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grege52139475
Known Participant
February 20, 2023
Question

Lightroom Classic will not sync, not matter what I try

  • February 20, 2023
  • 5 replies
  • 3244 views

TL;DR - how do I jump start syncing from classic when it just sits there doing nothing and says 'synced'?

 

I've been tearing out what little have my hair I have all weekend with this issue.

 

I haven't been taking may photos lately and haven't fired up Classic in a while, but I noticed some of the photos I've recently added via Lightroom simply would not sync with Classic on my MBP. They just sat in the sync queue doing nothing... for hours. Something must be up.

 

I signed and back in. Nothing. Rebooted the Macbook. Nothing. I then discovered the rebuild sync data option. I have nearly 10k images in my catalogue and when I tried this option is just sat there saying syncing for hours and hours and the number didn't change (even left it going over night).

 

I found this guide on the web and tried every suggestion. Still nothing.

https://visualsbychin.com/lightroom-classic-stuck-sync-fix/?utm_source=pocket_saves

 

I thought it might be an issue with my wifi, so tried linking to my phone. Still nothing.

 

Then I found this that mentioned DNS settings.

https://www.lightroomqueen.com/community/threads/sync-to-lightroom-option-missing-from-lightroom-classic.42112/

 

I had cloudflare DNS set up on my macbook, so disabled them and it started syning! Yay! Unfortunately I had already removed everything from my synced items folder, so it went a bit crazy trying to consolidate everything with the cloud

 

In hindsight, I really wish I have left it alone to consolidate itself. But I'm an idiot. So I thought it would be best to simply delete everything in the cloud and start again. I only really sync smart previews so I didn't think I had anything to lose. So I followed this guide and deleted all synced data to to start afresh.

https://community.adobe.com/t5/lightroom-classic-discussions/how-to-delete-all-synced-photos/td-p/11744596

 

Except LR Classic then failed to see the cloud at all. It just sat there saying "Synced". It didn't even reflect my actual cloud storage usage in the sync panel - just showed 0 btyes used. LR cloud and mobile devices still however synced properly with each other. It was almost as if Classic and LR cloud were using separate catalogues. I even tried setting up Classic on my spare mac with a fresh catalogue and that wouldn't sync either. Somehow after hours of proding around it started going again - I have no idea how. It synced a small collection so I thought I'd let it sync everything over night, except it didn't. It hung with several hundred left to upload.

 

Pretty much the state it was in when i started this adventure!

 

So I thought I'd try again, but this time only upload one collection at a time. So I deleted the cloud library again (with som trepidation considering the faff I had to sync it before), enabled a smalled collection of just 4 images and once again, for the last few hours, Classic is just sitting there saying synced when it's not syning at all. It's just popped up recognising the correct amount of cloud storage - so that's something, but it's still not recognising and syncing with the cloud side of lightroom.

 

Any suggestions welcome please. It's doing my head in!  

 

I have attached screen shots showing the syncing box, as well as the 4 images I have set to sync - as you can see, neither of them have the sync icon showing in the top right corner.

This topic has been closed for replies.

5 replies

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grege52139475Author
Known Participant
March 5, 2023

I finally seem to be getting somewhere!

 

I had an online chat with adobe support (twice, as the first one timed out and I had to start againg with a new agent). When they eventually understood the issues I was experiencing they dialled into my mac to take a look. First off they told me my manually created collections and collection sets would not sync because they were smart collections! This did not fill me with confidence, as I had to then demonstrate that there are not smart collections by recreating them.

They then had a look at my cloud library and noticed there were around 300 sync errors which I needed to delete. They also had a look inside my "Lightroom Library.lrlibrary" file and renamed one of the folders within in order to force it to rebuild. I'm not sure which step it was, but Classic is now syncing again. Quite slow, but it's working.

 

Lightroom cloud on both of my macbooks however is also very, very slow to sync, especially compared to LR on my iPad (surely they should be about the same speed?).  I mentioned this to the support agent who said it was regulated by my internet speed (which I don't believe is the issue as it used to be much quicker) and asked if I could switch to a different network - I said I had tried this before but it didn't really help, but said I would connect to my iPhone hotspot.  In hindsight, this was a daft suggestion as it disconnected the chat and I wasn't able to resetablish it. Never-the-less, it's now syncing, so I'll leave it be for the time being.

 

After researching, I'm tempted to delete the "Lightroom Library.lrlibrary" and rebuild Lightroom CC on my mac from scratch.  But I think I'll wait until Classic has finished syncing, and maybe test this theory on my second macbook before doing it on my main macbook.

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defaultvisth4th3eek
Participating Frequently
March 5, 2023

Great news - I can't see to find the sync errors section on LR cloud. Any pointers? Also, how did you get in touch with support - I can't find a number / chat link - everything seems to send me back to the forums. Thanks!

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grege52139475Author
Known Participant
March 6, 2023

On lightroom web (lightroom.adobe.com), I had a number of sync errors. These are listed in a folder somewhere underneath 'all photos'. If you see any, select all, and delete them. Then go to the deleted items and empty it (three dots in top right corner and choose 'permanently delete all').  Apparently, that should clear any blockage.

This thread might help you get onto the live chat. I had to use firefox and set it to enable popups as well as chance the security settings to all all trackers and scripts. (It's really time they overhauled this to make it easier with modern browser security).

Solved: HOW TO SPEAK WITH LIVE CHAT - Adobe Support Community - 9414120

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grege52139475Author
Known Participant
February 27, 2023

Just a note to let anyone who may have experienced similar issues know that I have manged to resolved my issues. My solution was simply to ignore it for a few days! In all seriousness, I had a few days away from home, came back and after forcing Lightroom to rebuild sync data, it 'found' the online libary and started syncing again.

 

It would appear that after deleting the online libary, one needs to allow time for LrC to attached itself to the new one. It could well have been an Adobe server issue all along, and may indeed work fine if I were to try it again, but we'll never know.

 

FWIW I'm re-uploading one collection at a time, this time round, rather than all at once. I got over halfway through yesterday evening before switching off for the night and it seems to be behaving much better.

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    grege52139475Author
    Known Participant
    February 27, 2023

    Gah! I spoke to soon. It was working perfectly before I switched off and went to bed last night. I tried syncing another small batch after work this evening and it just hung trying to upload unsuccessfuly for over an hour. Cancelled the sync, restarted LrC and nothing. I cleared the sync queue by unsyncing the collection I was trying to sync and removing the relevant images from 'all synced photos', rebooted and tried again and still nothing. It's back to just sitting their saying 'synced' with a green tick.

     

    Seeing as nothing changed from yesterday other than switching off my macbook over night, I can only conclude the issue must be at Adobe's end and not mine. I'll leave it a couple of days and try again and see what happens. It really shouldn't be this unreliable when other solution (such as iCloud Photos) "just work".

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    grege52139475Author
    Known Participant
    February 20, 2023

    Another experiment. I installed the previous version of classic on my spare macbook and tried syncing that instead, to see if was a version issue. Lightroom immediately recognised that another catalog was 'synced' to the cloud and asked me if I would like to sync this new catalog instead. So I clicked yes, and it still isn't syncing.

     

    It's almost as if Classic and cloud libraries are completely separate and unlinked entities.

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    grege52139475Author
    Known Participant
    February 20, 2023

    Another thought. Lightroom cloud is behaving perfectly on my ipad and iphone, but the desktop version (NOT Classic) is very, very slow to synchronise with the cloud.

     

    FWIW, I have run the Creative Cloud Cleaner tool and run the "Fix Host File" and "Adobe Content Synchronizer (CoreSync) (6.2.0)" tools no no avail. According to the documentation, both of these tools should fix server/sync issues.

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    grege52139475Author
    Known Participant
    February 20, 2023

    PS. At this stage I seriously considering completely removing the adobe suite with the cleaner tool and starting again, or more drastic, wiping my mac and starting again.

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