Lightroom Classic Missing Some Syncs from LR Mobile

[ZaneShepherd]

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?

[erict3159582]

I can 100% confirm the steps described by @ZaneShepherd .

Also, I tried to give instructions on how to reproduce in my post from may:

Here are my steps to reproduce the behaviour:

1. Import images to LrC, my Galleries had roughly 1.000 images or above
2. Create a synched collection
3. Start culling on iPad. To do so, rate or flag each image ONE BY ONE, I did NOT do batch ratings. While culling I had filters active in LR (do not show images flagged as discarded). While culling LrC was NOT running (for me that is the whole point of the iPad app).
4. Result: some ratings ware synched, others werent. 
   
   Once again confirming the findings from @ZaneShepherd: The problem is syncing from mobile to Desktop, not vice versa. I can reproduce the problem, but it is not deterministic which images are affected and which not. Since everything is synched to Lightroom.adobe.com, I would guess that there is something wrong between the online Storage and LrC.

Hth,

Eric

[erict3159582]

Just in case: for me LrC runs on Mac OS X (2019 iMac). I can provide more details if required.
Since one User reported this error for Windows, this does not seem to be the cause. But maybe it is a good idea to challenge this assumption. So everyone in this thread: what OS are you using?

[johnm8047991]

Windows 10.  Latest LR Classic and iPad app.  Pretty much the same symptoms as everyone else - flag photos on iPad, but sometimes they don't all get sync'd back to LRc.  They DO get sync'd back to the web app though.  I work in software so fully understand the ask for reproducible steps - but it's an intermittent issue, so that's not possible.

One thing I think I've noticed is that forcing a resync simply does nothing at all.  What I did find is that then syncing a new collection forced the resync and that fixed the missing flags.  

[ZaneShepherd]

Win 10 Pro for me.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

@erict3159582 

I tried your test as closely as I could and still could not reproduce.

31K Images in Sync

• Lightroom Classic set to show collection Flagged+Unflagged (using Attribute Bar)
• Wait for Lightroom Classic Synced and Backed up message
• Close Lightroom Classic
• Verifyed Counts of flags (all unflagged) at https://lightroom.adobe.com 

Lightroom (iPad)

• Go to synced collection from above
• Go to Loupe View and Set to Rate
• Drag up to select Pick and Down to set Reject - Swipe Sideways to Skip
• Rate 150 images
• Verify Count: 62 Pick, 10 Unflagged, 78 Rejected
• Allow iPad to Sync
• Verify Count at https://lightroom.adobe.com  62 Pick, 10 Unflagged, 78 Rejected
• Launch Lightroom Classic
• Allow to Sync
• Set Attribute filter to show Picked+Unflagged - Count 72
• Set individual filters: 62 Pick, 10 Unflagged, 78 Rejected

Unable to reproduce failure. 
Did I miss any steps?

[ZaneShepherd]

Rick - Can you confirm your OS?  Also, can you try the exercise but with LrC running?  Meaning that as you are doing your actions in LR iPad that LrC is up and running.  Your steps are not at all unlike what we have been doing.  It's just very odd that your test has never failed and ours nearly always does fail.  Do you have a way to set some sort of trace at the Adobe ID level?  That way you could see on the servers behind the scenes as we are doing the action.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

I have tested Win 10 and Mac 11.x and 12.x - current test was 12.6

I have tested with Lightroom Classic open at the time and closed at the time. 

I have also tested with three different Macs and two different Windows machines along with 4 separate iPads of various flavors and in various combinations.

My name is spelled 'Rikk' by the way 😉

[ZaneShepherd]

My sincerest apologies.  I do see that and just mistyped.  At this point I will conduct a very controlled test in the next few days carefully documenting everything and will report my results.  Thanks very much for your diligence here.  I can clearly see you are trying to recreate this problem and no doubt you are as frustrated as we are.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Hey there is nothing I would like more than to click the "Convert to Bug" button and send it to the Devs....

Scratch that - Better would be to discover what is different and have a workflow solution that corrects it. 

In any case I would love to be to the bottom of it. I await your controlled test results. 

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

Results of test with LrC Open:

iPad

• 18 pick
• 16 unflagged
• 18 Rejected

LrC

• 18
• 16
• 18

Took less than 10 seconds for all images to update. As I was flagging and moving to the next image the preset filter in LrC was updating image-by-image.

[Rikk Flohr: Photography]

For funsies I synced a new collection of 73 that were all unflagged. LrC Open with filter set.

iPad: 23-19-31 (PUX)

LrC : 23-19-31
Sync was complete as soon as I set down the iPad and clicked on LrC.

[ZaneShepherd]

Rikk - I have a new twist to our issue here.  With one possible exception some time ago, all my issues have been in the direction of LR/LR Mobile back to LRC.  I did have an issue tonight that in the direction from LrC to the others in the Eco.  I had a large shoot that was 3K images.  Working in LrC, I picked 41 of them.  As I was picking and editing, I had created a collection that was in the process of syncing.  I was making all of these picks and edits in the collection, not in the folder btw.  I noticed that once syncing was complete, only 29 images would filter as picked in LR, LR iPad and LR iPhone.  In LrC, I flagged all 41 picked images as 2 stars.  Interestingly, if I filter in LR/Mobiles for the 2 stars, all 41 filter correctly.  And, they all show the picked flags!  However, filtering will not work on just the picked flags alone.  Make sense?  Again not the issue that started this whole thread but clearly something is corrupt in the cloud because these 41 images will not filter correctly.  Surely somebody can look at this collection on your servers and see why they won't filter on flagged when then images display that they are flagged but will filter on the star rating.

[Duy26551924y9mz]

Hi Rikk I'm not sure if you're still on here, but it is November 2023 and I am experiencing that problem again. 

Can you try to replicate the bug again, but sync an album from lightroom classic to lightroom mobile and then use it for a few days? I don't think the problem can be replicated from a short use if you haven't had it before. It's like turning on a used car engine for only a brief moment and then not finding the problems that actually exist.

I would recommend syncing at least 1000 photos to an album on Lightroom Classic. Sync it to Lightroom Mobile.

Rate photos with stars and flags and edit on lightroom classic. 

Then go to lightroom mobile rate some different photos and edit some other ones as well. 

next day do the same thing again. 

Third day do it again and then check to see if the problem shows up? And remember to shut off your computer somewhere in between.

I think the problem maybe with the going back and forth over several days and might not be easy to replicate from one go. 

Thanks for your help! I like using the ipad and phone for culling so I hope we cann fix it this year or next year.

[Nichole5D09]

This is exactly what I do. I've been doing one small collection at a time
(300-400 images.)

I create and sync the collection in LrC. I usually leave LrC running,
though my computer is sometimes asleep.

Take my iPad elsewhere to get work done. Open LR app. Wait to confirm all
the fresh, untouched images there.

I go through and either flag or reject (swiping up or down). Make sure it
syncs.

Go back to LrC on my desktop. Wait for it to sync. I've sometimes waited
for a day or two and it says it's all synced up, yet some of the images
still remain unflagged (like they originally were) while others did sync.
It seems totally random. Some collections there is only 5 that don't sync.
Other collections there will be over half of them without the flag rating,
but in random chunks.

If I open up LR mobile on my browser, the syncs are there and all the flags
match with my iPad app, but not so with LrC, unless I restore all the sync
data.

This same thing happens with edits as well. (Edits I did on my iPad don't
sync and the image looks untouched.)

I don't sync flags across the collection. I do sync edits.

At one point I thought it might be because I had a bad internet connection,
but that's not always the case. I've tried with my iPad charging and
without... No difference.

I'm just upgraded to the new iMac24 with M1 chip running macOS Monterey,
but the issue has continued.

My iPad Pro is version iPadOS 15.5

[Dynamic_moment157F]

I am having exactly the same problem. I'm running Lightroom Classic on my desktop with windows 11 and mobile on  iPad and iPhone. Also Lightroom on windows 11 laptop. Some ratings and flags synced back to classic, some not. 

[GillPrince]

I hve just done a separate post on this very subject - before seeing this thread. I'm experiencing exactly the same issue as described above - but it's totally inconsistent and intermittent. I can't 'make' it happen, it just sometimes does, and sometimes doesn't. Very frustrating . . . So far for me, Rebuild Sync Data has always worked, which is something at least!

[ZaneShepherd]

@GillPrince Thanks for chiming in and joining the conversation.  Yes it is frustrating.  Collectively we have to find something that is repeatable.  If you've seen the many responses from @Rikk Flohr: Photography (from Adobe) you'll see that he is actively monitoring this and has tried numerous times to reproduce the problem but has yet been unable.  We all have no issues reproducing the problem because it will happen to us frequently.  Until we can suggest a scenario for him to try that will reproduce the problem, we are not going to get this fixed.  I guess the bottom line is that Adobe recognizes that it happens but they can't reproduce it so they can't fix it.

[DdeGannes]

Just a thought, maybe the issue is not how LrC is functioning but how the user has setup the Lr Mobile settings on their Lr Mobile devices.

[ZaneShepherd]

@DdeGannes Thanks for the thoughts.  As I recall, there are very few setup options.  My mobile devices running LR stay perfectly in sync between iPhone, iPad, LR and cloud.  If you have any suggestions, please let us know.  The common thread seems to be changes made on iPad not syncing back to LrC.  

[GillPrince]

It's the same for me, the LR Mobile >>> LR Cloud part works perfectly. It's the LR Cloud >>> LR Classic part that seems to be where it 'breaks'.

[GillPrince]

Hi Zane, at the very least it's good to know it's not just me, though of course not great that others are struggling with it too! Does the 'Rebuild Sync Data' fix work for you? So far (fingers crossed!) it has every time for me, but I can imagine it would be even more infuriating if it didn't. In some ways the fact that Adobe can't replicate it tells us something in itself. I wonder if the way their systems are set up is somehow different from what a 'normal' user would have, and that is stopping it happening somehow?

[ZaneShepherd]

@GillPrince We are clearly not alone!  Yes, I too have done the Rebuild Sync Data but I've got about 200K+ sync'd images so when I determined this was really broken, I stopped risking it and have switched to doing all edits & flags on LrC.  It's just too much of a pain to risk it.  I am going to do some controlled testing at some point when I can like @Rikk Flohr: Photography has suggested.  Until we give can Rik something he can reproduce, we're nowhere.  Thanks for joining us!  Zane

[GillPrince]

Hi Zane, I think I have found what's causing this - for me at least. The images that don't sync (unless I rebuild sync data and then they do) are ones where I have used the healing tool while editing on the iPad. If I do this then none of the edits sync back to LrC, but all of the others are fine. I need to do more testing but so far it seems to be the case 😊

[ZaneShepherd]

That's very interesting!  I do a lot of edits with the healing tool as well.  I had never thought about that.  I've honestly stopped trying since we are getting nowhere.  @Rikk Flohr: Photography Do you think this could be part of the issue?  Could you possibly try a test with edits done with the healing tool?

[sunnyraini]

I hope this is a way to prove that the issue does indeed exist. Just to add that in my case I don't use any edit tools at all, just the flagging and ratings so it isn't exclusively an issue with the heal tool. 

I do think that part of the issue with the tests @Rikk Flohr: Photography  has done is that the number of images tested is far too small. I am syncing a few thousand at a time (for culling a wedding) that get culled offline then sync'd back. This is where I encounter sync discrepancies.