P: 5.4 sync badge remains when collection removed from Lr mobile

[Wolf Eilers]

I notice than when a collection is removed from Lr mobile the collection is properly removed from Adobe Lightroom but the corresponding photos in desktop Lr continue to show the Synced with Lightroom mobile badge. This is misleading because, in fact, the photos are no longer actually synced -- they were removed from Lr mobile!

I also notice an All Synced Photographs "collection" in the Catalog panel of the Library module. Recall that I have removed all collections from Lr mobile yet desktop Lr still show a sync badge on the photos and the All Synced Photographs collection contains the photos that were previously synced. I have also signed out of both mobile and desktop and then signed in but the All Synced Photographs remain and the photos still have the sync badge. I have even removed the collection that was used for syncing in desktop Lr but the sync badges and All Synced Photographs remain.

Even more perplexing if you click the sync badge Lr asks to save metadata to disk. If you then click Save Lr flashes an indicator that the metadata is being saved and then shows an indicator that the file is being synced. I then selected all photos in the All Synced Photographs collection, then clicked the sync badge, then clicked Save and was puzzled as to why Lr was building previews and attempting to sync all photos. There is no way to abort this useless sync and no photos will show up in Adobe Lightroom web site nor on the iPad. Remember, I removed the collection from desktop Lr that was the source of the original sync.

How do you remove the sync badge when you no longer want files synced or have removed the photo from Lr mobile? Has no one else seen this quirk?

[Benjamin Warde]

Hi Wolfgang,

This is a known issue which we hope to have fixed soon. The essential problem is this: if a photo is removed from sync in Lightroom mobile, it does correctly get removed from the collection in Lightroom desktop, but even so, Lightroom desktop still thinks that the photo is synced, so it still has the sync badge, and still shows in the "All Synced Photographs" collection. Until we fix this problem, it is possible to avoid the bug, and it is possible to get out of the situation once you've already hit the bug.

Avoiding the bug:
Don't delete collections, or remove photos from collections, in Lightroom mobile. Only delete collections, or remove photos from collections, in Lightroom desktop.

Fixing the problem once you've hit it (all the steps below should be performed in Lightroom desktop, not Lightroom mobile):
1. Create a new, empty sync collection.
2. Select all of your synced collections.
3. Select all of the photos in all of your synced collections.
4. Select the "All Synced Photographs" collection.
5. Invert the selection (Edit>Invert Selection). At this point you will now have selected all of the photos that Lightroom thinks are synced, but which are not actually in any synced collection.
6. Add all these photos to the sync collection that you created in step 1.
7. Wait for the sync to finish, then delete the synced collection. Lightroom will now correctly understand that these photos are no longer synced.

Sorry for the trouble! I'll post back here when this bug has been fixed.

-Ben

[Wolf Eilers]

Thanks for the update to this issue. Both the fix (which worked) and the tip for avoiding the bug are appreciated.

[Benjamin Warde]

This bug has been fixed in Lightroom mobile 2.0, which is available today.

Thanks,
Ben