR.

It doesn't work.
After uploading them to the cloud, LRC syncs them again. I'm abandoning this method for now until further testing.
Regards

I quickly reached the conclusion that it should be LR or LrC, not LR and LrC. 

I do appreciate there are many commonalities between the two of course.

But to use LrC and LR together in the hope that these will work like two sides of the same coin, only leads to frustration IMO. Keyword nesting etc does not work the same. The principles of storage and metadata location are not the same. Features are not quite the same and what features are even technically feasible: not the same.

I see these as two different coins, that share an identical reverse face: the CC system.

LrC connects to CC in its own way, and LR connects to CC in its own different way, fundamentally and inherently. These two different ways of connecting bring varying practical consequences. Settling on one work method or the other work method, is thus a choice we are IMHO wiser to make and then stick to, rather than to cavil and fudge that.

I just tested my LR and I no longer see keywords getting included with the first sync. So it does appear that the new sync engine in LR 13.4 removed that undocumented behavior.

1. Selected a photo with keywords in LR Classic catalog never before synced.

2. Metadata > Save Metadata (I also had Automatically Write Changes Into XMP checked).

3. Add photo to a synced collection.

4. Observe on LR Web the synced photo has no assigned keywords.

Maybe it did change in version 13.5 (it never was officially supported), but read my reply again. Is it possible that you used to have 'Automatically write changes to XMP' enabled in the past, but not anymore? That would explain it too.