Lightroom Classic Missing Some Syncs from LR Mobile

Report · Apr 20, 2021

I have experienced instances with four albums now where some actions done to pics in LR Mobile on my iPad are not fully synced back to Lightroom Classic. Here's the workflow and what has happened:

1) Pics initially imported from D850 to Lightroom Classic.

2) Collections created in LR Classic and set to sync to Lightroom.

3) Albums with all pics appear on iPad in LR as they should (as well as iPhone, cloud etc.).

4) Albums are reviewed on iPad with certain pics flagged and/or star rated.

5) LR iPad, LR iPhone, LR desktop (not Classic, the other one) and lightroom.adobe.com are all perfectly in sync right down to the pick, ratings, etc.

5) The problem is that some of the flags and ratings changes properly sync back to Classic and some do not. I can't really see a pattern. Edits however done in LR mobile appear to sync but I only tested a few.

This is a huge problem because now Classic is out of sync with the client's selection made on the iPad. I do this a lot and have never had this problem until a week or so ago.

Is this a new known issue? How can it be fixed/re-synced?

Report · Apr 23, 2021

1) though 4) √

5 - are you using both Lr and Lr Classic on your desktop? If yes Why? Are you using both with the same Adobe ID? Just to be clear, you are importing images into both apps? Why are you making synced collections in Classic? If you're using Lr the images will already be in the Lr ecosystem and you wouldn't need to make synced collections in Classic.

I did test flagging and rating images from lightroom.adobe.com and see it syncing back to Classic as expected.

Report · Apr 23, 2021

Thanks for the response and great questions. I should have been more clear. On item 5 that you asked about, I only used LR desktop to verify that all the cloud based apps (LR, LR iPhone, LR iPad) were still in sync. I don't use LR other than maybe to share a collection, etc. I do all the heavy lifting in LR Classic on my Windows desktop but use the iPad extensively for flagging/rating etc. and client review.

I too did some testing, mostly on the iPad and those flags, ratings and edits done on the iPad did transfer back to the LR Classic desktop. However, as an example, in a shoot last weekend where the client reviewed approximately 800 images on the iPad and did a series of passes where they flagged and then rated, those flags and ratings only made it back to the LR Classic versions about 70-75% of the time. I could not see a patter either. I was very hesitant to follow any troubleshooting I had seen online until I got some hits on this post and some fresh thoughts.

This flagging, picking and cropping in some cases on the iPad is a huge part of my workflow. I do lots of different shooting but my biggest volume comes from high school football. I'll shoot a couple of thousand images on a Friday night, import them into LR Classic, build a synced collection and then use the iPad to fly through the pics, flagging and rating and then cropping the flagged ones. I then finalize post on LR Classic. Works like a charm. However, if I can't rely on those flags being 100% back to the desktop version, I'm dead in the water on that workflow. Thanks again! Thoughts?

Report · Apr 23, 2021

Was this a one-time event with the flags not showing up? Can you repeat the problem? Maybe it was a sync issue...

Report · Apr 23, 2021

No, it's happened twice now across three different synced albums. The instances were about four days apart. Same thing though, sporadic missing flags and starts.

I have not tried to recreate yet and see if it's isolated to flags/stars or if edits will be missing as well. Will try to do that this weekend. Clearly not a one time situation though.

Report · Apr 23, 2021

"However, as an example, in a shoot last weekend where the client reviewed approximately 800 images on the iPad and did a series of passes where they flagged and then rated, those flags and ratings only made it back to the LR Classic versions about 70-75% of the time."

My first guess would be that your client closed the session (closed LR Mobile, turned off iPad, or Wi-Fi disconnected) before all of the changes had synced to the Cloud. I've found it sometimes takes far longer than expected to sync all edits.

Report · Apr 23, 2021

Interesting theory. Certainly possibly. In both cases it was at my home on good wifi and internet and they sat down and did the review in one sitting. I will be doing more testing. Thanks for the response and any other thoughts that come up.

Report · Apr 23, 2021

Are the edits missing in LrC visible at lightroom.adobe.com? If so try signing out in the Creative Cloud app on the LrC system with the issue (click on the screen icon in the upper right-hand corner) . Reboot your system and sign back in using the Creative Cloud app. Lauch LrC and give it some time to see if the iPad edits now sync.

Report · Apr 23, 2021

Excellent suggestion. I did verify that all edits were in sync between lightroom.adobe.com and LR iPad and LR CC etc. Unfortunately, I went back into LrC and manually made the same flag and star settings as LR iPad etc. to get everything back in sync. I'm going to try more testing and if I notice another out of sync, I'll try your suggestion. Thanks Todd!!!!

Report · May 02, 2021

I did my daughter's prom shoot yesterday and the problem still exists. I did a control where I starred 9 pics on the iPad back to back in one session. I thougth I would try having LrC not running so that when I launched it all edits would sync at once. Of the 9 starred pics, 8 ended up in LrC. The missing one wasn't even the last one. It was the next to last. Has no one else experienced this recently?

I wasn't able to follow the suggestion about signing out of the Creative Cloud app. I couldn't identify what you meant about the screen icon. I'm running Win 10, don't know if that matters. I had no connectivity interruptions. I made all these changes in a short period of time myself.

Report · Apr 26, 2021

Star ratings will not sync - you should see the pick flags but you won't see the star ratings - comments will sync. The most likely cause for missing sync'able data is an interruption during sync.

https://helpx.adobe.com/lightroom-classic/kb/sync-faq.html

What syncs	What does not sync
Smart previews	Videos*
Captions	PSB files
Flags	Files greater than 200 MB
Ratings	History steps
Develop settings	Keywords
	Snapshots

Report · Apr 26, 2021

Thanks for the response and the great resource link. I have to admit though that I'm confused by the statement that the star ratings will not sync. The always have and they still are syncing, just albeit recently with some inconsistency. Has something changed? The sync doc even states they will sync along with flags. Can you please clarify? Thanks!

Report · Apr 26, 2021

Ratings do sync back to Classic. I've just tested it again and it works. You'll need to keep looking for a pattern for why some image ratings are syncing and some are not.

Report · Apr 26, 2021

I agree. The majority were syncing (about 70 to 75% in these last sessions). I just need to continue testing with some volume and see if I can tell any pattern with those that don't sync in the future. Thanks again.

Report · May 02, 2021

I did my daughter's prom shoot yesterday and the problem still exists. I did a control where I starred 9 pics on the iPad back to back in one session. I thougth I would try having LrC not running so that when I launched it all edits would sync at once. Of the 9 starred pics, 8 ended up in LrC. The missing one wasn't even the last one. It was the next to last. Has no one else experienced this recently?

Report · May 18, 2021

I'm having the exact same issue, it's super frustrating. I've had a similar workflow for the past few years and syncing has always worked fine, now all of a sudden, not all of my star ratings and flags are syncing. It seems that about 80% of them sync and the rest don't and I can't seem to find a workaround. I've tried selecting the whole batch of images with a certain rating and changing it to a different rating but the same photos show up when I filter the results and the others don't. I can't find a pattern either, it's very random. I'm open to suggestions or workarounds.

Report · May 19, 2021

I tried to reply to your post above but the forum keeps blocking it for "post flooding". Don't know what the problem is so I'll try to shorten this. Yes, I'm still having the problem. No real pattern. I did try deleting the Sync.lrdata folder. Lightroom resynced everthing and then I tried to process another batch from my iPad and it all synced just fine! I'll keep an eye on it but it may have worked. Please give that a try and keep me posted!

Report · May 22, 2021

In the settings, under Sync tab, I held alt and clicked rebuild sync data which I believe is the same as deleting sync.lrdata folder. It took a bit for everything to sync over and at first, it seemed like it was finished but I was still having the same issues. I went back to the settings and to the sync tab and all of a sudden items starting syncing again and after that process completely finished everything started working normally again. I guess this is a good workaround. Thanks for the help!

Report · May 22, 2021

Great to hear! I would love to hear from Adobe if that is the same thing as manually deleting the sync.lrdate folder and/or what exactly that process does. Please keep me posted and I will do the same.

Report · May 24, 2021

Ive been having this exact issue as well. Only started happening a few months ago. I did the rebuild sync data as a fix, but only seems to work 75% of the time. Can you clarify what you mean by "I went back to the settings and to the sync tab..."

I currently have a collection in the cloud that I spent a lot of time working on and can't do the final finishing touches via Classic as a result of this. Please let me know if you came across any other fixes for this.

Report · Jun 08, 2021

So in the Preferences -> Lightroom Sync tab, after doing the rebuild. I hit ok and watched and waited for everything to sync back up but even after all of the collections synced, I was still seeing the same issues. I then went back to the Preferences -> Lightroom Sync tab and without doing anything except having that window open, the sync activity fired up and started syncing a bunch of stuff and only after that was done was everything working the way it should. I can't say for certain that leaving that window open is what made the difference but it seemed to get things moving.

Report · Aug 26, 2021

I'm having the same issue! I see that this is an older thread from the spring but has anyone found a solution? I'm a bit confused by the "rebuilding sync data."

I just got an iPad and started the same workflow mentioned here by the original poster (except my clients don't see the raw files, I go through and cull them myself.) For the past 3 sessions (spread apart and processed on different days spread throughout the month of August) I've had one "chunk" of photos (of different lengths and at different spacing) in the gallery that don't sync the flags from my iPad back to LR Classic. I actually noticed after I finished editing in Classic and couldn't find some of my favorite shots of the session - turns out the flags didn't save so they were just unflagged.

I also have done some editing on my iPad where only random images will not sync across both platforms.

Super frustrating! Any solutions? I've deleted collections and tried to start again but mysteriously the exact same images don't sync after the initial sync on to LR.

Report · Aug 26, 2021

There is definitely a bug. I have the same issue where Lightroom won't sync the flags or ratings for random photos from a shoot. I basically have to rebuild the sync data or delete the Sync.lrdata folder after every photoshoot now. Sometimes I have to do it twice for it to work. It's super frustrating. This should be reported to Adobe but I'm not sure how to go about doing that.

Report · Aug 26, 2021

Thanks @workshop22 for helping out. @Nichole5D09 so sorry you're having this problem too. I'm the originally poster. Sounds like you use it like I do. Here's what's really strange. For a month or more now, I've had no problems. Since football season has started, I've done quite a bit of my workflow this way with no problems. A couple of thoughts for everyone. Are you running the latest versions? Also, I have been leaving my LRC up and running while I'm working on the iPad. That way I can periodically check that everything's in sync as I go. Given locations, that may not always be possible but it's been nice spot-checking by filtering both on flagged photos and seeing that the count is the same. I flag, rate and crop on the iPad and the last few sessions have been fine. The other thing is that I make sure I keep the iPad up and awake for 10 to 15 minutes after I'm done to make sure that all syncing is done. If you tap the sync icon and it's waiting to sync, you can also force the sync which I do periodically. I'm sorry you've had this problem but actually I'm glad there are more of us so maybe this will get Adobe's attention and it will get fixed Please keep me

Report · Aug 26, 2021

I've found that leaving the iPad/iPhone plugged in and syncing helps to complete the update.

Lightroom Classic Missing Some Syncs from LR Mobile

What can I sync with Lightroom Classic?